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Roots Before Branches

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And so begins the trials and tribulations of student teaching.  I may be exhausted, but I will reflect here....

Ok I am tired.  Writing lesson plans and being creative was like pulling teeth (simile!).  Writing that simile was easier than coming up with a lesson plan to teach both metaphors and similes.  Maybe it is because TPA teaching is over, maybe it is because we are almost done at my current placement, or maybe I used up all my creative energy is why my lessons this week don’t feel good.  However, I digress before I even start. 

                This week, I had a bit of a revelation with my teaching style and values.  I see the merits of asking higher lever questions.  Whys and Hows come out of my mouth more than I repeat directions.  However, that is a close race, closer than November’s polls.  While teaching a lesson this week, what I thought was a simple question was met with blank stares.  The kind of stares that can burn a hole in you.  The kind of stare where you ask yourself was I teaching a different class yesterday.  The answer is no.  I stumped them because I did not warm my students up.  I honestly do not remember the question I asked but it was asked too soon.  On Bloom’s taxonomy remembering is the base.  It is what supports all other types of learning.  We cannot analyze or apply unless we start by remembering.  However, the way I was asking my students questions I had skipped straight into the race and forgot to stretch and warm up.  So there I was fumbling with a torn ACL and no one to help me.  Then I rewound and realized that brisk 5 minute walk or a question to access prior knowledge would prevent that Bill Bruckner moment.  No it was not that embarrassing, more like missing a pop fly.  While I spit out metaphor after metaphor, my thesis this week is that to be able to start asking those higher level questions I value so much I need to start with remembering questions.  They are so important.  It gives all students a chance to access the information.  By accessing the remembering stage I can prime my students to use those higher level questions to enter their zone of proximal development.  Then when we move onto those “tougher” questions my students will first be clued into what we are actually discussing and then they can fire synapses to create new connections and make meaning.  Just like training for my 5K, I need to walk before jogging.  With my future classroom, we need to remember before we can analyze.  If we cannot remember how do we honestly know what we are discussing?

This is the lesson that never ends, it goes on and on my friends, some people started teaching it not knowing what to do.....

Salvador Dali's

The Persistence of Memory

And so begins the trials and tribulations of student teaching.  I may be exhausted, but I will reflect here....

Minus the fact I felt guilty having to be in school during Rosh Hashanah and not dipping apples in honey, this week went rather well.  My TPA lessons went almost according to plan.  They were by no means perfect, but I am not perfect.  There were valuable lessons this week, such as the value of a lesson that starts and ends during a continuous duration. 

                Due to the scattered broken schedule I have to deal with I often feel that my lessons stretch over days.  I actually don’t feel that I know that.  This week I had two lessons that should have taken 30-45 minutes, but it took days.  It was either a combination of over planning or yet another assembly to interrupt my class.  Its life, but I have to learn how to make a disjointed lesson seem seamless.  It is even harder when you do not like the lesson you have planned.  I understand I am not required to jump through hoops and pull out bunnies from hats, but when I write a good lesson I feel more prepared and confident when teaching it.  When something is good, it’s GOOD.  However, these said lessons felt like they sank faster than the Titanic.  The kids were taught the information; I just feel like I was not on my best game which made it hard for students to make meaningful gains and really grasp the material.  Some material built on prior knowledge, but it still required higher level thinking skills.  This has been a struggle.  I will say the bright side of having a lesson drag on for days (literal, not figurative)  is that I was able to try and fix what I thought was a horrible lesson into something moderately meaningful.  We can’t win them all.  I am surely not throwing in the towel ;-) but I use this as a learning opportunity how to make my future teaching practice tighter and stronger.