Mixing it Up

 

Mixing it Up

 

            When I began to read this chapter the first thing that jumped in my mind was a high school Unites States history class.  This class was probably one of the most interesting one I had in all of middle and high school.  The topics were not any different but the way the teacher presented it was different, well at least to me.  He did many things in a different way and this chapter fits right in with the way he taught this class.

            We were just stating the U.S. Civil War unit and nothing was really different.  We went over some of the causes, the start of the war, and some of the early battles.  When the class began learning about events in 1863 we received a very different assignment.  The teacher asked us to read The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.   I had never heard of the book but my first thought was “wait this isn’t the text.”  I picked up the book at a bookstore and it was in the fiction section.  Again I’m confused because isn’t fiction about stories that are not true and we are in a history class?  Well I read the book and to be honest I was engrossed in it.  It still remains to this day one of my favorite books.  The book to me is historical fiction.  It tells a very realistic story about how the war was fought during the civil war.  It is believed to be based on the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.  I know why he assigned it to us when he did because we were heading into that year of the war.  After the assignment was complete we all figured out why else the teacher assigned the book.  He got us interested in the Civil War in a different way.  Sure the text told us how the war was fought, but this book, in a realistic way, portrayed what it was like for a soldier to fight in the war. Primary sources told us also, but they seemed very dry.  This book though not a true story, could be true and was told in a way that was not boring for the lack of a better term.  To me it is exactly what Daniels and Zemelman mean when they said it “…makes the information readable and memorable.”  (p. 53).  I understand it is not a fact about the civil war, but this gave me and others an insight to what the soldiers were facing and leads to more questions about war, why did we fight it?  Are the reasons for fight worth all the suffering the soldiers go through?  To me those are important questions also.  This type of assignment got more interested in history.  It showed me that history can be taught in different way.  The authors stated that fiction can be used “…simply set the stage, to entice curiosity.”  (Daniels and Zemelman, p. 57).  That is exactly a historical fiction book did for me.

            Another thing that developed from this type of non-textbook reading, and one that I think others will develop, is a love for reading.  This assignment made me want to read.  I had an interest in history but I really remember this assignment as the one that really made my interest grown.  I started to read more history books, not just textbooks.  I started to read more in general, not just in of for school.  It helped me develop and ask many what if type questions.  One of my favorite authors is Harry Turtledove.  He writes alternate history fiction novels.  Going into what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War for example.  It allowed me to analyze if that was possible.  Opening my eyes that I could read history without reading a textbook or even a traditional history book really increased my reading, my understanding and my overall ability to learn.



Beginning with the End

UbD

             Understanding by Design (UbD) was a very interesting read.  It shows a different way to approach preparing to teach.  It starts off by explain that your basically prepare backwards.  Start planning at the end with the results that you want to achieve and then move forward from there to plan the rest of whatever is going to be taught.  This sounded very familiar to me but it was in a different setting.  I will explain this later.

UbD states that you need to start with the “desired results” that a teacher wants to accomplish and make your teaching plans based on those results.  (Understanding by Design, p.8).  According to UbD the focus is too much on starting with everything else, from the textbooks, to activities, to lessons and then making the goals.  It is called backward design.  Pick the goal first then come up with a way to reach that goal. (p. 8).  I said in the beginning that this sounded   familiar.  I did this but it was in my retail experience that we did the same process.  It had different goals, to maximize sales and profit, but it was basically the same procedure.  As a manager I would have to come up with the overriding goal for something specific, for example sales for “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving.  So I came up with a goal of selling to a certain dollar amount that we had to reach at a minimum.  Only after was this goal set did we go about developing a plan to reach that goal.  It makes sense in the business world, well at least in retail, and it makes sense in teaching.  Selecting the goal is more straightforward in sales whereas the process in planning for teaching a subject is a bit different.  I like how the chapter puts it, the “big idea” that needs to be found “to focus on larger concepts, principles or processes.” (p. 10).   This way the student will do more than just remember a simple fact, they will understand the idea, the meaning, and it will stay with them.  Planning this way just plain makes sense.  Once the teacher has the goals set, as well as the way to determine if the students do understand, only then is the planning to begin for the actual lesson and activities.  Since the goal is now known the planning is that much more focused.  Again I go back to my planning in retail.  Since the team knew the goals we had to hit we planned how to get there.  Again a bit different, but it is the same basic concept.

