More Reflecting

To begin, I am trying to think of ways in which I've changed or my situation has changed since my last blog post.

The biggest difference is the absence of the second years. Just when I started to feel like I was getting to know them and appreciate their advice and support, they leave. I hope you guys are enjoying your time off and spare a thought for your comrades who are still at summer school.

The next biggest difference is that I'm now teaching middle school for this session. They seem to be more open and interested in the material. There are much fewer of them (14 today). Also, they aren't as big as the high school students. So far this has meant that they have been much easier to control. Here's to hoping this continues.

As for me, it feels like I haven't made much progress. I feel like I am jumping through hoops in terms of following protocol, but I feel like it hasn't helped me in effectively getting my students to learn. I also feel less and less creative when it comes to making lessons interesting or designing engaging sets. I had a decent idea last night, but my execution could have been better this morning during the actual lesson.

I am still struggling with how to relate to students. We watched a movie this evening about two mtcers who'd completed their first year. During a Q & A session afterwards, they said that building relationships with students is key, but you won't see it until the second year, and it helps to do things outside the classroom. I've suspected that following a rigid discipline system could have the unintended consequence of making it hard to get your students to open up to you, and this seems to go with that. I hope my students will eventually behave because they want to, for my sake and their own, not because they don't want a writing assignment. I'm trying to answer the question of how to get to that point.

Intended Audience

Nothing unusual about seeing this clock in a school. I was amused, however, to see it in the faculty room.

I want you to succeed, now pull up your pants!

The MTC summer school experience for me so far has been both disappointing and encouraging. It is discouraging to feel like most of my energy is spent herding, correcting, chastising and silencing disruptive or disrespectful students. I know I can teach, I've done it before, but teaching someone who is defiant seems close to impossible. I don't think it's possible to force someone to learn something. It seems like you need to convince them that they should care, and I'm at a loss as to how to do that. I'm reminded of the senior thesis another sociology student did at Yale. She found that for the poor, male, (urban), black students she interviewed, they were more likely to try hard in a class if they liked a teacher and wanted his or her approval, unlike middle and upper class students who are more likely to see academic achievement as a means to an end. Other researchers have come to similar conclusions when studying poor students. This all sounds nice, except how am I supposed to balance that finding with my mandate to keep all (male) pants up and all (male) shirts tucked in?

It's also discouraging that while there are many students in my class eager to learn and participate, I cannot seem to challenge those students, teach the rest of the class that is struggling with the basics and control the ones that don't seem to care. Once again, the idea of differentiated instruction sounds nice, but what does that mean exactly? From my discussions with mtc second years and others involved with the program, it appears that classes such as the one I am observing/teaching are the norm. Tracking is rare in Mississippi, and I am going to have to get used to trying to reach students at different levels simultaneously instead of in separate classes.

It is encouraging that now, and during the school year, I won't need to look hard for a support systems. MTC is giving us the best shot at success. Although all those feedback forms can be overwhelming, no one can say we weren't given advice. I also am encouraged by the fact that admitting you are struggling or admitting you're not a great teacher is totally OK and expected in MTC.

I don't think I've improved too much yet. Unlike some of my peers, I haven't taught too many times. I have learned a lot about what I need to improve, and what I will need to change to fit into the system my students will be used to. I need to be meaner and more vocal. Proximity and a stern look used to work for me in previous teaching situations. The students I taught last summer, for instance, could be very rowdy and prone to misbehaving, but never openly defiant or hostile. When you caught them about to do something against the rules, they were always subdued. Not here. I also found out you can't expect for students to copy notes as you go over them. Note writing has to be it's own thing, done in silence. I also need to develop the ability to both simultaneously get the projector working AND greet students at the door.

Despite all that, I still retain the (probably naive) dream of getting my students hooked on reading (anything, even Twilight) this year. I think you can teach grammar and literary terms till you're blue in the face, but there's no replacement for actual time reading when it comes to improving a student English skills. I want to know how to get students into books. I want to know how to help struggling readers find something that is at their level but still interesting. I want to know how to generate actual discussions in class about books.

Humble Pie

Prompt: Reflect on your first week with the Mississippi Teacher Corps. How has the experience been so far and what questions do you still have?

I guess I could be cheeky about this prompt and reply that “reflecting” is not an easy objective to assess. How will I know if I’ve reflected? But seriously, open-ended prompts like this have always made me anxious. I guess I will have to get used to it.

The last couple weeks of my life have been amazing and tough and sad and many other things. I graduated one week before the first day of MTC. I miss my college friends a lot. I’ve been sad thinking about how the people I’ve lived with for four years are going to be scattered across the country and the globe, doing cool and exciting things that will surely change them, just as I am doing something that will surely change me. I sincerely hope that the sentimental tropes in Bright College Years turn out to be true, although I suspect that Time and Change often do prevail to break or at least weaken friendships. I am confident though, that I will come out of this experience a better version of myself than when I entered in many ways. I will probably never be intimidated as much by any professional challenge as I am right now.

I am excited to actually live in one manifestation of the “Real World.” I’ve sat in so many sociology, American studies and African American studies classes, and read so many ethnographies, studies and social theories that sometimes it’s hard to get a grasp on what I actually think about anything. I think, however, that my undergraduate years have given me an excellent critical lens with which to evaluate what I see and experience here in Mississippi. I hope that my colleagues at my school and my students are able to “get” me, a white woman dropping in after four years at Yale, as I hope to understand them. I think my best hope for that acceptance is to show that I am willing to learn from them and that I am working hard for my students.

I am aware of how difficult the first year of teaching is for anyone, and I am also aware of how my situation here will be even more difficult. MTC likes to remind you constantly about this, incase anyone arrived here still operating under the delusion that it will be fun or easy. MTC has also bombarded us with resources and tasked designed to make us as prepared as possible, while reminding us that we will never be fully prepared. MTC: Serving humble pie since 1989.

What questions do I still have? Well, I’d really like to know what grades I will be teaching for a start. If I have 9^th or 10^th grade English, I will have the state test (which student must pass in order to graduate and is notoriously difficult) hanging over my head. I am also looking forward to actually meeting some real live students since planning lessons for hypothetical ones is hard.

MTC Class of 2011: Humble Pie

MTC Class of 2011: Humble Pie: "Prompt: Reflect on your first week with the Mississippi Teacher Corps. How has the experience been so far and what questions do you stil..."