Take the Lead Part 4

"As I look around, all I see are choices; I do not see a single reject."  Pierre Dulaine

This correlates to my teaching philosophy in that every student begins my class with a clean slate.  It is really interesting to see this played out with Dulaine's character on his students.  It really makes that idea to me even more cemented into that philosophy.

In the juvenile justice system, and even in regular schools as well as alternative schools, students need this.  Especially, I believe, students with EBD, because they are a bunch of students who are tough to handle emotionally and sometimes physically.  But, I think that all they need in order to begin developing relationships with others is to be told that they are not their behavior.  They are not what they have done in the past.  That it is okay to not know who they are, because not many students at that age do know who they are.

I hope that one day I will be able to say these things to students who have begun to believe what the school system has told them, that they are their behavior.

Take the Lead- Arts Education

Tony Wagner's Global Achievement Gap, one of his seven survival skills was creativity.  And I believe that art education is the best way of nurturing this skill.  Now, I am going to do something somewhat creative and combine the philosophy of the survival skill of creativity from Wagner's Global Achievement Gap with Milton Chen's Education Nation in the both-and category as well as the curriculum edge.

So, we can look at this issue, art education, as an either/or situation.  So, either we teach the generals for the test or we teach art education.  But, why can't it be both?  I propose a rather creative way of combining these two.  If you are talking about geometry, make the students paint an isosceles triangle or the never-ending half-triangle trick (You take any kind of triangle, equilateral works the best, and you draw a line to split it in half.  Then, with those two parts, you draw a line to split those two in half and keep drawing lines to split it in half.).  By doing this, you are promoting creativity by allowing the students to draw any kind of isosceles triangle in any color.  Thus, this is combining the core concepts that are taught on tests with the art education.

Art education is important, and by art education, I mean more than just art.  I am talking theater, music, etc.  So, let's look at theater because this can be another both-and thing only for an English class as well as a study skills class (I will describe why in a minute).  So, in the theater, the actor typically has to memorize their lines.  But, once an actor becomes proficient enough, they are no longer saying the lines from memory, they are feeling the lines and understanding why they are saying those lines.  But with memorization comes the strengthening of three different kinds of learning.  It is strengthening the reading, kinesthetic, and auditory memory/learning of students.  This is the reason why, they have to read the script in order to know what they are supposed to say.  So, part of the memorization of their lines comes from reading.  The auditory memory/learning is strengthened by recognizing in time that there is are words that are said before your line, as well as lines that are said after you say your line.  So, it is strengthening your recognition that "Oh, they are saying this, so my line is right after this."  Finally, and this one may not make much sense on the get-go, but acting helps strengthen kinesthetic memory.  It does this by the director telling the actor to move stage left when they are saying this.  So, they will recognize that they are supposed to move at this line, what was that line, oh, yeah, that is what the line is.

I am an actor, and that is why I typically always, for some reason, score the same on all learning styles inventories.  So, either this works, or I'm an odd person (Which is very possible).

Take the Lead Part 3

Antonio Banderas' character recognizes that his students do not like the music or dancing that he is teaching them.  So, on his 3rd seen day in the movie, he shifts things up and brings in a different kind of music and dancing.  Dancing that, according to the woman of the day before, is about romance and beauty.

This is just an excellent example of adaptation of curriculum.  However, he won't teach them the tango until they have "earned it."  This is just an awesome movie so far.

Take the Lead Part 2

Antonio Banderas uses a very fascinating classroom management technique of negative reinforcement by playing songs that they hate.  He keeps playing it until they do what he says, and actually turns up the loudness of this song and they actually do what he asked them to do in order to stop the music.

This is a perfect example of negative reinforcement where you are reinforcing the students to do something that you want them to do by removing something that they do not like.  It is very fascinating.  By moving forward into the line, the music stops.

Take the Lead

So, at this moment, I am watching the movie "Take the Lead" with Antonio Banderas as a ballroom dance teacher who ends up in an urban city school.

Near the beginning of the movie, Banderas' character gives a perfect example of the time/place edge talked about in Milton Chen's Education Nation.  He continually opens the door for everyone going out of the principal's office.  There is a student next to him who keeps chiding him for doing this, saying "You ain't even gettin' their digits."  But, he just maintains that it is the right thing to do, and so he will keep doing it.  He holds the door open for three women and then sits back down and says "See, all three of them smiled at me as they were walking out."  This is a perfect example of every moment can be a teaching moment.

