ECS field blog: Nov. 28

Today, My ECS partner and I taught a phys-ed lesson together. Well, he kinda had the wherewithal for it moreso. I'm sort of out of my element in the gym, unless it's like, dodgeball and stuff. But yeah, he has this idea for a sort of dynamic warmup. It had the students break into groups of three, and each had to do something different at a set of different "stations" of sorts. IE: 1 person had to do 10 cartwheels, another had to do 10 lunges, another had to hoola hoop 10 times... then on to the next one: 10 pushups for one, 10 line jumps for another, and the third had to carry someone around. It was honestly right on. I'm very much in favor of unique warm-ups, especially ones that get students doing things they wouldn't be doing otherwise... IE Lunges, core work, etc. However, the students don't always fully buy into these sorta things... so they will really half-ass stuff, sometimes to the point where they may as well not do it at all. I'm not sure how to, or if you can, get everyone super fully ultra engaged, but I know I'll try.

Floor hockey was the following activity, just with everyone in the gym. My ECS partner had a pretty swift idea, in chucking an extra puck into the game. It made everything way... funner. The kids all had more of a chance at the puck, and we didn't have to slice the gym in half and have to ridiculously small games of hockey on the go.

We had a sub for the rest of the class, and man, was she sharp. She had such like, a commanding personality, and could basically whirlwind students into doing anything. She was kind of like...foghorn leghorn. If a kid objected, there wasn't much reasoning going on, just "C'mon do it, it'll be easy, let's go hurry up up up!" and it seemed to work. I might try to employ that to a certain extent... We'll see. I already do it sometimes, but more motivational.

And that's it... my last field experience day. It's been a gas.

ECS field blog: Nov. 22nd

Well, this week started with my ECS partner teaching a social studies / current events lesson. It was very similar in format to the one he taught last week, where he sort of read a little blurb on a current event of sorts, and the students answered a question sheet. This one was on the Chinese law which stated that families are only allowed to have one child. Honestly, I was a bit shocked about this one, because the students were having just a time coming up with an opinion on this. Like, asking them "Do you agree with this law? What if Canada passed a law like this?" got such a scant response. Usually they just didn't know. Also, personal freedom wasn't really high on the list of priorities with these kids. The idea of a governing body telling you how many kids you can have didn't register as alarming at all for most.

I taught the next lesson. I was trying to follow up on my simile and metaphor lesson by having the students write a descriptive paragraph describing and animal or character they dreamed up, or, well, anything really, as I said they could also describe an inanimate object. One student wrote about a roller coaster. This wasn't the greatest lesson, mostly because I didn't realize that some students might have a bit of trouble just hitting the pen to paper and writing a paragraph. Like, they all had ideas, good ideas, really, but throwing them together in paragraph form was tough. Most of them just talked with each other about their ideas, drew them, discussed them, but writing a paragraph was like, overwhelming. They couldn't organize their thoughts, and didn't know where to start. A lot of kids actually said that to me, lol. "I don't know where to start!" My co op teacher gave me some pretty helpful feedback. I should have put together a little like, graphic organizer on which they could jot down their ideas, and sort of plug them into a paragraph if they needed.

One kid also commented on how fast I read, or talk in general. God almighty I have to work on that. Lessons aren't gonna be much good if I sound like an auctioneer. A seminar instructor of mine also kind of gave me a lecture on talking to fast, and powerfully I guess. She said some students might be like, spooked or intimidated. Mind you, I do speak differently in university than in the classroom.

After recess, it was reading buddies, and then math. My ECS partner and I went looking around during reading buddies, and I guess the band program runs during hte same period, so a slice of kids go off and learn instruments. Man, going in there and watching them was something, indeed. The band teachers seemed so like... crabby and militant. I mean, they obviously had high expectations, but whoof! I honestly thought the one was going to pack up and leave, "I can't handle this performance right now!" or something.

Math was okay. Once again, the different teacher came in, and the kids started acting up. She also has a pretty short fuse, and blows her stack on them pretty quickly every day. I dunno if I blame her, as they act up pretty bad. However, she seems to fuel the fire herself a little bit. who knows.

