It’s all downhill from here.

Have you ever realized that the above idiom has two opposing meanings? If all of your hardships are over, and you’re on your way towards completing a goal you might say, “It’s all downhill from here.” On the contrary, if one was describing something they were doing which fell apart, they might say,  “Once Jason punched Sally, my lesson was done for – it was all downhill from there.” Food for thought.

Anywho,

I've heard current students, graduates, and teachers alike describe student teaching as rite of passage, a struggle to be seen by each teacher-to-be.

Each day begins with two adult professionals, talking theoretically about the techniques and practices, and must-dos and don’ts, of this day or of every day’s lessons. Maybe they don’t talk about these things each morning, but there’s an assumption of professionalism in the air between these two teachers. Then, these people transform, and lower their defenses and attempt to emotionally connect with a classroom full of youngsters. They each do this one at a time, separately from the other. The other professional watches, and consciously or subconsciously critiques the delivery of the other’s real self. Then you unwind it, you come back. You act as if you weren't just pouring yourself out. You’re back to the theoretical.

This seems to breed awkwardness at best, miscommunication at worst. I salute those student teachers who made it through this year unscathed. You're going to do great. 

I suppose this is all part of the balancing act, and I agree that student teaching is a necessary initiation. 

I used to say, “Why don’t we begin student teaching in Core 1? It’s surely the most valuable part of our education. We should get as much of it as we can.” This is true, but I probably would have bailed on teaching as a whole if I would have experienced this early on. It’s like that episode of Community, where Abed watches too many Nick Cage movies in too short of a time period, and gets in too deep too quickly. If you’re not an expert at jumping rope, you should wait for the rope to come around a few times, rhythmically clicking against the pavement. Then you jump in. Sometimes the watching from afar doesn't help enough, but at least you're committed enough once you get there that you cannot turn around.

If one general idea could represent what I've learned from student teaching this semester – it’s that teaching seems to be more of a “how” question than a “what” question. Techniques and practices approved by motivational speakers and highly regarded by our teaching heroes are only as good as our classroom environment and our students’ ability to accept these ideas actively and genuinely. This isn't to say, "ignore them," it's just that everything needs adaptation. I find myself asking, "Is it real? Or does it just look good on paper?" Not everything “real” looks good on paper. Not everything that looks good on paper is “real.” How do we deal with this? I don’t know yet. Drop me a line if you figure it out. Turns out, learning is hard to measure. Nonetheless, thinking about this has been useful. We all have to find ways to reach the standards. I think it's important we're focusing on actually meeting them, instead of focusing on showing that we're meeting them.

Bomer says, "A reader's knowledge about a topic, feeling, or domain of experience includes memories related to it from her own life" (106). The standards repeat the importance of capturing this real-world relevance throughout the reading, writing, and listening portions of our lessons. However, I think it can be easy to print off a worksheet which is designed to exactly cover the basis of the standards in a fakeish, checklist-like manner. I've become cautious cautious of the phrase "There's no need to re-invent the wheel." Sometimes, it's creating something from my own brain which really makes me connect to the students in the lesson. Maybe it's just a personal thing, but it seems to help me. 

Bein' a Student Teacher.

It's a struggle being a student teacher. Most everyone I've talked to seems to agree with this. It's a right of passage, it seems. A struggle to have two mother hens in one classroom. I think, at this point, it's best just to accept that we're all almost there, and we're all certainly past the point of no return. So, essentially, it's temporary.

I took the 5038 English Content exam recently. It wasn't too bad. I wouldn't suggest going in without preparing - but it wasn't too bad. It seemed to me that a couple nights of focused studying went a long ways. I will say, when I first looked at the practice test, I kinda panicked. In the end, I just refreshed myself on every term I came across on the practice test which I couldn't remember. It seemed to do a ton of good. There weren't very many literary identification "know the author" type of questions. There were a good few comprehension questions, but there's hardly any way to study for that.

Anyways.

The PLT is next. I'm worried. It should be okay though.

That KPTP's been rearing its ugly head at me, here and there.

Austin Mann said something about "a light at the end of the tunnel" the other day before class, I wrote a poem about it. It's still in the works, let me know if you have some suggestions. The poem feels like its kinda trying too hard right now.

Something to Orient Ourselves Against

We talk of lights,
And ends of tunnels,
And ask aloud,
If they're there,

Perhaps there are some lights,
Which aren't plugged in near the stairwell -
For an unbelievable length of time,
At your Grandma's house,
Classic White, holding out in a hemisphere,
Against floral wallpaper,

Or when you were young-
Green opaque,
Ninja Turtle shaped,

Lets thank our friends and family,
For the comfort we have received,

But no,
Not all lights,
Are nite lights,
Posted 12 inches from the floor,
There to help you, near the obstacles.
We cannot see.