Also, it was interesting to see the principal's reaction to Banderas' character opening the door for everyone.  She just thinks that he is a freak and tells her secretary to get the security ready for her meeting with this guy.  As he is going into her office, the student whom he was sitting by opens the door for a woman and the principal yells at him to "sit down."  It is interesting because he was a much better teacher than she was at that present moment.  He taught this guy manners, but the guy was all "that's idiotic, man."  But, Banderas' character planted a seed in the student's brain to open a door for people.

Cultural Incompetence

In the Holiday 2010 issue of Scholastic Instructor, on page 10, there is a clear example of cultural incompetence.  The page is entitled "IdeaSwap: Winter Activities" and the article is "Christmas around the World."  It talks about different ideas for arts and crafts that all revolve around Christmas.  They also say that they talk about Israel and they paint a menorah.

The fact that they put Israel's menorah under Christmas just annoys me a lot because Christmas is for Christians.  CHRISTmas, so it could be looked at as offensive by people who are not Christian.  If you look at our population right now in this school district of Somalians, there are a lot of Muslim Somalians in the schools right now.  Are we really going to teach about Christmas and say that we are going to do Christmas arts and crafts?  That is unacceptable to make students feel marginalized because they are not Christian, therefore, they may feel like they are a freak for not being Christian.

It just disappoints me that this is in a teacher's magazine and many teachers are going to think "Wow, this is a great idea, I'm going to do it."  And by doing it, they marginalize their students who are not Christian.

Holidays around the world would be better to teach.  Talk about all of the holidays around the world during the Christmas season.  Granted, this is a heroes and holidays approach, but this is better than the approach that the magazine takes.  Because it doesn't marginalize anyone.

Nell

So, tonight I watched the movie "Nell" which stars Jodie Foster as a woman who seemingly speaks her own language.  Just a quick comment, I have wanted to see this movie ever since I took the course on Speech Communications and Special Education.  But, while I was watching this movie, I was trying to figure out how, or if, this movie related or affect how I am going to teach in the future.

To begin with, the very first scene with the character Nell in it shows her in a very negative light.  Nell was not used to other people, so she freaked out when other people came into her cabin.  That insight is shown later on in the movie.  But, this goes back to a lot of what I have said before in my posts, if you accept a student at face value based on their behavior, you are betraying and failing them.  If Liam Neeson's character had just continued what he thought right after she freaked out - that she belongs in a room with padded walls - he would not have gotten to know her or understand her language and subsequently her.  There is a person behind every behavior, and the point of being a Special Educator is to find that person and find out why that behavior is occurring.

I am especially thinking now of the court scene with Nell where she uses Neeson's character as a translator.  She says that she may appear more scared than others, but she just shows that she is scared.  So nobody should be scared for her, because she can take care of herself.  I hope that I can become a good enough friend or benefactor or whatever term you want to give it to my students.  A person who that student who doesn't feel that they can trust anyone can trust.

Bubble Children

On page 71 of Tony Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap, he talks about students who are called "Bubble Children."  Students who are bubble children are those students who can pass the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) test with just a little bit of help.  The quote that he gives on pages 71 and 72 tell the teacher to split their class into three different groups.  The group that can succeed without any help at all.  The group that can succeed at the test with only a little bit of help.  And finally, the "kids who have no chance of passing this year and the kids that don't count-the "hopeless cases"...

This is unacceptable, and yet it happens in classes way too much.  Even when I was a student, before the NCLB became integral to graduate, they did this.  I was always put into the last group of the "hopeless cases" because I was slow in some of the areas, especially math and science.  But I had two teachers, one in math and one in science who helped me in ways that I don't think they even could realize. 

The math teacher, Ms. Jagusch, was one of those terrifying women who give you nightmares because they are so scary.  I had her for 6th grade math, and she showed me that I can do math.  Up until that point, I reacted to math class much the same way I reacted to reading before fourth grade.  I hated it, so I didn't focus because I couldn't even understand it.  But she pulled me aside one day and said, "You are not an idiot, you can do this, I believe in you."  To be told this by the scary teacher of the year was amazing.  But unfortunately, I had from K-5 to catch up on, so I was still behind.  But in college, we have to take this course called "Mathematics for Elementary Teachers" where you learn all about basic math.  This helped me a lot.

