A Happy and Sad Discovery

As you all know by now, one of the students that has stood out to me the most semester, Kyle, has been a foster child his entire life. In my last post, I mentioned I hadn't seen him around, then edited my post later on saying he was back. I also mentioned he had gotten his grades up to the point where he was passing.

The past couple of classes have been unusually quiet. Last Thursday, I thought maybe he was gone with the rest of the majority of class to the JROTC or the band event, both of which were taking place that day during the period I'm pre-student teaching in. Today, I noticed he was still gone, so I mentioned to Mrs. Paxton that I hadn't seen him in a while.

It turns out that he was going to be moved whether he got his grades up or not. Up until recently, he had been living independently while still under the supervision of the foster care organization he has been a part of for so long. Originally, he was very reluctant and did not want to move in with another "stupid" family (i.e. one that had adults that he believed to be less intelligent than him). However, after meeting the foster father, he informed Mrs. Paxton that he was excited to be moving and that the father was cool and needed him. Plus, he doesn't have to share him with any other foster children.

While it saddens me that he is no longer around, the fact that he is happily living with a parent-figure instead of on his own now makes me happy for him. I hope he continues to keep his grades up at his new high school and that his new family is everything he could ever hope for and more.

Online Reflection #4: Vanishing Fostered Gamer and Other Issues

Well, as you all probably remember, one of the biggest "problem" students I have dealt with this semester has been my fostered gamer, Kyle. Recently, I've noticed something. He's missing. I can't help but wonder what happened to him, especially since I heard him say a couple of weeks ago that if he didn't get his grades up, they were going to move him... again.

My biggest fear is that this has happened. Am I the only one that thinks this is not the way to go about solving his grade issues? Isn't moving him just going to cause him to care even less about school? He had already said at least once, if not several times, that he had given up. How is moving him somewhere new going to make him care again?

Oh my goodness, that is a lot of questions! I'm so sorry. They've been pounding against my skull recently and I just had to let them out somewhere. I have one more! Should I ask Mrs. Ellis or Mrs. Paxton where he is?

Anyway, on to another "problem" student I've been dealing with this semester. We'll call him John. John is very crude and inappropriate, flipping people off during class (including me) both openly and under his Cookie Monster hat. There is nothing to prompt it, he just does it because he thinks it is funny, I suppose. He also is obnoxious and recently had a couple of his friends moved away from him because they could not stay on task sitting together. I have given him warning signs several times and I feel like that is all I can do. It's not like I can send him to the office or otherwise punish him; I'm not his teacher. How can I get him to behave? What will I have to do in the future to get my students to behave if they are like him?

Finally, I would like to re-address the topic of showing videos in class. A couple of class periods ago, we finished reading Into Thin Air (finally). This past class, Mrs. Ellis showed two videos associated with the book and the second one she showed was filmed by one of the teams that climbed Mount Everest with the author of Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer. The students are bored with this topic. I can tell because several of them nearly fell asleep, perhaps even did, during the videos. The entire class period was spent on these videos with the lights off and the students were expected to fill out a worksheet about the second video. All of the lights were off, so how were they supposed to see to write?

Alright, I'll stop asking questions now. I feel better now that I let all of that out. I hope to get great tips from all of my readers and I thank you in advance for offering any advice.

[EDIT: Kyle was back in class today, November 2, and he informed us that he has all A's and C's in his classes with the exception of Mrs. Ellis's class, which he currently has a D in. A week or two ago, he apparently had six F's, so I'm proud of him for getting those up so quickly! I'm also thankful he didn't have to move again.]

KATE Conference

This past Thursday, I attended my first ever KATE conference. Not being an early bird, I planned on arriving shortly before Clare Vanderpool was scheduled to begin her keynote so I could grab what was left of the continental breakfast they provided and find myself a seat. Well, since I have never driven to the hotel that it was held at on my own before, I got sufficiently lost on my way there and didn't get there until later than expected. Luckily, I snatched up some fruit and a yogurt cup right before one of the hotel workers took it all away. Grabbing a seat from along the wall, I squeezed in between two of my fellow PSTs. Shortly after, Mrs. Vanderpool began her keynote speech.

While I found her speech to be both funny and educating, it also caused me to realize that her book Moon Over Manifest focuses a great deal on historical things. I really do not like history, so my chances of ever reading this book are slim. Well, at least right now they are. That could always change. After she was finished with her speech, I headed to the breakout session that I think just about every other PST did: "Survivalism 101: Navigating the Jungle of an Unfamiliar School and Making it Through the Critical First 5 Years of Teaching."