Moving forward, we can't tell where we are,
Like Oedipus, We may suffer our deeds,
More than we act them.
'till the day breaks,
And the room is illuminated and new again,

And you might not be,
In the place you thought you were,
While stumbling with your hands out,
In the darkness,

there are still some lights,
Motion sensored,
Which flicker on,
Once you've hit them,

Useful,
By the time you've passed them.

Something to Orient Ourselves Against, extra poem, inspired by Austin Mann

Something to Orient Ourselves Against

We talk of lights,
And ends of tunnels,
And ask aloud,
If they're there,
"Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?"

Perhaps there are some lights,
Which aren't plugged in near the stairwell -
For an unbelievable length of time, decades, years,
At your Grandma's house,
Classic White, holding out in a hemisphere,
Against floral wallpaper,

Or when you were young-
They were green opaque,
Ninja Turtle shaped,

Lets thank our friends and family,
For the comfort we have received,

But no,
Not all lights,
Are night lights,
Posted 12 inches from the floor,
There to help you, near the obstacles.
We cannot see.

Moving forward, we can't tell where we are,
Like Oedipus, We may suffer our deeds,
More than we act them.
'till the day breaks,
And the room is illuminated and new again,
And you might not be,
In the place you thought you were,
While stumbling with your hands out,
In the darkness,

It seems, something has to separate everyone,
It catches us.

But perhaps there are still some,
Motion sensored,
Which flicker on,
Once you've hit them,

Useful,
By the time you've passed them.

"Relax" Copycat Poem

Every lesson you teach,
Will split at the seams,
As though the stitching,
Was never there to begin with,
Each question hanging in silence,
And confusion,
Like water soaked up in a ceiling tile,
There will be a leak up there you didn't, couldn't, see,
And your talents will break beneath their own weight,
And collide with the floor,
It will look as if you didn't try,
As hard as you did.
And there will be those who wanted,
To see you taken down a notch or two,
And they will see it,
And you will see a sigh of relief,
From the faces watching,
As the last drops of water,
Go down the drain,
But there's an old story -
About the burning of Troy,
And Aeneas - The loser who left,
Knowing something was ahead,
For the sake of what was behind,
And thus Troy moved on, and became Rome,
And the Romans we do remember,
They are still measurable, you've seen their buildings,
In person, or in pictures on glossy magazine pages,
They existed outside the will of the gods,
And outside the tales told,
Before humans wrote,
And you too will remember,
For the sake of what is ahead.

Genre Reflection #2

My CT assigned her class to write "found poetry" this week. This activity consists of opening a book randomly and connecting words to make a poem based on a pre-determined theme. I decided to do one for my genre reflection. I cheated, and added two words. If you can't read it, that's understandable, I typed out a copy below. Shout outs to Walt Whitman.

The fluid movement of the population,

Unconquerable and simple,

And the hands to protect it,

He incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes,

For the expression of the American,

Is to be transcendent and new.

The Teacher.

He is their referee,

He spans between them,

and reflects what is between them.

On him rise solid growths,

That offset the growths of - 

hemlock, and locusts.

Tangles as tangled as any forest.

He is the arbiter of the diverse and he is the key,

He is the equalizer.

If the time becomes slothful and heavy he knows how to arouse it,

He can make every word he speaks draw blood.

Always calm.

He grows men and women.

He is no arguer, he is judgement.

As he sees the farthest,

He has the most faith.

He sees eternity in men and women.

He does not see men and women,

as dreams,

 or dots.

Call me B. Robeson, Lost in the Tundra

I believe Plato is first credited with coining a variation of the phrase, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” But what happens why you invent something you don’t need, isn’t applicable, and you use it anyways? What happens when you get a little overly ambitious, and make things more complicated in the name of pursuing a more dramatic effect? What if the blueprints look better than the duct-taped-together reality? This is the story of my week, and the unit plan I taught to a sixth-grade class. (Note: Duct tape can be spelled ‘duck’ or ‘duct’, both variations are correct. During different time periods the adhesive material went by different names, for its ability to repel water and also its ability to fix air ducts.)

I over estimated everything. This isn’t to say I didn’t plan, I just planed wrong. This caused me to go home and rethink my entire unit every night, only to show up the next day realizing that I didn’t salvage as much as I thought I could. It’s safe to say that this week took me down a notch or two. But that’s okay. This is where we learn. This is how we get better.

I’m now thinking back to about a week and a half ago, when I first started planning this lesson. What was I thinking? I had this grand idea, for a rap students would write about the novel Hatchet, and I would come in and apply beats and melodies to their lyrics. This way, the whole process would imitate the process of musical composition and also display how the student’s are receiving Hatchet’s Brian Robeson. It seemed like less of a heart attack when I first thought about it. It seemed like it could work. But I completely underestimated the prior knowledge of the students. Completely.

Things I took for granted:

-I thought students would be able to write lyrics in sets which resembled poetry lines. (i.e. there is a rhyme at the end of the line). Almost all students wrote their rhymes in paragraph form, which I completely did not expect, and I had a very hard time getting through to students that the rhyme was supposed to go at the end of a line. This was a major indicator of how far away I was from my goal, yet I was too far in to jump out. How do I get to final presentations? We haven’t even thought about rhythm yet!