Next week, we are teaching a phys-ed lesson. Bonus!

ECS Field Blog. Nov 15

This week started with me teaching a lesson on similes and metaphors. Whoof. Well, my co op teacher gave me a package with a bunch of question sheets and lesson ideas. My week was such a zoo that I relied heavily on it for my lesson. I had a big idea to teach about similes, ask the students about similes, have them come up with some, and work on a worksheet about it... same with metaphors...

As a side note, I've kind of noticed that I'm really into questioning in my lessons. I'm constantly going to the students for examples or answers instead of providing them myself. Hmm.

But as I was saying... The lesson was funny, because here it turns out that the co op had already gone through a lesson like this before... complete with the same worksheet i was using. I felt like a pretty big fool, because I'd have figured this out if I had kept better correspondence with my co op teacher. I could have just made up my own worksheet... the lesson may have still been redundant, but at least I'd have had something newer and creative. But yes, this fact caused my lesson to run way shorter. The students knew everything already, so any time I'd allotted to wrong answers or general discussion was now free. Also, I was less inclined to get really in depth with it. So I handed out the two sheets... I guess most of them never really did them initially, or had forgotten about them, so it wasn't so bad. It sucks though, I like going around helping students with activities like that, and most of them were just running through it mechanically with little thought...

Mr. X's lesson came after. He had one on Paul Henderson's jersey, also heavily reliant on a package the co op teacher gave us. It was a decent lesson, just on current events... I guess Paul Henderson's jersey recently went for a cool million to some private... well, millionaire, Mitchell Goldhar. The big idea was that Mr. X told the students the whole story, and then handed out a question sheet as a type of quiz. It was fun to go around helping the students... some of them could not have given less of a damn though. I mean, as soon as they heard "Hockey," they tuned out. The slice of Canadian history it represented was besides the point... hockey sucked, in their opinion, and as such lessons related to it also sucked. The sheet Mr. X handed out also had a "critical and creative thinking" section on it... I always get a charge out of students' reasoning and answers. Here's hoping that lasts long into my teaching career, as right now I like reading assignments.

After Recess, it was the same thing, math with the teacher for whom nobody behaves. This time, I actually started going around trying to give her a hand. I didn't want to step on her toes, but like... I saw one kid try to punch another kid in the face. I went and had a frank exchange of ideas with this student about the time and place for facepunches... which is never and nowhere, respectively.

All in all, a decent week. Next time I'm teaching a lesson on creative paragraph writing. Stay tuned... same bat time, same bat channel.

ECS Field Blog - Nov. 8

In this one I continued my previous lesson on the long rifle registry. Honestly, this was more of a wrap-up and activity than a continued lesson. I had originally planned on having a bit of a debate or something, but I chickened out on that idea. At any rate...

My ECS partner (I'm not supposed to actual names, but typing "My ECS partner" is kinda tedious, so he will hereafter be known as "Mr. X.").... where was I? Oh yeah, Mr. X taught his lesson first. It was a continuation of his last lesson on Canada's food guide. He decided to check out the Health Canada website for this one, and have the students make their own food guide. They wheeled in these big laptop carts, which honestly looked like they had been shipped in from another planet. The kids each received a macbook, and got cooking. From what I've seen, it kind of seems like laptop lessons should be pretty loosely structured, and cannot really involve step-by-step, teacher-led instruction. Basically, kids should have instructions on the board, and go off of them... the laptops are just too inconsistent. Some are way faster, some have problems, so on and so forth. At any rate, it was a decent lesson... I found it funny what some students listed as regular activities. Some said they did pilates?! Others were like, marathon swimmers... I dunno.