Then, there was another teacher, whose name I cannot remember now.  He was the best science teacher I ever have had, he was my 8th grade science teacher.  The topic of science class that year was earth.  Basically, meteorology, the rock cycle, magma vs. lava, etc.  And he pulled me aside, just like Ms. Jagusch, "You can do this, if you need help, I am here to help you."  But there was a hierarchy there again that I had missed just like in Math.

These students need our help, and just because they can't pass a test we are going to give up on them?  That is not acceptable to me.  I am okay with helping the "bubble children" but I refuse to give up on students who are "hopeless cases" because no one deserves to be labeled as a "hopeless case."  And I think that that is what happens to many students who are diagnosed with EBD or any disability for that matter, people are afraid that they will catch the disability.  Or people are uncomfortable around people with disabilities.  This idea of a bubble child and then lower is unacceptable to me.  All students need the education that their needs require, not the same education.

Chapter 1: Global Achievement Gap

So, according to Tony Wagner's book The Global Achievement Gap, there are two different gaps.  The gap between our country and other countries.  The other gap, which is the global achievement gap is about the difference between what students learn in school, and what students need to have learned for working outside of school.

Most of the chapter was dedicated to saying continually from many different perspectives that businesses, both those high tech buisinesses as well as manufacturing businesses, desire people who can ask good questions and think critically.  And how schools teach how to memorize dates and pointless things like that rather than information.

In the chapter, Wagner talks about seven different survival skills in the 21st century knowledge economy.  Each of these he feels is integral to surviving in this knowledge economy.

2 Million Minutes

It bugs me a lot that the students from China and India have to study for most of their day.  They have so much homework that they don't really, by American standards, have a life.

Meanwhile, over here, we have little homework.  The video said that high school students only have about one hour of homework per night and none on the weekends.

The students in China and India did not get into the places they wanted and they studied really hard.  But students in America got into their schools of choice.

The driving force in China and India is complacency.  They are no longer satisfied with their lives being the way that they are so they study really hard.  But does this world reward them?  No, it just keeps them from going to their dream colleges and into their dream fields.

"Gay Michigan student defends suspended teacher"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101115/us_yblog_thelookout/gay-michigan-student-defends-suspended-teacher

Two separate thoughts come to my head when I read this article.  And I will share them, but I will rebuke one because I do not like it and I do not understand the backdrop of it.

The first thought that came to my mind is the thought that I am not happy with.  The kid says that he was bullied until he attempted suicide at the age of 9 years old.  I do not at all believe that that is wrong.  But 9 years old to decide that you are gay, to me as a straight person, it just seems a little early.  I wasn't even showing affection toward girls at that time.  But, I cannot even begin to put into my mind that this is the truth for everyone.  Everyone knows that I am the exception rather than the norm. 

On the other hand, I am very happy that he is willing to be openly gay and express it at the age of fourteen years old.  I just don't understand how people can bully him till he attempts suicide.  So, I will work on this bias that I have, and work to destroy it and replace it with knowledge that sometimes it is obvious to the person at a young age that they are gay.

The other thought that comes to my mind is that that teacher stood up for his beliefs.  He told a student to take off her belt buckle because it was the confederate flag belt that could have stood for something that was against the idea of anti-gay bullying awareness day.  He stood up for his beliefs and for his students even though now he is suspended.  I hope to be like that some day, fighting for students to have a safe environment where they feel that they are welcome and not be bullied or see someone wearing an anti-gay buckle (I admit that the confederate flag buckle is not necessarily anti-gay, but it could be implied).  Even if that means that I will get suspended for a certain amount of time.  I would do that for a student.

Critical Thinking Teachers

On page 16 of Tony Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner quotes Annmarie Neal on what her definition of critical thinking.  She says "Taking issues and situations and problems and going to root components; understanding how the problem evolved-looking at it froma systemic perspective and not accepting things at face value..."

I am going to be a special educator of students with Emotional and Behavioral Problems (EBD).  If I take them at face value, I will only see bad kids.  And bad kids are all most people see when they see students with EBD.  I cannot afford to look at my future students in that way, because if I do, I am telling them that they are nothing but their actions of the past.

