Step 20: Advice from professionals

Tonight a panel of generous local principals visited our seminar class to speak about the qualities that they look for when hiring teachers, the things we should consider when seeking a school to work in, as well as other advice for new teachers. Although every conversation that revolves around the job search makes my stomach flip and turn with nerves, I also was encouraged and inspired by their words of advice. As all conversations around being a first year teacher go, this one largely centered around how hard the job is. Much of their advice was about the importance of self-care: "Pay attention to your triggers. Learn to recognize and moderate your responses to them," and "find some time for yourself" they encouraged us. "Be vocal about the support you need, reach out and don't wait until things pile up and you feel like you are drowning." Along with this "real talk," however, they also reminded me why the job is worth the struggle. "You must not forget how powerful you are...you shape children's lives," one said. These are the types of conversations that I hope to check back in with as I begin this challenging career and particularly the rocky first year (or more). I feel lucky to have mentors and classmates to turn to already for support and motivation in tough times, as well as inspiration and celebration in the good moments, too!

Step 19: Understanding misunderstandings

This month, my third grade students are exploring multiplication and division, and, in the midst of memorizing their basic facts, we are also working on the order of operations. Today, while reviewing parentheses, I noticed several students stuck on the following question: 

29-(10x2) = ?

Of course, you might realize that these parentheses are unnecessary given the order of operations, however they do not yet know this, and, until the introduction of parentheses, they simply approached equations left to right. They are coming to understand now, however, that parentheses mean that you do that operation first, so most looked at this question and found the 20; however, many then got stuck. "Ms. Rachel," they said, "this isn't possible! We can't do 20-29 that doesn't work" (they don't know anything about negatives yet). I was confused why so many of them were switching these numbers, something I had never seen them struggle with in subtraction previously. But then one student explained to me, "the number from the parentheses comes first," and I got it; we had told them that what happened in the parentheses came first, and they extended that beyond the initial operation to reverse the rest of the problem. 

I bring up this moment, because it really stood out to me as an example of a misconception that makes COMPLETE sense, but does not even occur to those of us who already understand a concept. Until my student talked me through it, I had no idea why they were switching things around, and therefore did not know what part of the procedure to re-teach. I believe that the accumulation of moments like these will make me a better teacher, such that I can guard against them (or at least know what to look for) in the future. It is so impressive to me when my Classroom Mentor can anticipate these challenges that students often have, and address them before they get confused or frustrated and I am grateful for a year of student teaching to begin to build up these experiences such that I, too, can begin to do this for my students. 

Step 18: Lesson planning

Looking at school calendars, it's easy to assume that teachers (like students) have a remarkable number of days off. On this eve of President's Day, however, let me tell you - tomorrow will be no vacation day. Instead, I plan to spend it lesson planning. Currently I am working on both immediate lessons that I will teach this week (two days of math, a literature circle, and possibly a day of social studies), but also looking ahead to my unit plan for what is called our "two week takeover". During that time, we are expected to not only fully lead the class for two weeks, but also to teach a unit of our own design (more on this in another post). Whether adjusting a lesson that my mentor teacher has previously created, or coming up with them on my own, I am beginning to get into a more natural habit of focusing on objectives, assessment, and then activities. This "backward planning" is proving to be valuable in ways I did not initially imagine. In particular, this style of planning has really helped me to focus on the main goal of my lesson such that, when (inevitably) things do not go exactly according to my plan in class and time flies by too quickly, or I get off track temporarily, I can double back to the objective to make sure that at least that came across clearly. For example, I recently led a math lesson on quadrangles during which I easily could have gotten lost in the weeds discussing the vocabulary of each multi-sided figure. However, I had already established, with the help of my CM, that the most important takeaway for the students was that these shapes can appear in many different forms, but that they can be identified by the number of sides and angles that they have and named by their points. During the lesson, we had some fun playing with shapes and their names (rhombus, parallelogram, etc.), but I made sure to bring it back to these main takeaways such that the vocabulary was not the focus.

Another goal of this style of lesson planning is to avoid what I believe is a stereotypically elementary lesson style of "activity-based" learning. That is, "today we cut out snowflakes, because it's winter...oh and maybe they were also practicing symmetry." This is not to say that students shouldn't get to do fun activities to supplement their learning; however, it is essential that the objective drives the activity, not vice versa. I think I'm becoming better at this process, but gosh it sure takes a lot of time! I can't imagine what it is going to be like to plan for an entire year!

Step 17: Roses, thorns, and buds

Although I have only been training as an elementary school teacher for a short amount of time, I have long been a fan of many of the group games and activities that many associate with the profession. Among my favorites, are "warm fuzzies" (yes, you really can spend time just saying nice things about people), and "roses, thorns, and buds." The latter is a version of "highs and lows" that I think positively provides space to reflect, but also to look forward to what is still to come. At the beginning of this week of student teaching and classes, I'm going to spend some time sharing with you the rose (highlight), thorn (low point), and bud (something I am looking forward to) on my mind.