Mr. X's lesson took a good chunk of time, which was for the best, because I had scrapped the "debate" part of my lesson. We continued with reasons against the long-rifle registry. One reason students kept bringing up as a 'con' to the registry was the idea that someone could steal your registered gun, commit a crime with it, and you'd take the fall for it due to the registry. I kept explaining, however, that the police have a larger body of evidence than the gun registry... Also, they didn't understand that if you have a gun that is stolen, not reporting it as such is a crime in itself. Thus, if a crime is committed with your stolen gun, the police should already know it is stolen, and if they don't, you're in trouble... At any rate, I got them to fill in some reasons why they support or do not support the registry. Most of them said they supported it, because it helps control crime, or that guns are bad and scary, or something. A few really good answers came in, a few underwhelming answers came in. It was pretty good though.

The math period was a bit more interesting. The teacher, to be known as Mrs. Y., always has trouble controlling the class. She isn't the usual classroom teacher, which is a challenge in itself, but she... her disciplinary actions only seem to encourage more acting up. She is very nagging and adversarial, in such a way that evokes a response from the students. One kid seemed to have a bit of a rage problem, in that, whenever he got reprimanded, he would respond with gritted teeth. He was also pretty defiant in general with Mrs. Y.... I think something might be going on in his home life, or something. It's not normal to seethe around like that...

That's about as much as I have for today. Tune in next week... by which I mean in five minutes, because I'm about to post my next one.

ECS field Blog: Nov. 1

This one was kind of interesting, as I taught my first real lesson this semester, but I'll start from the top.

It's always remarkable to me, how poor of a sleep I get before these field days. Maybe it's nerves, or like, adjusting to being up late on the weekends, but it seems like I always get a crummy sleep, even though I get to bed early and try to wind down appropriately. Honestly, though, it probably just feels like I got a poor sleep. Chances are I woke up like, maybe twice during the night, and then in the morning: "Whadda night. I didn't catch a wink of sleep. What am I doing getting up at this hour anyways? Has the world gone mad?" and so on...

Once again, I arrived at the school, yakked it up with the receptionist a bit. It's kind of funny, because whenever someone is friendly, I feel compelled to chat with them, but worry about talking their ear off. She seems the same, so each of our encounters is marked with me slowly backing towards the door while maintaining full conversation.

Gym was kind of the same old same old again. Kids played four corners soccer. Not a bad game.

When we came back after Recess my ECS partner started his lesson. It was on the food guide and the food groups and what have you. The lesson went reasonably well, but the kids got pretty chatty throughout, which didn't bug him at first, but like, it can hit a pretty rank pitch pretty quickly. Near the end, I saw some kid having a swordfight with himself, using two pairs of scissors.

My lesson was on the long-gun registry and the debate surrounding it. The big idea was to have kids rattle off what they knew about the registry, the pros, the cons, and in the end to come up with an informed opinion of their own. Then, they'd back that opinion up in a sort of classroom debate. I only had a half an hour, so like...

this is kind of a random interjection, but I think I just drank a glass of water that was sitting on the table all night. Gross.

At any rate, I only had a half an hour, so I got through the pros, and a few of the cons, which is about what I had planned. The kids have the material all laid out on a handout I had prepared, so picking it up next week won't be too hard. It was kind of funny, as some kids were forming some pretty good pros and cons, but like, sometimes, they had trouble articulating them. Like, A kid would put up his or her hand, start something off, and I could see where they were going, but halfway through they'd say "Uhh, nevermind" or "Uhh, I forgot." Usually, another kid would fill in the rest. The kids weren't such a zoo for me, because the teacher, before I spoke, kind of gave them all hell for acting up earlier.

But yeah, it was pretty right on, and I'm going to continue next week.

ECS field log: Oct. 25, 2010

Today I taught my first lesson, together with my field partner. I was pretty nervous. The big plan was to teach a Phys-ed lesson, where we taught the kids some footballs skills, mainly throwing, catching, and running routes. We originally planned to teach them the very basics of gripping the football to throw it, and where to place their hands to catch it, then following up with a warmup, and an exercise where students ran routes and caught a pass, undefended at first, and defended afterward.

We ran into some issues kind of early. First off, My partner and I had to basically participate in order to get some kids off of the bench, as they didn't have anyone to play catch with, and pairing these two kids together was asking for trouble. The one was a bit more of an instigator, and the other was obviously incredibly shy and nervous about doing the activity at all. This kept us from being able to watch the students, and comment on what they should do to improve their skills. However, our co op took over this role, which was pretty considerate.

