In many ways, Back to School night is like flipping on a light after using one's sense of touch to discern, in the dark, the shape of an object. I looked forward to meeting my students' parents as a means of learning more about my students, not only because I believe parents are nearly always the best experts on their children, but also because the apple seldom seems to fall far from the tree. Tonight I was not disappointed.
I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to learn a bit more about my students by employing a Back to School Night strategy I learned from my cooperating teacher while student teaching last year. As parents entered the room, I gave them an index card and asked them to write for me one thing about their child that I ought to know--a special need, a particular difficulty, a hobby or interest--anything that would help me serve that child better. I remember getting a wide variety of great responses to that prompt last year. This year, there were fewer responses, but all were helpful, and several of them entertaining. Perhaps my favorite was the card that, after stating the child's name, simply said "He is a difficult boy. But you can handle him." A close second was the mother who asked for a card for herself and one for her husband, and then proceeded to fill both cards herself. Perhaps I shouldn't make light of parents' efforts to communicate with teachers, and I certainly appreciate their earnestness, but it did make me smile to myself.
A card that provoked a bit more thought came from the mother of one of my more troublesome boys. The boy she described on the card was an angel, "siempre amable y inteligente," and bore only a marginal resemblance to the young man I see in sixth period every day. My first reaction was an inward groan--oh dear, I thought, here is a mother in whose eyes the boy can do no wrong. So much for getting support from home when discipline is needed. Then I thought of another student I once knew--a fifth grade boy I tutored while in college. He was the sweetest, kindest, most sensitive eleven-year-old you could ever hope to meet, but for some reason none of his other teachers could see that in him. I often felt frustrated that they would cut him so little slack, and that authority figures were so often coming down so hard on him. Then, one day I observed him in a different context--among his peers--and saw what all the other teachers had seen. Fortunately, I also understood how this boy could behave in other contexts, as I usually worked with him individually. I knew which one was the real him; no matter how many times he lost his temper or his homework, I couldn't stop seeing him as the sweet and loving boy who wanted to badly to be good, even when it was hard. Perhaps this is why this mother sees her son so differently than I do.
That is why I need nights like Back to School night. Amidst all the parents with their questions about binders and homework and projects and grades, there will be one or two parents who will give me a vision of their child different from what I have been able to see, and then it becomes my task to see in that child what the parent sees.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Credit Where it's Due
Allow me to make it abundantly clear that I would no sooner speak ill of STEP (my credentialing program) than would I insult my own mother. A good friend pointed out that my inaugural post could be construed as less than complimentary of the preparation for the classroom I recieved at Stanford. Nothing could be further from my true feelings. It was at Stanford that the embryonic teacher within me was poked and prodded, shaped and formed, and given the nourishment it needed to begin this upward journey through the classroom. Thus, it is fitting, early in this chronicle, to note the important role STEP has played in this story.
I remember entering the Stanford Teacher Education Program with a strange mingling of nervous anticipation, exhilirating apprehension, and hopeful awe. On the first or second day of STEP Orientation, Jeannie Lythcott asked as to draw a picture entitled "The Quintessence of Teaching." I found it interesting that my picture, which started out a picture of my 10th grade European History teacher, slowly morphed into a picture of me, several years down the road. I have thought a lot about that picture in the months that followed. Perhaps that is a metaphor for how I see myself in the classroom: as I stand before my students, I do not stand alone; my own teachers stand with me--teachers from elementary school, middle and high school, and most certainly the members of the STEP faculty who so inspired and encouraged me in the year leading up to this moment. The list of areas in which I noted previously that I felt equipped is no trivial list: If I can truly create a classroom that is safe and equitable, in which students support one another and engage in true historical thinking, I will have become all I ever dreamed of becoming. Without my year in STEP, I would never have been able to articulate that dream, let alone begin striving to shape it into a reality in my classroom.
In the end, it's okay that I didn't learn how to staple butcher paper to the wall while I was at Stanford. It's probably better that way.