I need to see the students beyond the face value, because there is a reason that they are acting out.  I can just make my job easier by not looking for the reason why they are behaving that way, but morally, I cannot.  I need to see that the student is not their behavior, there is a reason behind the behavior and I need to figure it out.

This is another example of showing respect to the students, by showing them that I believe wholeheartedly that they are who they choose to be now, not what they are doing or have done in the past.  This is especially true in the Juvenile Justice System where I plan on teaching in.  They are humans who made bad decisions in the past, and they need to be shown that they are not only what they have done, but who they choose to be.

Questions

On pages 2 and 3, Tony Wagner in his book The Global Achievement Gap, tells a story of talking with a CEO of a engineering company.  And the number one quality that the CEO wanted from a candidate applying for a job is good at asking questions.  So, here is are two quick little question stories.

Have you ever been in a class where a teacher asks a question that is open ended, and when you answer, the teacher shoots the answer down and says "No, you're wrong!"

Have you ever been in a class where the teacher asks you if you have any questions and when you ask the question that you are wondering, the teacher treats you like you are an idiot for not knowing the answer?

I have way too often.  And this point is even discussed in Milton Chen's book Education Nation, on how too often schools are non verbally, and sometimes verbally, discouraging students from asking questions.  Questions are an integral thing in this new society that Wagner talks about, a student needs to understand why 1+1=2 rather than just accepting it face value without deeply understanding it.

I love questions, I love to ask questions because the answer always usually surprises me if I don't know much about the topic.  I love questions also because I ask them of others who may not know anything about it.  If I ask a question like that, it is not a content based question, but a thought-based question.  For instance, if we are talking about the No Child Left Behind Act, I would ask the person whom I am talking to a bunch of different question such as "Should children be tested every year?" "Should schools be held accountable for their students' success?" "Should standardized tests be used to assess whether the school, and therefore, the teacher, fails or not?" "Should the curriculum in the school be based completely on taking tests?"  In roughly this order, to find some good things in the NCLB act, but also address the big problems with the law.

Thought provoking questions are tough for some, but they come very natural for me.  For instance, I am in SPED 431 this semester "Colaboration skills and transition planning in diverse settings" and we were making a mind map on the goal of the transition Individual Educational Plan/Program process.  And one of the first things among the students that was said was that the goal is to get a good job after high school, and I asked "Is it to get a good job?"  And they replied with a change of answer to go to a good college after high school, and again I asked "Is the point of a transition plan to get into a good college?"  And they answered by again changing their answer to earn money and I asked again, "Is earning lots of money the point of a transition plan?  Or is it to find where the student is most happy in a post-secondary place, whether that be in education or a job?"

Questions are a pillar of education in this new society, both on the part of the teacher, as well as the students.  The teacher should ask not only thought provoking questions but try and find out more about the students culture (the youth culture, their home culture, their religious culture, etc.).  Be open to answers that you don't like when asking open-ended questions, and don't shoot them down, thank the student for responding and move on.  Questions are beautiful, terrifying (if you are the one to answer them), fun, intimidating, but totally worthwhile.

Turning a School Bus into a School?

On page 140 of Milton Chen's Education Nation, Chen describes how a school district in Vail, Arizona, installed wi-fi devices onto all the school buses.  He describes this in regards to the Time/Place Edge of Education.  This is truly awesome to me, because it shows that the district really cares about their students and want their students to succeed so they installed wi-fi into the buses.

True education never stops beyond the school day.  If you see a student outside of school at the grocery store, talk to them and use that opportunity as a teaching moment if you feel so inclined.  For instance, say I am teaching the student math, and I see that the student just grabbed a bag of Doritos.  I can ask them "If I had a 20 dollar bill, and that bag of Doritos costs 2 dollars, how many bags of Doritos can I buy, and don't forget about tax?"

Granted, if I did this every time I ran into a student, they would probably run far away anytime they see me because they don't want to be put on the spot.  But it is an example of true teaching, where learning never stops once the school day and the school week and the school year are over.

Schools obsolete, not failing

On page xxi of the introduction in Tony Wagner's book The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner says "School's haven't changed; the world has. And so our schools are not failing. Rather, they are obsolete..."  This is an interesting and something that goes against what the mainstream culture is telling us.