As I entered the room along with Mr. Whitman and Ms. Elena, we were all handed a leaf to write on. On one side, we were to write why we were entering the profession of teaching; on the other, we were supposed to write three positive things about our (future) career. My three positives were so cliché that Ms. Elena said I should have written "A Lesson on Clichés" in the top corner of my leaf. Haha. Anyway, these two presenters from a high school located in a nearby town were very helpful and also enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge with us. We were provided with several templates, including one we can use to prepare for unexpected absences where we'll need a substitute! One of them also recommended something I probably would have done on my own anyway: color-coding everything. And I mean everything. Make assignments for one unit blue, ones for another green, etc. It seems insane, but I think it could work. We'll see if it works out for me.

Once we were finished with our survival unit, Mr. Whitman and I walked across the hall to our next session: "Poetry Out Loud." After sitting down for maybe a minute, a fellow PST came in and said there were cookies down the hall. This led to almost all of us leaving the session's room for cookies, which made us late, but it worked out because our presenter was still working on some technological issues when we returned anyway. While certain parts of this presentation gave me goosebumps because I now have a way to possibly get my students interested in poetry, it was mostly promoting a national poetry competition. I would like for some of my future students to participate in this competition, but I am unsure if I will have the opportunity to help them along if they do.

Lunch time! Off to sit with Dr. Mason, Mrs. Hart, Ms. Hollas and a couple of Dr. Mason's friends. While Dr. Mason chatted with her two colleagues, Mrs. Hart, Ms. Hollas and I chatted about the sessions we had attended and showed each other our free stuff we'd gotten from them. I learned that a session that Ms. Hollas went to was awesome and I plan on looking into the program (Write Source®) that was discussed in the session. Hooray for technology helping us teach students writing and grammar skills! As most of us finished eating, Jay Asher began his keynote after being introduced.

Jay Asher gave one of the most hilarious speeches I've heard in my life. I'm not even kidding, guys. This man made me laugh so much, but he also made me realize something. I kept telling myself I didn't want to read Thirteen Reasons Why anytime soon. Guess what? Now I do. And it's all thanks to Jay's speech and how he gave so much context about the book out to us. For example, he told us about the girl he knew that tried to commit suicide, the one that I believe inspired him to write this book in the first place. Once I get paid, I think I'm going to see if I can find the book somewhere online, or I might just go to the library and check it out. It's been a long time since I've checked out a book. I should do that.

Unfortunately, I missed the last part of Mr. Asher's keynote because I had to leave around 2:00PM to get to work. Anyone care to tell me what I missed? Also, any information that you're willing to share about Thursday's afternoon sessions and Friday's sessions would be appreciated as well!

Online Reflection #3: Help!

This past Thursday, I taught my first lesson in the unit the class is working on focusing around the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Starting the class with a journal entry, I quickly realized that was a horrible idea to start the class with even though I had seen Mrs. Ellis use the same type of activity as bellwork successfully before.

While trying to make sure all of the students present had notebook paper to write their journal entry on, the class was a bit noisy and disrespectful. Then something amazing happened: Kyle, my "fostered gamer," said something along the lines of "Come on! Can't we just be good for her? Show some respect. She's finally getting to teach us!" I was so proud of him. Normally he's the class clown, distracting students from their work, but right now he was the only student in class that stood up for me and I realized that maybe I have started to make that connection with him that so many of you mentioned in your thank you notes to me.

Once the students had been given a bit of time to write their journal entries, I started the tape so we could all listen and follow along to chapters four and five of the novel. Listening to the author read his story, I found that several of the students were beginning to doze off, but I could not think of any part of either chapter that warranted stopping the tape to discuss more. All of it was so cut and dry, I did not see any reason to stop, especially considering the time to listen to the two chapters was limited to the class period. I did stop between the chapters and offer to read the second chapter aloud myself, but the class seemed to prefer the tape of the author.

One of the suggestions I received from Mrs. Ellis was to stop during the chapters I teach in the next couple of weeks and discuss what is happening and ask questions about the content of the chapters. Hopefully the next few chapters I teach will be easier for me. Have any of you read this book? Taught it? I need all the help I can get!