I remember entering the Stanford Teacher Education Program with a strange mingling of nervous anticipation, exhilirating apprehension, and hopeful awe. On the first or second day of STEP Orientation, Jeannie Lythcott asked as to draw a picture entitled "The Quintessence of Teaching." I found it interesting that my picture, which started out a picture of my 10th grade European History teacher, slowly morphed into a picture of me, several years down the road. I have thought a lot about that picture in the months that followed. Perhaps that is a metaphor for how I see myself in the classroom: as I stand before my students, I do not stand alone; my own teachers stand with me--teachers from elementary school, middle and high school, and most certainly the members of the STEP faculty who so inspired and encouraged me in the year leading up to this moment. The list of areas in which I noted previously that I felt equipped is no trivial list: If I can truly create a classroom that is safe and equitable, in which students support one another and engage in true historical thinking, I will have become all I ever dreamed of becoming. Without my year in STEP, I would never have been able to articulate that dream, let alone begin striving to shape it into a reality in my classroom.
In the end, it's okay that I didn't learn how to staple butcher paper to the wall while I was at Stanford. It's probably better that way.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Lessons Unreflected Upon
Finally, a Moment to Catch my Breath
If there is anything I learned in my teacher credentialing program, it was that "the only failed lesson is the lesson that goes unreflected on." I created this blog several weeks before the school year started, anticipating that others might enjoy, benefit from, or at least be entertained by, the reflections of a first-year teacher. What I did not count on was that it would take me two weeks from the first day of school before I would have a moment in which to catch my breath and begin creating some sort of a chronicle of my life as a teacher.
So now I sit on the futon in my living room, knowing a stack of papers awaits me in the other room, and steal a few minutes to reflect on these last two weeks. They have passed by with the grace and gentleness of a whirlwind, yet something about embarking on this new life also seems remarkably natural. Perhaps a witness to the strength of preparation, witness to my belief that I was intended from my beginning to teach, witness to Divine intervention, or perhaps all three, but I feel uncannily at home in my classroom. Already. Not that the feeling came without some effort, but after only a few late nights and several yards of butcher paper, I was amazed at how remarkably unremarkable it seemed to be stepping into a teaching space I could call my own classroom.
The Things They Didn't Teach Me at Stanford
I left my credentialing program at Stanford University feeling well-equipped to talk about developing students' ability to think historically and to write effectively, about supporting English language learners and students with special needs, about creating a classroom community that promotes equity, about providing safe spaces for all students, and let me tell you, I could have gone on and on about designing effective group tasks. I carried all of this knowledge, all of these ideas, into my empty, bare-walled classroom with five straight rows of small student desks, two days before school began. As I began to turn the room from a warehouse with desks into an inviting 6th grade social studies classroom, I suddenly realized that in my year at Stanford, no one had ever taught me how to put butcher paper and shiny borders on the wall without making it crooked. Now, you may chuckle to yourself and say, "a Stanford degree, and he can't even staple paper to a wall?" but I assure you it was no easy task. After several attempts, I finally produced a classroom wall that I think would have made my own elementary school teachers proud: Maps, colorful butcher paper, inspirational posters, and a few knick-knacks on the teacher's desk carry the space a long way from looking like a warehouse. I felt good about welcoming students into such a classroom.
Becoming Mr. Douglas
It almost seems odd to think of becoming Mr. Douglas only now. After all, I have been "Mr. Douglas" for over four years now--since I began work at a local elementary school my sophomore year in college. Perhaps that is one reason embarking on this new life did not seem so dramatically novel as I might have expected. Still, there is something markedly different about being Mr. Douglas this time. You only have one 6th grade social studies teacher in your life, and for 110 kids just entering the 6th grade, that teacher is Mr. Douglas. I am not just a tutor, classroom aid, or student-teacher, I am their teacher--the one of the ones whose face will come to mind whenever someone mentions history teachers, the one who will do much to shape the attitudes these students carry into their future history classes, the one they will tell stories about, for better or for worse, when they learn that their college roommate is majoring in history and wants to be a teacher. That' s a pretty heavy burden to carry, and I have learned in the last two weeks that I have not yet become that Mr. Douglas--not the one I intend to be, anyway.
