Molly Goldwasser's blog

The Reluctant Disciplinarian

Yes, I too might be a reluctant disciplinarian...  But after hearing all of the horror stories from the 2nd years about what happens in the absence of a good, consistent classroom management plan, I am much more willing to be extremely firm in doling out rewards and consequences in my classroom.  The book The Reluctant Disciplinarian only further emphasizes the importance of remaining in control of one's own classroom.  The themes of this book are very much in line with everything we have discussed with the MTC vets and with Dr. Monroe.  Validity is gained when veteran teachers, professors, program managers, and published authors all stress the same ideas:  establishing control early, remaining consistent and appearing confident in from of the students (even if this confidence is merely a facade). 

In class we have discussed that you must model the behavior you want to see in your classroom -- you can model what you DON'T want to see, but follow it up by what you DO want to see (and never permit a student to act out the "wrong" way).  This book is one mega example of the wrong way.  The author learned from his mistakes and has lived to tell about them (in an extremely humorous fashion), but the events described in the book were not humorous to the author in the slightest when they were taking place.  I think that the classroom management role playing workshops we are a part of during TEAM will provide us with additional examples of the wrong (and consequently the right) way to handle many of the situations described in this book.

While I am sure that reading accounts of others' discipline strategies (or lack there of) will aid us in developing our own classroom management plans, there is nothing that can truly, fully prepare us for the fall.  Even if we have read every possible work on the subject, when we are witnessing fights in our schools and disruptive, disrespectful students in our rooms, we are going to make split-second decisions regarding what the best course of action should be.  In this slpit-second, we may not recall all of the advice we have received, rather we will go with our instincts.

Watching Myself

I am chillaxing in my living room watching a movie ...  of myself!  I am watching the video tape of myself teaching!  First of all, I need to vary the affirmations I give.  They seem disingenuous because I am so excited that I come off as fake.  Honestly, there are only so many times one can say "Fabulous!!!" in a 50 minute period.  I REALLY need to learn a better way to tuck in my collared shirts -- my shirt is bunched up in a funny way.  (And I had a few wrinkles on the back of my skirt from the bus ride up to summer school.)  My facial expressions are HILARIOUS!  Maybe a little bit distracting, but entertaining none the less.  And I gesticulate like it is my job!  I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a frequent thing.  I do walk around the room a lot and stop to check on the student while he was working independently.  I think I will be better about walking around all the way to the back wall once I have more than one student in my class.  I also smile after every time I pose a question (again, this may not be a completely good thing, but it is certainly something I noticed).  I could definitely wait longer after I ask a question before I ask a follow-up question.  I use a lot of synonyms and myriad, quality SAT vocabulary words (and I am quick to define them) -- I guess my parents did so much vocabulary work with me that I just do this without even thinking about it.  Hopefully I can help build my students' vocabulary (but I need to do so without coming across as pretentious)!!  I definitely talked a lot during this period; I think I have focused much more on independent practice since I taught this taped lesson over a week ago.  I think I should speak more slowly, especially for the darling slow-speaking Southerners...  I look REALLY young in this movie.  I do not look much older than the students, if I look any older at all.  This is something that I need to be very aware of, for I need to establish myself as an authority figure and gain the respect of the students.  This will be much harder because of my age (and, as I learned in class today, because of my gender).  Suggestions welcome...  

THE BEST CLASS EVER!

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Any Questions?

Week Two of summer school was a success!  My student made several overtly racist comments in class today, he did not know who Yankee Doodle was (had NEVER heard the song!) in class yesterday, and is obsessed with eating his pen caps.  That said, he is learning a lot! 

One way we assessed his academic accomplishments was by giving an exam this week.  One of our review tactics employed one of the "questioning strategies" we learned about with Dr. Monroe.  Utilizing our own, slightly tweaked, version of the "muddiest part of the lecture" practice, we were able to engage the student and gauge his level of comprehension of the themes covered in class thus far.