Once this “big idea” is chosen as the goal and the plan is done this will lead to understanding in the students, not just mere remembering.  This backward approach, to me, just makes sense.  Even later in the reading when dealing with questions.  It is saying that as a teacher we need to ask the right questions, what they call the essential questions.  All the planning in the world, even from the standpoint of backward planning, will fail if the right, essential, questions are not asked and explored.  This is where it differs from sales.  These questions will not have an answer per se, it will promote debate, disagreement, alternatives and thought (Understanding by Design, pp. 73-74).  They will even lead into other questions that the students may have.  This to me is where understanding and learning takes place.  As students think about and give answers, which can all be different, it will lead to further discussion about the topic.  This is where real learning and understand takes place.  It is more than remember, or more likely forgetting, a simple fact.

Starting from what you want as an end result and then planning form there makes perfect sense.  You can’t get to when you want unless you know where you are going first!



Just Some Thoughts

Just Some Thoughts

            Just some thoughts I wanted to get out there.  I’ve been out of a school for a long time, except for going to my kid’s elementary schools, and I never realized how much school has actually changed. 

Going to the middle school as part of my 346 class was the first real eye opener.  Teachers now deal with a lot more than  I ever experienced when I was in middle school, then called junior high school.  Different budgets or lack thereof, different classroom dynamics, different rules and regulations, different technology, no child left behind, resource officers, and the list just kept growing.  There are many different aspects that teachers today have to deal with that just did not exist when I was in school.  Now that I have been in a high school for the last couple of weeks, this time for the first time since I left high school, things have also changed.  Many of the changes I have seen here are much the same that I saw in the middle school.  The new technology that is available is amazing, I mean just the internet alone, and excuse the expression, in the classroom is light years ahead of anything I had access to, even when I went to college.  Again though I have seen so much more that teachers have to do than besides teach or prepare to teach.  I can't make a list of what more they have to do or deal with that is different than what I was exposed to as it would go beyond just a few thoughts.  People outside education just have no idea what goes on during a teacher’s day,  that it doesn’t end when the bell rings for the last class and that it goes beyond teaching.  To be honest I had some, not all though, of those thoughts too, I think many people did and still do.  It all goes back to that old saying that you need to walk in a person’s shoes to truly understand what they actually experience.  Just in the observations I have seen over the last two semesters really has changed many of my views.  One thing I want to mention specifically that I saw that was really interesting to see.  When in Central Falls I observed, on two separate occasions, the same science class.  In this class the teacher had the students in groups.  Now this wasn’t different but what was different was that the group was assigned one specific topic, and each member one aspect of that topic.  As the teacher put it the student was to be the expert of their one topic and the group to be the expert on the group topic.  He then explained that then the student was to teach their aspect to the group and then the group would teach their topic to the class.   To me that was great, it was different and it really means the students would be involved and invested in their own education.  It is things like this class that the public, in large, does not see.  Teachers do more than what is widely known.

          So these are just some thoughts I have on what I have been experiencing since I have returned to school.  The observations that I did in the middle school and the ones I am doing now in Central Falls really have opened my eyes to what is going on in the schools today and what teachers really do on a day to day, and class to class, basis. 

Reading

Reading

             After reading the assignments I’ve have realized that much more goes into teaching reading than what we realize at the time we are being taught.  I like to read a lot of different material, mostly history and science fiction, however I have no real memory of what made me want to read.  I remember learning to read in school, you know the phonics, the sounding out of words, sentence structure and so on.  I remember my parents reading to me at night and when I needed help as a kid, but I know they didn’t push me if I did not want to read.  I just read because I liked it, well at least that is what I thought. 