That's okay, though. For many years, as I looked forward with anticipation, with eagerness, sometimes with a little too much confidence, to the moment in which I would step over the threshold into a classroom I could call my own: I thought of that classroom as a destination. I knew the classroom was where I belonged, and so I believed that when I found myself there, I would have arrived. I see now that all this time I have not been striving for a destination; I have been striving for the next trailhead.
If there is anything I learned in my teacher credentialing program, it was that "the only failed lesson is the lesson that goes unreflected on." I created this blog several weeks before the school year started, anticipating that others might enjoy, benefit from, or at least be entertained by, the reflections of a first-year teacher. What I did not count on was that it would take me two weeks from the first day of school before I would have a moment in which to catch my breath and begin creating some sort of a chronicle of my life as a teacher.
So now I sit on the futon in my living room, knowing a stack of papers awaits me in the other room, and steal a few minutes to reflect on these last two weeks. They have passed by with the grace and gentleness of a whirlwind, yet something about embarking on this new life also seems remarkably natural. Perhaps a witness to the strength of preparation, witness to my belief that I was intended from my beginning to teach, witness to Divine intervention, or perhaps all three, but I feel uncannily at home in my classroom. Already. Not that the feeling came without some effort, but after only a few late nights and several yards of butcher paper, I was amazed at how remarkably unremarkable it seemed to be stepping into a teaching space I could call my own classroom.
The Things They Didn't Teach Me at Stanford
I left my credentialing program at Stanford University feeling well-equipped to talk about developing students' ability to think historically and to write effectively, about supporting English language learners and students with special needs, about creating a classroom community that promotes equity, about providing safe spaces for all students, and let me tell you, I could have gone on and on about designing effective group tasks. I carried all of this knowledge, all of these ideas, into my empty, bare-walled classroom with five straight rows of small student desks, two days before school began. As I began to turn the room from a warehouse with desks into an inviting 6th grade social studies classroom, I suddenly realized that in my year at Stanford, no one had ever taught me how to put butcher paper and shiny borders on the wall without making it crooked. Now, you may chuckle to yourself and say, "a Stanford degree, and he can't even staple paper to a wall?" but I assure you it was no easy task. After several attempts, I finally produced a classroom wall that I think would have made my own elementary school teachers proud: Maps, colorful butcher paper, inspirational posters, and a few knick-knacks on the teacher's desk carry the space a long way from looking like a warehouse. I felt good about welcoming students into such a classroom.
Becoming Mr. Douglas
It almost seems odd to think of becoming Mr. Douglas only now. After all, I have been "Mr. Douglas" for over four years now--since I began work at a local elementary school my sophomore year in college. Perhaps that is one reason embarking on this new life did not seem so dramatically novel as I might have expected. Still, there is something markedly different about being Mr. Douglas this time. You only have one 6th grade social studies teacher in your life, and for 110 kids just entering the 6th grade, that teacher is Mr. Douglas. I am not just a tutor, classroom aid, or student-teacher, I am their teacher--the one of the ones whose face will come to mind whenever someone mentions history teachers, the one who will do much to shape the attitudes these students carry into their future history classes, the one they will tell stories about, for better or for worse, when they learn that their college roommate is majoring in history and wants to be a teacher. That' s a pretty heavy burden to carry, and I have learned in the last two weeks that I have not yet become that Mr. Douglas--not the one I intend to be, anyway.
That's okay, though. For many years, as I looked forward with anticipation, with eagerness, sometimes with a little too much confidence, to the moment in which I would step over the threshold into a classroom I could call my own: I thought of that classroom as a destination. I knew the classroom was where I belonged, and so I believed that when I found myself there, I would have arrived. I see now that all this time I have not been striving for a destination; I have been striving for the next trailhead.
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