Some Answers; More Questions
by Ariel Summers
When I began my field experience, I was understandably nervous. I didnít know what to expect or where to begin. I felt alot better because I know my co-operating teacher and knew he wouldnít let me make too big a fool out of myself. I also know he is an incredible teacher, department chair after teaching a few years in the middle school and now about three years in the high school. I knew Iíd learn alot from him. I was right.
One of the first impressions I received was that his class is fun. Students joke around with each other and with him. They laugh and smile and enjoy activities. I love the fact that his students look forward to his class. He treats them with respect, like young adults but not like children or prisoners. I have always known that humor will have to be part of my classroom if it is to be a place of growth and learning for myself or my students. What I have always about is that students would view me as a friend and not respect me or my authority over them. Sometimes a fun classroom can quickly become out of control. This is not a problem for my co-op, Mr. Eastman.
From the moment I stepped into the classroom, the students really accepted me. The were friendly and nice; they asked me questions about college. Mr. Eastman included me in class slowly, asking for my opinion or having me do the activities with the students. When it came time for me to teach a lesson to the sixth period class of thirty-some eleventh and twelfth graders, I really saw just how great of relationship Mr. Eastman has with his students, especially in terms of balancing fun with discipline. As he introduced me and told the students I would be teaching that day, he instructed them to act the same way for me that they do for him.
My lesson involved brainstorming characters and settings, then each student would choose a character, place it in a strange setting, and write a fictionalized journal entry showing the characterís thoughts, words, and actions while describing the setting or situation. When we began to brainstorm the characters and settings, the class became really animated. We got pretty loud, and kids were yelling out ideas and laughing. The characters and settings were incredible creative and funny. It was fabulous, exactly what I wanted. They were having fun, something I hadnít been able to accomplish. But what would happen when I handed out the two models and wanted the students to read them?
I shouldnít have worried. Mr. Eastman has established such a great rapport with these kids that the second I handed out the models, the mouths closed, and the eyes went to the papers. All the other students listened and read along as my four volunteers read from the models. The most impressive part of this behavior is that Mr. Eastman had left the room at the start of my lesson. They were behaving this way for me! Although I know that the behavioral routines Mr. Eastman had established were largely responsible for the kidsí behavior, I do believe that I effectively taught the lesson and kept their attention. I had also developed a good relationship with that class prior to teaching the lesson, which helped greatly.
A really great learning experience came from Mr. Eastman teaching my lesson to his second period class (the same course and level as the one I taught). It didnít go nearly as well. The students didnít really get into the brainstorming; their ideas were somewhat boring and unoriginal. Itís not as though the lesson had failed, but it had worried me that it might go the same way for me. When my lesson went as well as it did, it made me realize two really important points. One is that my lesson may have gone better when I taught it because it was my lesson. I knew where it was going and really had my heart in it. The second point is that every lesson really does depend on the students. The same lesson can go fabulously with one class and totally bomb with another. The second period class isnít as funny or outgoing as the sixth period class. I had almost tailored the lesson to the sixth period kids because I had gotten a feel for them, so the lesson worked best for them. This is a realization that I think will be invaluable in the future.
Another area in which I am beyond impressed with Mr. Eastman is how much work he does. As department chair, he has to deal with a million problems a day in addition to all of his regular responsibities as a teacher of six classes per day. As a lesson to me, he sent me home with the essays that resulted from my lesson, about sixty in all because I had taught the second part of my lesson, revising, to both the second and sixth period classes. Needless to say, I didnít finish the sixty-plus essays in one night. I had already learned to an extent from an earlier task how difficult it is to grade essays. It is such a subjective undertaking; how can writing be quantified. Both times I graded papers, I used scoring rubrics. Although this made alot more work for me, it also made it a little easier to score consistently and fairly. I was especially happy with the rubric I created for my essays. I think it really captured the goals I had for their writing.
What I may have learned most is that teaching never really gets any easier. Every year, a teacherís classroom is filled with new students that totally change the rules of the game. What worked before may very well fail miserably. The activities last yearís students loved may be repulsive to this yearís. Even different sections of the same class during the same day may respond totally differently to the same activity or lesson. Teaching doesnít happen in a vacuum. The teacher isnít the only person involved; well over a hundred students have to be considered in every decision. They are the variables, along with time of day, field trips, sporting events, absentees, boyfriends and girlfriends, abusive family members, the dreaded intercom, and a myriad of other people, events, and things, that really make every day of teaching different from the one before. Scary? A little. But at least Iíll never be bored.
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