            In the past somewhere, for the life of me I just don’t remember, I was taught more than just how to read.  I was taught to look at other aspects as I read.  Read to understand I remember a teacher saying once. In the readings that we have read for this assignment much of what was said seems familiar to me.  Connect what you are reading to something in your life; try to see what is going on in the reading by visualizing the story.  Ask questions to yourself as you read as this will lead to more reading to more discoveries.  I see now that there was a lot more to my reading instruction than what I remember.  I am in this position now as a parent.  My two children know how to read.  They know how to form sentences, how to pronounce words that they have never seen before or at least try to, but they are at the point where reading comprehension is an essential.  They need to understand the whole of the story.  If this is done now it will make it easier when they get onto content –area reading.  I must have started about this time to understand that reading is important.   Once a person is taught to read for more than just understanding the words it will be easier for them when they move on to content-area reading.  As a parent, and a future teacher, teaching to read doesn’t stop in elementary school.  We must be able to be there and support this learning and not just hoping that it will happen on its own. 

            In content-area reading I now know that there needs to be some prior knowledge of a subject, but also a person must know the context of the reading.  The best example I saw of this was in the Columbus sample.  Being a history major I know about Columbus, well at least I should know.  When I read that passage I had no idea it was about Columbus until the reading mentioned the word.  I understood all the words and I could read the passage, but without the context it really had no meaning.  Also if I didn’t know about Columbus the passage would still be meaningless.  Readers have a lot of prior knowledge and experiences that they can attach to reading.  As teachers we must be able to get them to use it so they can remember and actually understand the content material they are trying to understand.  We need to build and use the student’s prior knowledge to help them when they are trying to understand and remember what they are reading.  It is and will be an ongoing process, one that needs to be continual. 

            Reading is more than just pronouncing words and linking them together into sentences.  It needs to be more in order for students to understand and remember the content they are reading.  It is how I became interested in history, I read it and I understood it which led to my deep interest in history.  This is something that I will instill in my own kids and my future students.



Qualities of a Teacher

            One quality a teach needs is the ability to listen to their students, not just hear what they are saying, but active listening.  There is no way a teacher can know if their students are having an issue, either academic or non-academic, if they do not actually listen to what the student is saying.  This listening needs to be active.  Looking at the student as they are talking to you, mirroring their non-verbal cues, nodding you head to show you understand, asking questions to a student if the teacher does not understand what they are saying and restating what they are saying are all ways of active listening.  A teacher that shows a student they are actually listening will be able to help and understand a student with issue.  This in turn will lead to a strong student/teacher relationship.

            Another quality a teacher needs is passion.  Passion for the subject they are teaching.  If a teacher is not passionate about the subject they are teaching there is no way they will be able to actually teach this subject to the students.  A teacher has to teach with passion, with enthusiasm, every day.  This will show the student that the teacher is really is interested in the subject that they want to teach, that this is more than just a job.  This in turns leads to more and effective learning.

            The next quality a teacher needs goes hand in hand with passion.  This quality is knowledge of the subject that is being taught.  It may seem obvious but a strong knowledge of the subject matter is an essential quality.  If a teacher doesn’t have the command of the subject matter they will in no doubt fail to teach that subject matter to the student.  A teach can have all the passion for a subject but without the knowledge there is no way a student will learn that subject.  The same goes for the teacher with the knowledge but no passion.  Without both the student will not learn.

            A final quality a teacher needs is compassion.  Compassion for the student and what may be happening both inside and outside of school.  A teacher needs to know that outside their specific classroom, students have a life.  There are other classes, there are other obligations and there are issues that exist outside the school setting.  If something happens that affects a student, a teacher needs to take that into consideration when making a decision.  The teacher needs to help that student work through the issue. Working through the issue with the student will show that student and others in the class that the teacher understands that sometimes “real life” just happens.

            By no means is this an exhaustive list of what qualities a teacher needs in order to be a successful teacher.  These are, to me, some of the most important qualities.

