October 8th, 2013
8.00am-11.00am
Today I arrived at the school early, Geoff toured me around the school, taking me to the office and some of the main areas like the staff room, gym and library. We then returned to the class room to prepare the lesson plan for the day, opening up all the files and links that would be used in the class. This is a huge time saver that I had never considered. When relying on a SMART board for the majority of material in class, having the folders available creates a flow to you class later on, and keeps the focus of the students with less effort. I will be observing Geoff's grade 9 English honors class for the first few weeks, a good integrator before heading into a grade 12 classroom setting. While the kids started to filter into the classroom my heart started to race, everyone was looking at me, wondering who I was, and I had to keep total composure. Trying to look calm and inviting is an extremely hard thing to accomplish when inside your intimidation levels are running high. When Geoff introduced me to the class, they all applauded, the perks of having the younger age group, they are much quicker to accept me then I expect the grade 12's will be. Once the introduction was finished I could finally relax and observe, Geoff started the class of with "Tuesday Trivia", and broke the class up into groups of three (their choice) to complete a quick quiz on fun facts. He later explained to me how detrimental his warm up exercises are to the rest of class. He told me that before he integrated quick warm up's he had run into many issues with getting the attention of the class as a whole. On the SMART board he had a schedule of the days class, it was bright and colorful, and gave all the kids a chance to see what the day was going to look like, I think this is a wonderful idea to incorporate, this way not only do you have some order in place, but it also allows for the kids who finish the work early to get a head start on the rest of the projects. The class was in the poetry unit, and to give an example of vocabulary in poetry Geoff had made a lesson showing his own version of a poem about Alberta winters, but he toned down all the describing words. He read this version out loud, and had the kids comment freely about what they thought of the poem, many were very quick to catch the problems. And they laughed along at the word choice Geoff had decided to use, next they read the lines one by one comparing them and the kids answered out loud about what the poets version was better. All of the kids were participating in the class, and even if they weren't contributing vocally, you could see that his ideas were translating to the students. They then were told to start editing the rough drafts of their own personal poems. I was then given the opportunity to walk around the classroom answering any questions kids might have, a challenging task for me as a stranger in the class. But, was a great lesson for me, I learned how important relationship building would be at the beginning of the terms with my students. Trust is a vital part of a healthy nurturing relationship between student and teacher, not only in a group sense, but even more so for each individual to feel that the classroom is a safe place. They all trusted Geoff to read and critique their work, but some of the students didn't even want to tell me about the topic they chose. (completely understandable, I didn't pry for them to share with me if they weren't comfortable.) I also struggled with the dilemma of helping a student vs telling them what to do, it's such a fine balance between sparking a child's creativity, rather than just blurting out your idea of what would be best. I will really have to pay attention to this later in classes with Geoff and how he interacts with students when they ask him for opinions or even just help with an assignment. After the classes ended Geoff asked me for the observations I had made, and we discussed the fragile art of picking students to answer questions during class discussion. I had noticed one student who was extremely eager to answer each question Geoff had asked, it was easy to see the frustration on her face when he ignored her to ask other students. My question to Geoff was how to properly ignore certain students when its necessary to have an entire class discussion with multiple contributing parts, without deflating a keen students attitude. Or even worse, frustrate them to the point that they may feel segregated or picked on by the teacher. His answer was simple, he felt that keen students like the one I had noticed understood a teachers reasoning for picking other students, he also felt you must be sensitive to that students needs and call on them when you feel its appropriate, but not too worry too much about the situation. I understand his perspective, but also wonder if maybe pulling the student aside could be beneficial. To explain your reasoning might help both of you to be more comfortable with the situation, and completely eliminate the possibility of misunderstanding, preserving your relationship completely. I found my first day at Thurber to be entirely beneficial, I'm so excited to spend even more time in the classroom with these kids and Geoff. Everything from the staff, to the students, to the room filled with posters of encouraging people, quotes, and exceptional work was inviting.