Tonight while grading the journal entries from last Thursday, I realized that the students in this class are very different from one another. Only a handful made a successful response to the prompt that was given, which was to imagine they were climbing Mount Everest with the novel's author, Jon Krakauer. Others pointed out the obvious: "I would be cold." "I would be scared to die." "I wouldn't be on the mountain in the first place because I'm afraid of heights." I couldn't help but wonder: were my instructions unclear or did they just not care? I tried to make my prompt broad enough that it would be possible for both those in the special education program as well as those who were not to respond to it successfully. I also did my best to make it relevant enough so the students could relate back to the novel, while still making it a personal narrative. Where did I go wrong?

The Fostered Gamer (Genre Reflection #1)

It was my first time in my new practicum for the semester. After getting thoroughly lost in the winding halls of the high school, I walked into the classroom only to find that we would shortly be turning around and leaving for the computer lab. Mrs. Ellis informed me that the students were working on résumés, cover letters, and follow-up letters to help them when they began to search for jobs. She also introduced me to her para-educator, Mrs. Paxton, who is there to aid the students in the class that are part of the special education program.

Once we were in the computer lab, I noticed one student in particular, we'll call him Kyle, who was not working on anything pertaining to the class. Instead, he was focusing on playing one of the games from The Legend of Zelda series on what I believe was a Game Boy Advance emulator. Mrs. Paxton and I approached Kyle and asked him to work on the assignment, but he ignored us even after I told him, "Link will still be there when you're done with your work." Needless to say, he did not work on any of the assignments for the remainder of the class period.

Fast-forward to the next class period, where Kyle is once again playing The Legend of Zelda. I notice Mrs. Paxton having a chat with him and overhearing bits and pieces of it, I realize that it is a conversation I should probably stay out of. I heard Kyle say things like "I give up" and it broke my heart a little. Once Mrs. Paxton finished talking to him, I asked her if he was just having a rough time. She explained to me that he's been in foster care his entire life and that the number of homes he has been in is crazy. Every time he gets into any kind of trouble, he is moved to a new home.

This information hit me like a ton of bricks. I have come to realize that I honestly have no idea how to handle this. He's practically given up on school, but he tells me things like, "I'm smart, I just procrastinate a lot." What am I supposed to do? I have no experience with students that have such a rough home life history. I hate watching him waste his time in class by sleeping, playing video games, or distracting other students, but I don't want to push him too hard. Ever since that day when I found out about him being a foster child his entire life, I have left him for Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Paxton to deal with. I just hope I'm doing the right thing.

Showing Videos in Class

Today, Mrs. Ellis showed her class a couple of videos on Mount Everest to introduce the book the class will be reading very soon titled Into Thin Air. Before showing the first video, she passed out a circle map for the class to fill out. On the outside of the circle, students were to write the knowledge of Mount Everest that they already had prior to watching the video. Then, while watching the video, they were to write what they learned on the inside of the circle. Once they were finished, it was to be turned in.

Now, while this is a great idea to keep the students working while the video is playing, it didn't seem to work all that well with this particular class. Several of the students fell asleep, while others had that blank stare on their face that I'm sure all of us know all too well. That stare that indicates that the student is paying attention, but all of the information is going in one ear and out the other.

I'm not sure if it would help or not, but one thing that I noticed was that Mrs. Ellis stayed seated at her desk watching the video with the class and Mrs. Paxton sat at the back of the classroom working on something of her own. Neither of them checked on the students to make sure they were working the entire class period. At one point, I saw about a third of the class appeared to be asleep, but neither of them made any effort to wake them. Maybe I'm just over-thinking all of this, but if it were my class, I think I would have gently tapped or shook the students that appeared to be asleep. Or is that going too far? They are seniors in high school, so should they be independent enough to take care of themselves?

While the videos were very informative, I'm not sure it was the best way to introduce the book to the class. Perhaps shorter clips would have worked better? Any thoughts or ideas on this? I feel like I'm rambling at this point.

Online Reflection #2: First Day!

Today, I finally went to my placement! However, even after the orientation I had a couple of weeks ago, I got lost on the way to my classroom. Well, partially anyway. I just turned too soon, but still, it was embarrassing having to ask another teacher where my cooperating teacher's classroom was located.

Once I finally got to the classroom, I came in and said hello to the teacher, Mrs. Ellis. She introduced me to her para-educator, Mrs. Paxton, who helps some of the students in the class which are in the special education program. Later, I found out nearly half of the class is made up of special education students, which was somewhat surprising to me because they all seemed to be working fairly well!