Personally, for me, this statement is a breath of fresh air, because too often in the United States, we just want to find a scapegoat.  And for a long time, at least since No Child Left Behind became a law, that blame has been put on the schools.  The schools have failed, not that the schools are just really behind.  I am reminded of a quote that Milton Chen used in his book Education Nation from Winston Churchil "Leave it up to the United States to finally join the World War once they have tried every other option and failed."  We are behind in the United States, but this new generation of teachers can change that.

A good question is how can we change the system?  Well, I'm sure that you may be guessing what I am about to say, but we need to change our mentality from an either/or thought to a both-and thought.  So, rather than just teaching what the school requires you to teach, teach that AND the skills that students need to know in this society.  Skills that are required for college and for post secondary jobs.

Our primary goal, as teachers and future teachers, should be the betterment of our students.  We need to help our students find out who they are, what they want in their lives, and where can they be truly happy?  We do this by being there for them as a listening ear when they are stressed, angry, or scared.  We teach and treat them like they are human beings who can succeed at anything they want in the world, just reach for it.  We, as teachers, need to be the teacher who can change that students life forever.

Applied Behavior Analysis (SPED 431)

• Used to be called Behavior Modification
• IDEA mandates it in 1997 reauthorization
• Ideas
• 30 seconds watch them- describe behavior
• 30 seconds watch them for specific behavior
• "intervention is not based on the behavior - it is based on the function of that behavior."
• Why did the kid do that?  Intervene against the reason, NOT behavior.
• Steps
• Observe the behavior
• Name it
• Use these elements to determine the function
• Antecedent- Who is around?
• Slow Triggers: Trigger reacts slowly (being bullied, hunger, etc.)
• Fast Triggers: Triggers that reacts very fast, different for every person (Haven't eaten in 24 hours and somebody is being sarcastic to you)
• Behavior
• Frequency: How much
• Intensity: How bad
• Duration: How long
• Latency: How soon it happens
• Topography: Detailed explanation of how behavior happened
• Consequences
• Reinforced: Likelihood increases
• Punished: Likelihood decreases
• Design an intervention (only if necessary)
• Implement it
• Reflect.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

• How do we incorporate diversity into education?
• Help lower test anxiety!
• Reading and Math
• What about science and social studies?
• 4 Pillars holding NCLB
• Stronger accountability for states and communities.
• Proven education methods
• More choices for parents
• Disadvantaged youth get same education
• Success = More Money (Is that right?)
• Race to the Top?
• Teachers are most important?
• Education as war?
• Provide resources
• It takes resources away if schools don't succeed or do well on tests.
• Argument for
• We are taking the ostrich approach by doing nothing.
• Ostrich approach is putting your head in the sand and ignoring the problem
• Law states teachers' fail
• Student comes in at 4th grade reading level in 7th grade.  Teach him up to a 6th grade reading level, law says teachers fail.
• Measure the elephant vs. Feed the elephant (Milton Chen's Education Nation)
• Special Education and highly qualified teachers
• Many Special Education teachers teach main subjects, they are not highly qualified.
• Reason for education
• To teach students how to read, write, and do math
• To help students find out who they are
• To help students find their voice and help them respect each other

Field Experience #2 Day 1

So, today, I just watched from 11:10-2:10.  I am not going to lie, it was pretty boring.  But, I was pretty happy with one thing, the teacher is really good for his students.  However, the feeling that I have about being in a classroom with a good teacher, I really question what my role is in this classroom.  Because in my previous field experience, the teacher, I feel, was very negative for the students.  But the teacher with whom I am with now is really a great teacher who cares about his students.  One way that he shows me this is by calling all of his students "friends" instead of the typical call of "boys and girls."

This leads me to my next point, and I am recognizing that this is very sensitive.  All of the students in his class are Somalian except for 1.  I could not pronounce any of the students' names.  It made me feel very uncomfortable that I can't say any of my students' names.  It really makes me feel that I can't be tell them what to do (for instance tell them that they should not go into other classrooms that they do not belong to) when I do not know how to say their name.

I talked with the teacher a little bit afterwards and it was a very interesting conversation.  He told me about how in the refugee camps, the kids have to fight for survival.  And most of the time, they don't get any education when they are over there.  So, this is there first experience with America as well as education.  If they fight for survival and then come here, they may think that they have to fight for everything, and if they do, they will be suspended or expelled.  Or diagnosed with EBD because they are behaving inappropriately in class or at recess.  It is something for me to think about, how am I going to figure the student's past in the refugee camps with the referral process as well as a Transition IEP?  The answer to that, I don't know.