Rose: I LOVE reading aloud to my kids. I think sharing a story is simultaneously a knowledge-building and community-building activity as well as just calming and fun for everyone. I plan to build a chapter book read-aloud into my classroom's schedule regularly, and I particularly like the idea of it as a way to re-group after lunch recess. In my current class, we do read-aloud once or twice a week, including before lunch on Mondays and my Classroom Mentor has been incredibly generous in handing this over to me! The 30 minutes that I get to spend with the book and the kids is frequently a highlight for me, and today was no different! My students today got particularly excited about making predictions about the story and the direction it was heading.

Thorn: I made a mistake today, and worst of all, rather than just making me look stupid (acceptable, sometimes),  it actually made one of my students feel incompetent (NEVER acceptable). What happened was, I planned a number talk for my third graders that began with two, multi-digit addition problems as we have been doing for the past few number talks. The students have been really impressing me with the strategies they share as well as the way that they listen to and build off of their classmates' strategies, and I thought that it might be time to throw in a subtraction problem. I did this, however, without floating the idea by my Classroom Mentor (the "real" teacher in the room), who knows the kids' grasp of subtraction much better than I do. The question did not completely flop - in fact, several students articulated great strategies for solving a subtraction question in their heads; however, I found myself unprepared for clarifying a complete misunderstanding of one student. As I tried, and sought other students' support in helping her out, the whole thing stretched far too long. In the end I needed to wrap it up without this student "getting it". I tried to avoid leaving her with a feeling of hopelessness by saying that we would work more on it and that she would share her solution next time; however I hate that she had to feel under the spotlight for being "wrong", and that the whole lesson dragged on so long that the other students, who were previously engaged, completely lost interest. I believe this flop today demonstrates to me the need to not only plan thoughtfully and carefully, but also to manage time well, too.

Bud: My school has Friday, as well as Monday, off for their "mid-winter break" this weekend, so this Thursday will be our class' Valentines Day celebration. Not only does this mean that I get to try my hand at a pink and red recipe, or two, but best of all IT'S PAJAMA DAY!!!!! I have not had one of these for years, and am so excited I even ordered myself a new pair of PJ's for the occasion! From group bonding games to snacks, crafts, and celebrations, I LOVE elementary school and keep finding many reasons that confirm my choice to pursue this career!

Step 16: The hunt

The topic of job hunting has been at the forefront of my mind this week; so, since I assume you, too, hope to someday find a teaching job, I'll fill you in on the ways that I have been beginning to pursue next steps with help from the Teacher Education Program.

My plans for next year are somewhat complicated right now based on personal arrangements that will be up in the air for another month or so. That said, I am starting to feel the pressure to at least start to polish my resume, begin applications, and network like crazy! On Tuesday, a representative from the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) visited our cohort to present on their application process for new teachers. While my classmates have aspirations across the country, the majority hope to stay here in Philadelphia, and many plan to apply to the district. It was really helpful to put a face to one of the readers in an otherwise intimidating process, and it was encouraging to hear that the District desires to move up the hiring timeline to secure new teachers sooner than they have in the past. SDP operates through a process called "site selection," in which the District screens applications and creates a list of eligible candidates; hiring is then turned over to principals to fill their own schools' openings. From our end, this means that we first must be "approved" by the district, and then convince individual principals that they want us on their teams. In order to facilitate connections between principals and new teachers, the District will host a variety of networking events, the first of which took place on Thursday.

While I am excited about pursuing work in the district, this week I also attended a hiring event for independent schools across the country. I have been grappling for a while with how the idea of working for a private school fits into my larger goal of improving the quality of education available to ALL students, even those whose families cannot pay for it. This spring, I believe that the private school that I am student teaching in is the best place for me to develop my own skills, such that I might be the best teacher for my students in the future. After this year, however, I believe I will still have a lot of learning to do, so I think that I am open to working in any environment where I can be most successful as I work through the multitude of struggles faced by novice teachers. Anyhow, I digress. On Saturday, I had the opportunity to speak with school leaders about my own desires as well as training as a teacher. I was pleased to realize that the curriculum and methods that I have been exposed to in both my student teaching and Penn classes were extremely relevant to what they were looking for. From Lucy Caulkins' Readers' and Writers' Workshop, to Guided Reading and Everyday Math, I was able to describe my own experiences with the programs that they use, and set myself apart as a prepared applicant as a result!

While I still have a long way to go to finding a job, this week did give me confidence that the program is setting me up well for the search. And as a first (necessary) step, I'm happy to report that I passed my credentialing test on Friday, too!

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.