Well, most of them anyway. I'll get back to that later. First, let me explain to you what the class is currently working on. Seeing how this is a class of seniors, many of the students are beginning to search for jobs, but have no experience making resumes, writing formal letters, etc. So, to help them out, Mrs. Ellis is having them create a resume as well as write a cover and follow-up letter. Once they finished these activities, they moved on to marking up a poorly written e-mail and re-typing it to make the e-mail more clear, concise, and conventionally correct.

Now, back to those off-task students. One in particular was supposed to be working on one of the two letters, I can't recall which, but instead was constantly playing one of the games from the Legend of Zelda series. I kept telling him that Link would still be there when he finished his work, but he would not listen. Another student believed she "didn't need to do any of this because she was going to start her own business." And yet another couple of young men in the class were playing games like Duck Hunt when they should have been finishing their résumés. Thankfully, the latter two I mentioned got back on task when Mrs. Ellis asked them kindly to work. Also, I noticed just before the class period ended that even the girl that "didn't need to do any of this" had started to work. I'm really not sure if Mrs. Ellis spoke with her and I just missed it, or if she realized hey, maybe I will need this knowledge at some point in my life. Either way, I'm glad she decided to start working on her assignments. So, fellow pre-student teachers, how would you have handled these students, specifically the one that wouldn't stop playing his video game no matter how many times I asked? There were a couple of times where I nearly hit Alt + F4 on his keyboard, but I was afraid that was a bit too bold of a move on my first day in the classroom, especially considering I'm not actually their teacher.

When Mrs. Ellis had a moment during the class period, I mentioned my unit I had to teach in her class this semester. She asked me if I had ever heard of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. I chuckled because just yesterday I read this blog post on Ms. Black's Point of View, which mentioned this book. Until I read said blog post, I had never even heard of this book. Now I've heard it two days in a row and Mrs. Ellis even had Mrs. Paxton check out a copy for me to use, so I have a copy in my possession.

Overall, my first day with the class went very well. The organization system Mrs. Ellis had for the assignments being worked on today was easy to navigate, so I could easily give students the sheet(s) explaining the next task they needed to do. Also, the students accepted my help if both Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Paxton were busy at the time they needed it. I'm not sure I've ever been accepted so quickly in a classroom! One of the students even complained when I was using the technique of proximity to make sure they were staying on task by saying, "Man, now there are three teachers in here!"

Online Reflection #1: Introduction & Goals

Wow, what a first week! I think this has been quite possibly the busiest first week of classes I have had in my entire time at college. It has definitely been an exhausting and chaotic week for me between my classes and working at the university bookstore.

Anyway, allow me to introduce myself to you. My name is Samantha Raper, pronounced ray-purr, but my friends call me Sam. To any students reading, please call me Ms. Raper. Also, before you ask, yes I do catch quite a bit of flack for my last name. This is the beginning of my fifth year (yes, fifth) in college at Wichita State University and I'm just starting my pre-student teaching experience. Why the fifth year? I changed majors after a couple of years in the college of business and decided that I would rather teach high school English.

Yesterday, I attended my pre-student teaching school for the first time and had an orientation with my school's contact person. She introduced herself to me, handed me the packet that they give all new teachers, and then gave me a bit of a tour of the school. The orientation proved to be very helpful to me because seeing how this was my second time ever being in this school building, I had no idea how to get around! The people in the hallways were very friendly, all telling us “hello” or “good morning” as we passed each other. So far, I really like the atmosphere of this school, although its hallways are a bit on the toasty side.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to meet with my cooperating teacher (CT) yet. We have communicated back in forth in e-mails and we're both excited to meet! Our schedules are proving to be a bit difficult to work around currently, but we'll get it figured out soon. Hopefully, tomorrow I will know whether or not next week is going to work out as a start time for us. Otherwise I may not be able to start until after Labor Day! I'm really hoping that won't be the case, though! For now, let's move on to my main goals for this semester.

Last semester, I found that my lesson planning wasn't always very efficient. I tried to plan out my lessons using time limits, but the limits I thought would work were just too quick for the students in my class. Therefore, I hope to improve my lesson planning this semester, taking into consideration my students' learning levels and any other factors that might limit my teaching time. I'm horrible with time management in some cases, so if any of you fellow pre-student teaching students have advice for me, please share!

In relation to that, my lesson implementation was unorganized and I lacked confidence when presenting. I became so nervous when I was giving my lessons, constantly looking to my CT for guidance. Do any of you fellow future teachers have any tips to help me get my confidence up? Any advice is appreciated at this point!

Practice Post

This is a practice post. Huzzah!