Teaching: A Waste of Time or an Investment

On page 136 of Milton Chen's Education Nation, he talks about Scotland's creation of an educational intranet.  It has a beautiful quote from John Gage where he says: "The problem with Americans is we think of education as a cost.  But other nations think of it as an investment."

Now, I want to diverge from this quote into something that has been bothering me ever since I began thinking about becoming a teacher.  So many teachers are only teaching for their paycheck.  They are not teaching in order to better their students lives, not just the student's knowledge of reading, writing, and math.

So, in the movie "Freedom Writers," one of the students yells at Erin Gruwell to just work on her babysitting.  And she looks at him incredulously and says "that's all you think this is?"  And he responds with something to the lines of "Well, we ain't learning anything that can help out there in the real world."  But Gruwell being shocked by being told that her students only think that school and teaching is a big babysitting job what speaks to me.

I can't look at my career in education in terms of a babysitting job, and yet I think that some teachers (at least ones who were educated a long time ago) look at education as.  It is just a place where students go during the day to keep them out of trouble.  But I know that it can be so much more, and I will help make it more.  I will combine different things such as math and reading in mechanics (they have to know mathematics to do certain things like measure the length of that the bar is supposed to be, and they have to read some instructions some times.).  But I need to find what they are interested in, and the whole world will then be at their fingertips.

I will do whatever necessary to help put the whole world in their fingertips, even if that means, like Gruwell, getting other jobs to pay for them to have it.  But if one single teacher can help a student with their entire lives, it is totally worth working a bunch of jobs for it.  I want to help these students, I am not my students' babysitter, but their teacher.  And that means I must respect them and accept them for who they are and continually tell them that they are what they choose to be now, not what they have done in the past.

“We All Have Special Needs”?

From Page 130-134, Milton Chen talks about how Assistive technology has actually helped people who don’t even have disabilities.  I am absolutely fine with that being in there, because it is a chapter about technology and the classroom.  But it really offends me the last sentence where he is quoting George Lucas “After all, when you think about it, we all have special needs.”  There were many things in George Lucas’s quote that I disagree with.  But this is the pinnacle of it.

We, people who do not have disabilities, cannot say that we have a disability if we do not have a disability.  That leads to the question of: “What are disabilities and special needs?”  Disability, according to dictionary.com, is “lack of adequate power, strength, or physical or mental ability; incapacity.”  And the definition, also according to dictionary.com, is “The special education requirement of those with learning difficulties, emotional or behavioral problems, or physical disabilities.”  According to Lucas’s quote, he should have said “…we all have disabilities.” not special needs.

I feel that this part of the chapter almost downplays people with disabilities (Person first language was just used there) by saying that the technology that was created for them is now used by us.  And since we are using it, we then try to believe that we have disabilities.  Lucas says “…has a type of disability.  This can include students with learning disabilities [correct], students in remote areas [I didn’t know that was a disability], and students for whom English is a second language [WHAT!? students who are ELL have a disability because they can’t speak English?]”

To mix people with disabilities with people who are from other countries could be looked at as offensive.  The reasoning behind this is that people with disabilities do not have a choice to have a disability or not (they cannot get rid of it).  Students who are ELL are taught to speak English, and if they are equated with students with learning disabilities.  I feel that I am not making any sense, but I just don’t think that it is right to mix students with disabilities with students who just have environmental deficiencies (remote area or brought up in a household that does not speak English).  Deficiencies could also be looked at as offensive, so his quote just seems like a no-win situation.

Evaluation (Continued)- Self

So, in my previous post, I talked about other people evaluating me, now I want to talk about self-evaluation, and this is going to be tough for me.  Because, personally, I am insanely hard on myself.  Even going back as far as I can remember, I have been hard on myself.  I had to have a tutor in elementary school because I was so behind in my classes (in regards to the basic skills of reading, math, spelling, everything).  And whenever she would ask me how my day went, I would tell her that it went horrible.  She would be taken aback and ask me what went wrong and I would tell her something to the lines of “I stubbed my toe.”  So, if one thing goes wrong, the whole day is bad.  I am working on ending this thought process, but in all reality it is who I am.

