Step 15: SNOW DAY!!!!

In case you haven’t heard, the East Coast got some snow this weekend! About two feet fell in Philadelphia, which is more than the city gets on average in a whole winter. The snow has transformed the city, and although it is, admittedly, less easy to walk through the slush, everything sort of sparkles in the first snow of the year. Though I did take the Mayor’s suggestions to “just stay put” to heart and had a very lazy weekend, I also took a few short adventures out to see what was going on; I was rewarded with drink specials at City Tap House, which was full of Penn students with cabin fever, and a remarkably short line at the famous Hershel’s Deli in Reading Terminal Market on Sunday. By Sunday afternoon, the big thruways had mostly been cleared, and there were some busses running, so you can imagine my surprise when a classmate texted me the message that all teachers hold their breaths for:

Yes, that’s right, our first official snow day as teachers! And let me tell you, it is just as exciting as it was a kid. Sure, it will mean shifting around lesson plans for the week, but the luxury of extending the weekend is made so much better by the unexpected nature of the announcement. Maybe I’ll build a snowman! Or bake cookies! Or…lesson plan? I guess the day might be less carefree as it was in the past (one classmate noted that this would finally give her time to do laundry) but I’m still pretty stoked about this bonus day off!

Now the real fun begins...

Step 14: Day "on"

Last Friday, I had the wonderful experience of returning to my first graders for a mid-morning visit (we are currently in our new placements Mon-Thur and have class on Friday mornings). While I was simultaneously excited to see them again, and, admittedly, nervous that they may not demonstrate such excitement about seeing me, all of my trepedation vanished immediately upon arrival when they swarmed me on the playground. Their hugs filled me with warmth and gratitude for the role I have been able to play in their lives, and acted as a weighty reminder of the way in which a single teacher's comings and goings actually do influence the children they interact with. These students also have an ongoing impact on me, too, and Friday's visit was no different. Most immediately, they challenged me to view this long weekend for what it truly should be: a time for service and giving back. Specifically, when I asked some of them what they were planning to do on their day off, they corrected me,

 

Teacher Rachel, Monday is a day ON. 

 

As usual, my little humans, you are so right. So I took up their challenge and found a way to get involved in a local service project today. Lucky for me, and for all of us here in Philly, the Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service is the nation's largest organized MLK event, with volunteer activities occurring all over the city. While I cannot claim to have contributed much to this record-setting event, it did feel good to be part of it. Of course, to fully live Dr. King's dream, we must continue our service throughout the year, but on this particular day "on," it was meaningful to join my students and my new Philadelphia community in trying to make this place a bit better for everyone.

Step 13: Storytime!

When I think about the best things about teaching elementary school, most of them involve the relationships I get to build with students and the classroom community that I get to be part of. But selfishly, another aspect of it that I truly love is the chance to return to many of my favorite books and characters I had almost forgotten. Beginning this summer in our wonderful Children's Literature course, I was thrilled to surround myself with familiar "friends" from the past such as Chrysanthemum and Miss Rumphius and "meet" many new ones, too. My bookshelf is slowly filling up with picture books and early chapter books, and my holiday wishlist reflected this re-awakened love for children's stories! Stepping in to my new third grade classroom I was reminded of my voracious appetite for chapter books at that age and it is so fun to watch my students tear through series the way I once did. I am now re-reading many old favorites as I plan for literature circles that I will lead with my students, and it is both delightful to return to these stories, and also exciting to be able to share them with new audiences. So many great chilren's books are timeless in their appeal, so while I may not be able to keep up with the latest TV shows or music that my students follow, we can always connect over Ramona, Amber Brown, or other literary leads!

                     

Step 12: Day 1, round 2!

Happy New Year! I am so excited to think that 2016 is the year when I will become a fully-credentialed teacher. Before then, however, I have the opportunity to learn from a new Classroom Mentor - this time, a 3rd grade teacher at another school in Philadelphia! Today was my first day in my new student teaching placement, and I am full of both excitement as well as some nervousness about this term. Right now, it's hard for me to believe that these unfamiliar faces will soon be students who I will know as well as those I got close to in the fall. Somehow I'll know their currently unfamiliar classroom routines consistently enough to teach them full-time in the spring (more on this later!) I hope to speed along this "getting to know you process" by spending even more time in the classroom this term. In fact, my schedule has dramatically changed this term - I will now be student teaching Monday through Thursday, and taking far fewer classes (Tuesday and Thursday evenings as well as Friday mornings only). This changes once again in March when we begin to go to our placement classrooms all five days of the week! 

In addition to student teaching and taking classes, I also need to take the PECT (Pennsylvania Educator Certification Tests) in order to become credentialed. I'm actually taking these mandatory exams next week with the hopes of passing before job application season begins. TEP is setting up a series of recruitment events this spring that should help us embark on this complicated process, and I will certainly keep you posted on it!

Step 11: Halfway there

Recently a classmate of mine pointed out that we are now more than halfway through the program. I can both hardly believe how quickly time has passed, and also feel more comfortable here than I could have imagined after just  5 1/2 months in Philadelphia. In fact, it was one year ago this holiday season that I began seriously considering TEP. I vividly remember reading the former GA's blog during vacation, feeling both excited and intimidated by her account of her experience. As she described the numerous lessons she had designed and papers she had written, I could hardly imagine how I woud be able to do all of that within such a short amount of time - and yet, here I am at the end of the fall semester and I too have planned and led lessons, written papers, designed a website, and, most importantly, become deeply connected to a group of 32 first graders who have inspired me to be more dedicated than ever to this career path.