Literacies

Sales

            A non-school social world that I feel I have literacy is in sales.  Ever since I entered college, way back in 1989, I have been involved in some sort of sales position to help pay for college and just to have some money.  It started part time as an associate for Stop and Shop before they were “Super,” and working full time at what was then Fleet National Bank while at Providence College.  It continued as a part time sales associate for the big box retailer CompUSA while in and after law school.  I worked as a lawyer and worked in retail sales at the same time when I had to make a decision.  I was offered a sales manager position with CompUSA that had a great salary and benefits.  With that kind of offer I took the position and left the legal practice.  For the next eleven years I worked as a sales manager in big box retail for both CompUSA, until it closed, and for Best Buy, until I was laid off.  After this I found a job at another big box retailer, Staples, again as a retail sales manager.  For the next five years I worked again as a sales manager.  All of these jobs were in technology sales and services.  Again, I was laid off and at this time decided to return to school to pursue a career in teaching history.  I still work, part-time, in sales, but this time in car sales.  So for about twenty-four years I have been involved in sales in one form of another.

            I became interested at first because, to be honest, the money was good.  As time went on though, I really enjoyed the dynamic of helping people, of providing customer service, finding what the customers were looking for, helping them decide what was right for them and helping them get a product or service that they really wanted or needed.    I saw it as a challenge that I really enjoyed.  Technology, which is also a huge interest for me, can be very confusing.  It was confusing especially back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when the computer boom really started, the internet was really just an idea and what did exist went over the phone lines.  I really enjoyed helping and explaining the difficult experience of buying a computer.  Whether it is for a business, for a student just doing papers, for a graphic artist or for a gamer, there were so many choices.  Everyone’s needs were different and I really enjoyed talking with customers and finding out what they wanted, listening to them and then making a quality recommendation of what type of computer, or service, to buy.  As they became more complicated, I learned about computer repair and service for both hardware and software.  Leaning that aspect of the business made be a better salesperson and a tech.  I can build a computer from the ground up from scratch, repair a computer or laptop and even work on some tablets that are out today, though I am still learning about those.  All of this just lets me help the customer, ask the right questions, and read a customer when they are too forthcoming with information. 
            Being a salesperson has helped me in other aspects of life.  I can easily talk to anyone.  In sales you need to be able to help all customers, not just the ones you that you are comfortable with.  This exposure to the public, I believe, lets me be comfortable in many different situations.  It has also helped me by having the ability to read people.  As a salesperson you need to be able to read people, to see where they are going, to read not just their words but their body language, the non-verbal cues.  Not only does a salesperson have to identify them but they have to interpret them.  This is gained with experience, training and practice with other sales professionals.  I believe these skills can be transferred to teaching.  As a teacher I will need to the ability to seek out the needs of my students, ask them questions of what they need, of what they are looking for.  Not only asking the questions, but listening to their answers and watching for the non-verbal cues that I have seen so many times as a salesperson.  Then I need to interpret what they are saying, or not saying, in order to help them to the best of my ability.  Also, as working with the public, I will have to work will all types of students, not just ones that I would be most comfortable with.  I have had very difficult customers and very difficult situations to overcome.  Those experiences I know will help me deal with situations that are not easy and not simple. 
            Being a salesperson exposes you to many situations, thousands upon thousands of situations and in my case thousands and thousands of people over the years.  All of them were different.  All had their own needs, their own priorities, and their own situations that needed to be resolved.  I know I didn’t solve them all, but I did solve a majority of those and  when I couldn’t I made sure I got the help I needed to help the customer.  As a teacher I will be exposed to the same in that each student will be different just as customers are different.  The experience that I have gained over the years, I am sure will allow me to help my students just as well as I helped my customers.  I also know that I will not be able to solve every issue that comes up along in my new career as a teacher.  Just as in sales, I will seek help and guidance when needed.  Again just as in sales. This is for the benefit for my students.  As a salesperson I looked to make sure the customer was cared for to the best of my ability, to make sure they were helped in every way possible, to make their customer experience as pleasant as possible.  As a teacher the goals are essentially the same. That is to make sure I take care of all of my students needs to the best of my ability, to make sure I help the students any way I could and to make sure their learning experience is one that they are entitled to have.