This strategy suggests the teacher give students index cards and have them write down the part of the lecture/assignment/unit that is most confusing or to write down any questions they might have.  This provides students who may not want to speak in class (for whatever reason) an opportunity to still ask questions, simply without having to ask in front of the entire class.  Since our classroom is equipped with a single, token student, asking questions has never really been an issue.  Thus, we had our student write down what he thought might serve as potential exam questions on the index cards.  He spent a period going through all his notes and the book, writing questions that fell into pre-set categories.  Then, during a later period, we used these questions as the content for our review Jeopardy game!  (Brilliant!   The teachers did not have to come up with all the Jeopardy questions and the sudent was forced to review, PLUS he left with a stack of flashcards that he could bring home to use to guide his studying!)  One great success story after another... :)

During the second session of summer school, and especially during the year, I will incorporate additional questioning methods -- it is just a little bit different with a single student.

John vs Sam Adams

Said my [fifteen-year-old] student today in class:  "John Adams was the second president and Sam Adams is a beer."

At first we played.....




And then the REAL fun began... 

Success Story!

My lesson during fourth period today centered around my student writing a Five Paragraph Essay.  Yes, I am a Social Studies teacher, yes, I transfered out of my English teaching placement, and yes, you still need to know how to write regardless of which class you are currently taking.  My student had never written more than a paragraph prior to my class (or so he claims), so this assignment seemed like quite the challenge.  Despite his initial hesitation about the task ahead of him, he did sit quietly and work diligently.

He finished the essay in just exactly the right amount of time.  I read through it later to grade it and was completely blown away.  My student rocked the socks off of the essay!  For an 8th grader who had never completed any writting assignment as daunting as this, he far exceeded my expectations!  YAY!  How wonderful!!!  I felt like a proud parent!  Gotta celebrate those small successes in life...   

Highlights and Positive Thinking

I am going to try to write all of the things that go well so that, come Sept, when I will need to remind myself of why I am doing this, I will be able to look back and recall all of the good things that have happened.  That said, one of my highlights of the day today was that both of my lessons were timed extremely well.  Due to the great wisdom and advice of my mentor teacher, each lesson I taught this morning was completed within seconds of the 50 minutes alloted to each period. 

I am also very proud of one of my analyses that I used with my student.  The topic of conversation, if you will, was the Protestant Reformation (the 8th grade version of Catholicism vs Protestantism, Martin Luther, John Calvin...  you know the drill...).  In the midst of describing how Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door, I asked my student if he knew what "indulgences" were...  I was trying to get him to see WHY Luther would have done what he did...  His perplexed expression indicated that he had absolutely no clue what I was talking about, which was exactly what I expected.  My response and explanation was as follows:

Me:  "Have you ever played Monopoly?"

Student: "Yes"

Me:  "What is the most coveted item in the game of Monopoly?"

Student:  'I dunno..."

Me:  "Which piece of paper is worth more than any other piece of paper?"

no response...  student is feigning to think about the question I posed... 

Me:  "The GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD!"

student has a moment of clarity...

Me:  "The Get Out Of Jail Free Card is an extrememly valuable item, right?  student nods  Well, indulgences are just like the cards in Monopoly, except they are 'Get Out of Hell Free' cards!"

And the student got it!  And he was able to explain the whole concept of indulgences, in addition to myriad other reasons why Luther started the Reformation, at the end of the period.  Gotta love it! 

Summer (School) Lovin...

I love early mornings.  (I am not being facetious in the slightest!)  I particularly adore early mornings when I wake up and have a hot cup of strong coffee while reading the paper in my pajamas.  Yesterday, our first day of summer school, got off to a perfect start:  5:30am wake up, coffee already in the percolator ready to brew, and a little Wong and Wong action while I curled up in bed in my sweats.  (Wong seemed like the most relevant morning reading on the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!)  I think this serene morning routine set the stage for the rest of the day...

Upon arriving to the site of the MTC Summer School of Success and Amazingness, one of my fellow first-years asked me if I wanted to switch classrooms with her.  She will be teaching reading during the year but had been assigned to US History for the summer while I will be teaching US History come Aug but was assigned to an English classroom for the summer -- a switch seemed brilliant to me!  After informing and consulting with the proper authorities (and discussing our options with our agents) we signed our contracts (a la Josh McRoberts) and relocated to the classroom on the other side of the corridor.  I was ELATED!  Here I am, teaching a subject about which I am passionate, with two fabulous co-teachers, and only one student!  While I will receive absolutely no training in classroom management as a result of this set-up, our student will be privy to top-notch individualized attention.  After all, isn't student learning the most important goal of the summer (and education in general)?