Announcing to the children in my class that this week would be my last in their class, I told them that as my first students, I would never forget them - and I truly believe that. They have impacted me more than I could dream of. Each cute face from the first day of school now has an individual personality, academic talents, classroom challenges and wonderful memories associated with it. As I wrote them each a goodbye letter, it was satisfying to realize that I had unique memories with each one. This, to me, is the luxury of student teaching - even though I was only in their classroom 2-3 days per week, I was able to spend my time in the classroom observing closely, and conferencing personally with all the kids. It is also the greatest lesson that I hope to take to my future classroom, for even though I will have many more responsibilities to juggle as the primary teacher, connecting with my students will be of utmost priority. 

Needless to say, today's goodbye was very difficult - and yet tomorrow I am going to meet the students in my future class. It is intimidating to me to think of jumping in to their classroom halfway through the year, and I am nervous about how I will "fit in". This makes me think of a picture book we read to the students during the first week of school called First Day Jitters. In it, the main character expresses great nervousness about her first day at a new school and throughout her story you expect that she is a student. The surprise comes when, at the end, you find out that she is the teacher! This will certainly be me; and yet it is with great fondness now that I remember the first day of school with my first graders, so I only hope that my relationships with my future third graders develop as rewardingly!

But first, vacation. One of the best things about my life in grad school as compared to last year's working schedule is the built-in vacation time! Our winter break is a bit shorter than other students in GSE as we return when the school district resumes. Even so, two weeks is a very appealing break right now! I'll be back during the first week of January. Until then, happy holidays!

Step 10: It takes village

Please excuse the short post this week: our classes as well as our first student teaching placements wrap up next week, and this Friday is the deadline for my Term III lesson design and analysis project. Yikes! I am up to my ears in notes, artifacts, and emotions regarding the small group lessons I taught, and I am now trying to reflect on them in order to take lessons from both the good and the bad aspects of these attempts into my future teaching.

Amidst this grad school work, I have continued to find tremendous value in the time I spend at my placement. In addition to my work with the kids, I’m also learning from the interactions between my classroom mentor and the parents.  Last week I had the opportunity to participate in parent-teacher conferences, and this experience helped me develop a greater appreciation of the role that a teacher gets to play in a child’s “village”. Throughout the term I have really admired the way that my classroom mentor has interacted with parents with both respect and frankness. She even invited parents on two occasions to come into the classroom to watch how she supports their children in learning to read. Many eagerly attended, hungry for strategies they could use at home, and she gave them tips such as how to make read-alouds more purposeful.  Similarly, at last week’s conferences I witnessed collaborative conversations about how to best support children. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about how some of the conferences would go, particularly those with parents of kids who are not doing well academically; but it was actually really nice to see how these parents did not get indignant or defensive - instead they were genuinely interested in how they could help their students do better. I appreciated how my mentor spoke with the parents (and even the students who often accompanied them) honestly, but also gently.  She emphasized student progress and seemed to truly believe that these students could continue to improve even if they’re not passing right now. It still does not quite sit right with me that, within our current system, many teachers must assign letter grades to children as young as my first graders; but if grades must exist, I would prefer they be spoken about as temporary indications of progress, rather than ultimate labels of a student’s ability. 

Step 9: Learning from experience

I'm pleased to report that I have officially finished planning and teaching my four small group lessons required for my integrated Term III project! As previously described, our main assignment this "quarter" is to plan one lesson each for math, literacy, science and social studies, and then to teach and subsequently analyze it. In brief, these were my topics for my lessons:

• Math: Finding the "missing part" in an addition story problem
• Literacy: Using context clues to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word
• Science: Engineers are problem solvers, and you can be one, too!
• Social Studies: What types of environments do people live in? How are they similar/different?

Even as recently as a month ago, the idea of coming up with these topics and a plan for how to teach them seemed incredibly daunting. I can honestly say I'm surprised by how naturally these lessons emerged simply out of my continued presence in the classroom and my sense of what my students needed to know/would enjoy learning. My Classroom Mentor has been very flexible about allowing me to choose and teach these on my own, and I am very grateful to the input of my Penn professors who helped me clarify and modify my ideas.


Our instructors all emphasized that the focus in these lessons should be on planning thoughtfully, and reflecting purposefully on our experiences. Fortunately, we will not be graded on our actual teaching. I say fortunately, because I will be the first to admit, some of my lessons did not go the way I expected! From timing (there is never enough of it!), to student responses (kids really do "say the darndest things!"), my lessons were anything but smooth; however they will certainly provide me with extensive material to reflect on! Each instructor has provided a slightly different framework through which we are supposed to examine our lessons, and together I think they are encouraging us to develop long-term skills in self-reflection, evaluation, and formative assessment. For example, in math, we are examining our lesson with regards to the discourse, tasks, norms and tools present; in social studies, the types of questions we ask take precedence; and in literacy, we are examining the alignment of our lessons with classroom objectives and state standards. All of these aspects are integral to student learning, and yet they are challenging to uphold in the fast paced-high environment of a school classroom. As I begin to look back on the videos I took of myself teaching, I realize how far I have to go in developing my practice, and feel grateful for this year of student teaching as an opportunity to really get the hands-on experience that teaching requires.