In life, I can see the bad very well, but it takes a lot of energy (and I would say courage, as well) to look for the good in all situations.  But, I think that this has its advantages.  The biggest advantage is that I can, before I do anything, look at a event or group that I want to start and I can see all of the arguments that could be used against it, and then combat those arguments with arguments for it.  For example, let’s say that I want to start a drama group at the school that I teach at.  I am able to see that administration may give me a very hard time to get that group started, and I can see that the arguments for not starting a drama group are things such as: finance, space, students, etc.  And with this knowledge of what the administration may say, I am able to come up with counterarguments.

But, now I have gotten off topic, evaluating myself is going to be hard for me.  It’s going to be hard for me because I am hard on myself, so if I have a student who I haven’t been able to connect to, I am going to evaluate myself very hard.  But, it is going to make me strive harder to connect to that student, and get to know them, get to know what happens in their mind.  Find out what causes them to start misbehaving and find a remedy to help them.

Evaluation- Student, Parent and Everyone

So, in the article entitled “Reinventing the U.S. History Class in Milton Chen’s Education Nation,  Chen talks about how at the end of a Unit in his history class, Anthony Armstrong gives his students an evaluation evaluating the teacher.  I believe that this is a very radical, and yet beautiful and smart thing to do.  I say that because students are probably going to be honest if they don’t like the way that you are teaching.  So, if we focus on what the students actually think about our teaching styles, we will truly become better teachers.  Now, tying this in to last week’s presentation on Educational Philosophy, this idea of being evaluated by the student is very student-centered.  So, here is another example of why I will be such a strong student-centered teacher.

While I was just thinking about Student evaluation of the teacher and lesson, I thought about the new TV show “Teach: Tony Danza” and in episode 2, he has a parent of a gifted student come in and tell him how her son evaluated him.  She said that the first week, her son had given him a 6, and now, a  week later, he gave Danza a 4.  Now, this is a bit different, but it leads nicely into another person who can evaluate you.  The parent.

I think that having an evaluation process maybe not each week, but once a month, with the parents evaluating you, would be a great idea.  I say that because it can help bring parents in to help with anything, whether that be during the school day or at home.  Parental involvement, especially in Special Education, is critical to student success both in school and once they are out of school.  They would evaluate me on how well I connected with them that month, in regards to letting them know when conferences are, when I saw their teenager after school, when big assignments are due.

I would begin the school year by asking the parents to let me know how they would like me to communicate with them and in what capacity, do they want me to let them know when assignments are due, how their teenager is doing in school, what do they want me to notify them on?  And how do they want me to notify them, to call them once a week, e-mail them every day, post assignments on a classroom blog?  I will leave it up to the parent to decide to what degree they would like to be notified about things.

I will also be working, possibly, with Paraprofessionals (There is a more appropriate name for this now, but I can’t remember it).  If I am working with Paraprofessionals, I would like them to evaluate me as well.  In the beginning of the school year, just like with the parents, I will ask them what type of role they would like to have in my classroom.  Would they like to help me teach a lesson, would they like to teach a lesson all by themselves with me helping behind the scenes, would they like to help with small groups?  I would, again, leave it up to them to decide what they feel most comfortable about.  In my classroom, there will be respect (because I give all the students respect, I hope that in time they will respect me), so the students will respect the Paraprofessional as well.  So, I would ask them to evaluate me on how they feel that they are being treated by me and how I can make them feel more comfortable in my classroom.

I have two reasons for allowing the Paraprofessionals to teach all by themselves if they so wish.  The first is that I could have them laminating things and cutting out laminations and making copies of worksheets (Which I don’t plan on using).  But is that the best way to utilize the resource of the Paraprofessional?  That point was brought up last week when Brad Kaffar came into my classroom for SPED 431 and talked about Co-teaching.  The other reasoning behind why I will allow Paraprofessionals to teach if they wish is because they may wanted to become a teacher, but were too afraid that they couldn’t do it.  If I can show them that they can, then it is going to be beautiful.

Finally, I plan on accepting Teacher Candidates and volunteers into my classroom, because I want to help them feel comfortable in the classroom.  Because right now, I am not entirely comfortable being in a classroom.  I want to be, and I was in my first field experience, but I don’t know if I am completely comfortable being in a classroom yet.  Now, the evaluation here is just like that for the Paraprofessionals.

And with all who evaluate me, I hope to help them feel comfortable and at home when they are in my classroom because it is as much their classroom as it is mine.