- I also wrote my writing prompts for the week in a paragraph, unnumbered or separated, assuming that this was comprehendible. The sixth graders did not take well to this. They didn’t know how to voice questions, so instead, they just didn’t do anything. Smagorinski says that on average, a student will ask one question a month (87-88). This means I need to come to them before they come to me, and I failed to do this.

Clusters of questions aside, I had a really hard time asking any critical thinking questions which asked the students to apply their own knowledge. I should have phrased things better. I can’t help but think that a young adult novel such as Hachet has no point if it’s not applied to one’s own life. Otherwise, it’s just the story of a kid you don’t know who probably really would have died

I think that I need to do a better job visualizing conceptual questions from a 6^th grade perspective, and then attempt to create them more in line with this point of view. Practice makes perfect. 

I need to not make any excuses. If you take the bait, this profession will lend itself to constant excuses and the largest of blame games, more than any other profession I can think of. Teacher’s could blame a new influence every day, never run out of targets responsible, and never be the target themselves.

Though somehow, my final lesson came through. It wasn’t perfect from a management perspective, there was a ton of excitement with the rap, but it wasn’t too shabby. However, I swear I saw the ghost of Biggie Smalls possess a short, soft spoken sixth-grade girl.  I walked into class not expecting, but knowing, I was going to fail - yet I was in too deep to turn around. I knew they didn't get it, and would continue to not get it, it seemed like they couldn’t. Then it clicked, and they saw how a real song gets written, and they spit rhymes about their boy B. Robeson from Hatchet. I don’t think I’m supposed to share student examples on here. But I really, really, want to. I’m restraining myself.

So if I were to sum up my week, I'd say: It wasn't the tightly woven plan, but it came through in the end. There is a ton of cleanup I could have done, which I did not foresee. However, I didn't fail, and I did do something out of the ordinary. There is much to be learned, and I hope I will make the mistakes I made less frequently in the future.

Smagorinsky, P. (2008). Teaching English by design: How to create and carry out instructional units. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hey all, I’m going to take a moment to share my feelings about my experience at the KATE conference this past Thursday and Friday. Overall, it was a positive experience and it was wonderful to see so many enthusiastic professionals speaking about their passion. It was a very different environment from what I experience day-to-day in the classroom. I was able to take a look at the minds behind lesson plans as opposed to what I’m able to see in the presentation of a lesson.

 It was great to see a high level of dedication from individuals who already work in the career that I am pursuing. I found myself thinking about what I what kind of teacher I want to be ten years in to my career. I feel like there were many positive role models in attendance at the 2014 KATE conference, and I’m happy to have attended. The following were the highlights of the event for me:

1. I came up with a ton of new ideas for my future classroom. People provided me with an enormous amount of resources for my future student planning. In almost every lecture I attended, I acquired something physical that I may use to help my planning, and in many I collected in-tangible concepts and understandings that will help me think about my future profession in a different light.

2. Talor Mali is a total lady’s man and I’m fairly jealous. What can you do? He’s a babe. John Donne ain’t got nothing on Talor Mali.

3. The enthusiasm and positive vibes of dedication that I picked up from many teachers in attendance was contagious. It was different from the routine, and it was nice to see people speak of teaching as though it was worth the stress and effort that the profession demands. These people have been doing this for a while, and they’re still learning. I think this is a good philosophy to maintain in my future endeavors into the field of education.

4. Okay, so this wouldn’t be a real blogpost if it wasn’t a rant, and it wouldn’t be a real rant if I wasn’t hot-and-bothered for at least one paragraph. There were a couple breakout sessions that were pretty lazily put together. Two, in particular. One’s focus was implementing a certain classic writer into the modern classroom. Upon starting the lesson, the speaker announced he was going to have to leave in 15 minutes in order to pick up his step-daughter.

I get it, dude. You’ve got a step-daughter, that’s a huge obligation. But, perhaps, don’t attempt to give a lecture when you already have obligations? Just cancel the day before or something? He ran through the lecture quickly, and here were his points:

1. “The current method of teaching this topic doesn’t work very well.” (that’s why we’re here, bro)  2. “There is an app that works really well for helping. It’s a good app.” He did not show us this app, but he told us about it. We never saw it.

Then, after pretty intensely plugging his ibooks which were for sale, he peace’d out. On the flip side, this encouraged me to try presenting sometime, as he made it seem totally unintimidating.

Pardon the negativity. Overall, the experience was wonderful. Though after a while, it did take a toll on me. It was a lot of talking about teaching in a very short time period. Maybe I’m just not yet well-seasoned for this thing. It was hard to take it all in within such a short time period. However, it ranked among the most realistic and motivating experiences I’ve had in my time in the Wichita State University School of Education.

What did you folks think?