There was another issue in running the routes... no matter what routes we told the students to run (We had a sheet of paper that illustrated the routes, neither him nor I expected the students to know any route by name), the students would basically run a very sloppy out, or lazy post. I started only telling students to run curls, to see if any of them would catch on, even with extended explanation. No such luck. At this point, we decided to scrap the exercise with the defender, as it would have been a debacle, I'm sure.

We moved, afterward, just onto a game of continuous football. It's pretty well "Ultimate frisbee" with a football. Two steps with the ball, ball can't touch the ground, students had to get the ball in either net. We split the gym into two halves to get more kids involved, and get the kids more touches. This worked out well, the students really liked this game, and everyone got involved in some regard.

I was a bit worried, personally, about an adaptive dimension. There are two students in the class who are pretty well missing a hand, through a birth defect. We asked the teacher what we should do, and he said they adapt themselves. Going too overboard in catering to them only singles them out or alienates them. Honestly, he was right. They made some dandy catches, and the one might catch better than I can.

The rest of the day was pretty standard, we helped out with this, that, and the other. My ECS partner and I kind of discussed some classroom management strategies, as the music teacher used the waiting strategy, and basically whittled the whole class away, as half of the class talked freely and the other half got frustrated. With this, I don't think waiting is always the best strategy, and sometimes you have to cut more of an imposing figure to keep a class in line. Nothing too out of hand, but this teacher would have done herself a favor in taking a more active role in classroom management.

And that was the morning in my ECS class. Next week I'm teaching a social studies lesson on the long rifle debate in Canada.

Changing gears, here...

Yeah, so this thing has been collecting dust. Honestly, looking at political cartoons, even to make fun of them, is depressing. Might pick it up again, but for now, I'm going to use this thing for my ECS field reflections.

Oct. 17

The first thing I did, after walking through the door, was talk to the receptionist. She was phenomenally nice, almost strangely so, but I think she just registered that I was nervous and was trying to make me feel comfortable. It worked. I met my co op right afterward, who was talking to my ECS partner. Honestly, seeing teachers involved with any sports programs is kind of funny, in that they operate outside of the dress code. Needless to say, I felt a little overdressed, but off we went to the room.

I guess his class is a grade 7/8 split. In these situations, I can't help but wonder if these splits are for struggling grade 8's, exceptional grade 7's, or any such reason. At any rate, we sat around for a while, making stale, awkward chit-chat with our co op until class started. There were a few kids who walked by, and one made a point of introducing himself to us. The teacher later informed us that he was a higher maintenance student. I'm always a little torn about this practice of warning new teachers, or future teachers, about certain kids. I mean, if the student is higher maintenance, I'll surely find out on my own. Telling me this only colors my view of this student right from the start. I don't know, I'd much prefer to come in with a clean slate.

Phys-Ed wasn't anything overly remarkable, aside from the warm up. The teacher kind of had a series of stations set up, marked off with big, laminated cards made of construction paper. Each one had an exercise on it, and a number of reps to be done. Honestly, it was pretty good, because they were mostly core exercises that more people should do, and nobody ever does.

What followed this was a language exercise, just correcting a few sentences, and then the students went off to music, and then french. The music class was a funny thing to watch, as the students seriously ran rough-shod over the teacher. Mind you, her choice in activities weren't the greatest, and her classroom management strategies bordered on bizarre.

The French teacher certainly had her hands full as well, but she did a better job handling the students. I think it's almost a natural, or universal rule, that students rowdy up when dealing with any teacher but their standard home room teacher. She did a good job with them though. However, what I found strange was that french was quite obviously not her major, or field of study. She confirmed this afterward, saying she got the job by knowing someone, essentially. She was an incredibly nice lady, and seemed like a friendly, good-spirited teacher, so I'm up in the air with my thoughts regarding this.

That was my first day in the classrooms, and my reflections therein. Enjoy.