Spring Break Came Just in Time

I had heard stories and myths about the last week before Spring Break from other teachers and my week was comparably crazy. My TM and I got the formal observations “out of the way” early in the week because there was going to be so much going on. Monday was a normal day of classes, Tuesday was the deadline for report cards and a lockdown drill- as well as my midterm due date, Wednesday and Thursday were speech days, aka assessment bonanza for me, and Friday was wrap up and St. Patrick’s Day Spirit Day. I am exhausted.

            A number of interesting things happened that made an impact on my teaching. The first was the final processing of my midterm. I found that writing the midterm was trickier than writing the final for 490 as I knew I needed to show progress in my examples of certification ready. I also felt a little pressured to have most of my goal areas certification ready as I really only have 3 weeks left after spring break. On that note, I am already thinking about the final as I need to start writing it shortly after spring break. Overall, the process was great as it helped myself and mentors narrow down exactly what I need to work on as I near the end of this journey.

            On Friday last week, my TM and other mentors received an email from a parent notifying us that she and her husband had recently separated. She was explaining why her daughter had been missing more school than usual as it was obviously making an impact on the family and wanted us to be aware in case we were noticing a difference in her demeanor at school- which we had. This came as a sort of relief as this student who was normally bubbly and bright had seemed quite depressed recently. The parent arranged a meeting with all of us and this took place on Thursday. On Wednesday, the student performed her speech, which was on the health risks of smoking, and in her conclusion added some very personal information that her dad has been recently diagnosed with cancer that is in four different places in his body. She also mentioned that the smoking “makes him a little crazy.” This didn't alarm the students because we had covered smoking in our addictive substances unit but my TM and I exchanged looks. When the meeting came around on Thursday the parent started with saying she knew that we know most of the story now because of this speech. It turned out that the student was being very secretive in her school work and had not shared her speech topic with her mother, who then was bombarded with questions from other parents as the kids had gone home and said “guess what’s wrong with ____’s dad!” The parent then explained that the dad had left about a month ago and then came back and threw a lot of emotional information at the whole family- very detailed- and the kids were very affected, understandably. The mother asked me if she could see a copy of the speech as her daughter had not shown it to her. Overall, this situation was very humbling because it showed me how involved we are, as teachers, in students’ lives. This girl had not been comfortable expressing her feelings to her mother but felt that the classroom was a safe outlet to let the pressure off. She did it in a respectful manner as it made her speech very powerful and the mother respected it as well, just wanted to be informed. As I move forward from this, I now have a very strong relationship with the mother as well as the student.

           

The last big thing from this week was our St. Patrick’s Day celebration. I had contacted the Leadership team teacher whose students are in charge of making announcements on the PA system and the director of the student council to get the whole school involved in a spirit day. Andrew then had students make posters for the halls in his fine arts class and I designed a scavenger hunt for the afternoon. We ended up combining schedules for the afternoon so all of our grade 6’s played a grade wide capture the flag game- it was awesome! It all went off pretty well, but just added to my exhaustion! Spring Break came up just in time!

Report Cards

I look back on my daily reflections for this week and they are all written in red pen because that was my life this week. Marking. Endless marking. I can easily say that this was my most frustrating week, both on the teaching end of things as well as the background noise. I challenged my students with activities they had never done before and they met my expectations. It was fantastic. The frustration came in when I turned to my marking, gave them feedback and the number of students who wanted to settle with the bare minimum, not take my suggestions and fix their work for a better grade. I need to think of a new incentive system over Spring Break as this is part of my teaching philosophy; student based learning. I have a lot of faith in this group of kids, I know they will be malleable and rise to the challenges I give them.