I am thrilled to be working on lesson plans that I will be able to use almost verbatim during the regular school year.  While there are numerous drawbacks to our small classroom community, I would like to think that we only have one enrolled student because everyone else passed the class during the year.  I know this is incredibly lofty, optimistic, and simply inaccurate, but I would hate to lose my idealism this early on in the summer.  Even though we are moving through the course material at "a snail's pace," it is wonderful to see the student be able to recall and synthesize the information.  My second-year mentor is incredibly helpful; he includes us in the lesson plan brainstorming and his didactic modeling of a proper lesson brings the "Anatomy of a Lesson Plan" to life.  Because we only have one student, we might struggle with the "questioning techniques" blog (are we going to write our one student's name on 15 index cards??) but if this is the worst thing that happens to us, we are doing pretty well. 

I hope that our 2+ hour lesson planning extravaganza this evening sets the stage for many days that run as smoothly as yesterday day.  While the lesson plan ideas are brewing in my head, I will stick to my early morning coffee routine, for at least so far, it has brought nothing but positives.

Focus Paper Reaction (and some craziness)

Skimming through the focus papers on the MTC website, one struck me as particularly relevant to the daily life of a new teacher:  JZ's "Insight into the Quest for the Effective Principal."  In Teacher Corps we are constantly regaled with stories of ineffective administrators; I was anxious to read about the paradigm we hoped these individuals would uphold.  In my own high school I only remember the principal as a figurehead, afraid to make a firm decision for fear of ostracizing anyone in the school community and lowering his alleged popularity.  Seeing as how I have no other first-hand experience with high school administrators, I looked to JZ's paper for further information.

This paper outlines two "popular ideals of principal leadership:"  the instructional leader and the transformative leader.  While the author describes these models as "drastically different," I do not believe they are mutually exclusive.  I am not sure which variety of leader I would prefer to have as my administrator (or which type of administrator I would be if I were to enter into the profession).  I think there are characteristics of both leadership models that are extremely appealing and of the utmost importance.  I whole-heartedly agree with JZ that, "no diagram or definition can clearly encompass all aspects of a successful principal."

One fabulous point that the author addressed in the focus paper is that the research he found failed to account for external factors that may influence a principal's success (or lack there of).  I wonder if specific leadership styles are more effective in specific environments.  My hypothesis is that any form of leadership has the potential to be effective, so long as is it administered with pristine consistency.

While reading through JZ's focus paper, a few questions ran through the back of my head.  What is the definition of "effective" in the context of an "effective principal?"  Is effectiveness correlated to standardized test scores?  Teacher happiness?  Parental support?  Diversity of the student body?  A combination of myriad factors (and, if so, how is each factor weighted)?  Furthermore, who determines the definition of "effective?"  PTAs?  The principals themselves?  State or national governing bodies?  I believe that the definition of effective should be dynamic and non-standardized, but as JZ comments, the research on this topic may not necessarily agree with this premise.

On a TOTALLY unrelated note, I just want to mention a conversation I overheard yesterday.  I was sitting at the pool (reading Wong and Wong!) and just happened to overhear the discussion the girls sitting next to me were having.  I do not remember how the conversation started (I really was reading!).  There were two white girls and one black boy participating in the discussion, all three appeared to be Ole Miss students; the two girls were dominating the conversation as the guy was primarily just sitting and listening.  Just as I finished a chapter and placed my book down so I could have a sip of water, I hear one of the girls say, "I would NEVER marry a black person!  Could you imagine actually having to live with someone like that for that long?!"  She was completely serious!  To say I was shocked and in a state of disbelief would be a understatement.  The boy immediately looked away, averted eye contact of any type and cast his head.  While I am not surprised that people would think like this (I am saddened and frustrated, but not surprised), I was utterly surprised that this girl said this OUT LOUD, in PUBLIC, in front of one of her black peers!  Here is a young, educated girl who thinks this (sentiment and behavior) is appropriate!  I was speechless.  Luckily some of my fellow MTCers joined me at the pool shortly after this incident, otherwise I don't know if I would have been able to keep my mouth shut and my comments to myself.  But as Dr. Mullins says, we need to love MS despite of, not because of...

The Square

This is the Square in my new hometown!  Quaint and historic!