The other source of frustration this week was realizing that my TM and I had not communicated clearly the expectations we had for one another when it comes to assessment. I had done exactly what my professors had said; plan the units, explain the units (assessments included), get feedback, make changes and start teaching. All of that went reasonably well yet when it came to start inputting marks for report cards, my mentor was expecting more assessments. I was flustered as I did have several assessment FOR’s all finished but I thought she was aware that the majority of my big assessment OF’s wouldn’t be until the week before spring break, too late for the Term 2 report cards. To be flexible, I turned some of the assessment FOR’s into OF’s for the sake of marks but my mentor was expecting more. By the end of the week, on our design and assessment day, we figured it all out and are on somewhat on the same page but it shouldn’t have been needed as we should have communicated the expectations clearer to each other.

The report card process itself has been interesting. The program that my mentor uses is amazing and very user friendly. You input all the marks by subject and can weigh the participation, assignments, projects and tests all however you want and the program does all the math for you. The other really helpful thing is you input all of the comments into a comment bank with prompts such as “Fname” and “he/she” and when you click to add that particular comment to a particular student, it inserts their name automatically. At first I thought that this was lazy and it didn’t allow for the comments to be personalized or fitting to a particular student but as you add them in, it still allows you to review and change as you go, making it flow. I understand now why my mentor wanted me to do all 90 students as it does make sense using the program. On our design and assessment day, we sat down and wrote about 8 general comments together and discussed which students would need more specific ones. I still have to do a lot more work on my own, more than I think I am expected to do in the eyes of the university, but I am now feeling a lot more supported by my TM in this and have accepted it.

Next week is going to fly by. Monday is the absolute last day for students to hand in missing assignments, finish rehearsing their speeches and Wednesday-Friday is assessing the speeches. I have also began organizing a school wide spirit day for St. Patrick’s day. It is not taking a lot of planning on my part, just talking to the right teachers in regards to the student council and leadership teams to then promote it from there. It will be a nice way to end the week before spring break and gives me more evidence for goal 14, school culture and community. 

Piles and Piles of Marking

This was a very busy week at my school. The end of the Olympic Games brought a sense of urgency into the classroom. I am now more than halfway through all of my units which make assessments the thing I am constantly thinking about. The pile of novel study duo tangs I have in my office is also a nice reminder of what I need to accomplish. This week my students concentrated most of their efforts of putting their speech together. I gave them two full blocks in the library to begin typing and find any other information they need for their speeches and they are expected to have their rough draft done for Tuesday.

            The speeches have caused me a lot of stress. This is the unit that in the beginning, my mentor wanted to teach herself but the timing of my full immersion would not allow for that. She gave me the resource she uses to supplement the unit and sent me on my way. It was later, from one of the grade 7 teachers who is also doing the unit, that I found out that there is a package from the district for teachers as the final assessment of this unit is a district competition. I was a little miffed that my mentor did not even mention this to me and when I asked her if I could have a copy it took over a week and more than three reminders for her to eventually open the bottom drawer of her desk and pull it out (yes I am still a little bitter). I put together the unit and showed it to my mentor, got approval and began teaching. As it has previously been discussed, I have ended up not teaching from my planned units but more from a week by week basis as everything changes. Each week I then present my ideas for the week, with the specific worksheets and direction and my mentor and I discuss it. At first this was going well as I was heavily leaning on the resource she gave me but it then turned differently when I started to add in my own direction I wanted to take this unit. Understandably she disagreed with some, had great insight into why some would work and others not and then other times specifically requested me to “stay on track” with the resource. This frustrated me because it doesn’t feel like I am teaching my unit, or even me teaching her plans. It feels like she is teaching it but I am the puppet. I have stood up for myself a number of times so I do feel that I am still doing the work but it hasn’t been without struggle. I am confident that the outcome of this unit will be successful, but because there are deadlines involved, I just feel a little rushed.

            I view this week as successful. Monday I had a fabulous observation with the Vice Principal and he gave me really good suggestions to improve. Friday was our Quebec Winter Carnival and it was so much fun. I led a craft where the students learnt about Bonhomme and his origin in the Carnival and then made a marshmallow version of the loveable snowman. They then were given hot chocolate in my room and we played Canadian themed music and had a great time. This was also a challenge to my classroom management as I brought the entire middle school through my craft…180 students. Overall, I am counting this week as a win as I was pushed in many different ways and still came out standing.