My Summative!

As the semester comes to a close, and the bittersweet finale of the Innovation Lab experience draws near, I wanted to be able to mention all of the major themes I found valuable and resonate most with me, and I think that I was able to do that with my concept map. In it, I basically thought over the entire experience this semester, from the first class in a windowless room in Horace Mann, to presenting my most valuable experiences to a room of fellow colleagues, professors, teachers, and administrators. This semester, to me, has been a massive progression and learning curve for me. Coming in, I was anxious about how we would function as a class, riding the bus every Thursday with Steve from RIC to Central Falls, and going out, I feel anxious that we will no longer do that (though I hope to maintain a relationship and a presence at the high school).

            One of my biggest and most profound changes this semester is developing and adapting a professional identity. While I am still changing, only having taught a few times in a real classroom, I feel like through observing and having a sort of constant mentor-like role from those involved with the Innovation Lab has really changed my perspective on teaching. I had a lot of trouble coming in developing an essential question, and it even took me a month or two into the semester to figure out what that was, mostly because I was still surveying who I wanted to be as a teacher. Observing and adapting different parts of many teachers we observed has helped drastically with figuring that out, as well as debriefing and sorting through those observations with Dr. Horwitz, Josh, Kim, Dr. Gallo, my classmates, and the many others who helped along the way.

            Another big thing for me this semester was figuring out how to properly plan and manage for effective classrooms. Of course, I haven’t applied most of what we learned yet, but I feel comfortable talking, at least, about things like backward design, building scaffolds for students, gradual release, and managing a classroom positively. Working with the student panel helped in this aspect, because it reassured me that students want creative lessons, not just busywork. Students want to learn, and want to grow. Teachers need to recognize this and not fault students when behavior becomes a problem. As Vice Principal Silva said, “Every day is a new day.”

            Building holistic educational relationships was another aspect of this course I found resonates with me. I’ve spent so much time in the education program learning pedagogy, issues in modern education, and lesson planning, that I hadn’t given much thought to building relationships with parents yet. It’s funny, because the parent-teacher relationship is such an integral part of every student’s life, and I honestly hadn’t given it one thought until we met and talked with parents. That was awesome, because now I know that parents want the same things we want: great lesson plans, and passion for educating their children.

            As for my most valuable experiences this semester, three come to mind. The student panel was probably my favorite portion of the entire course, and I wish we had gotten to speak with them for much longer than we did. They spoke so eloquently about what they wanted in a teacher; what they expected for us in regards to preparation and dedication. I felt inspired and energized by their enthusiasm for learning. Secondly, I loved the talk we had with Troy about developing relationships with students. Finding things in common with students to develop relationships, recognizing that students have bad days and that you need to move past them, and just overall having an awesome outlook on what can sometimes devolve into an authority game between teacher and student. Lastly, my third, but not last valuable experience was just walking into the classroom as the teacher for the first time at Central Falls. I felt great; energized by the experience of teaching real, living students who say “good morning” to me and want to learn from me. I can’t wait to teach again.

            As a conclusion, I’d like to thank Dr. Horwitz and Dr. Gallo for engineering the partnership between RIC and Central Falls and say that I am proud to have been part of the first class of students to experience it. I also want to thank Josh, Kim, all the teachers who let us observe their classes, and the students at Central Falls who served as awesome learning experiences in their own way and inspired me to become the best teacher I can.

Breaking Down Parent/Teacher Barriers

       To be perfectly honest, when it comes to teaching, parents make me a lot more nervous than students. As a coach, I've gotten a fair amount of experience cooperating and talking with parents, and it has been mostly positive. Its the two or three percent of parents who want things that simply don't make much sense that I'm worried about. This is in the realm of sports but is an example of a foundational disagreement I've had with a parent that couldn't be resolved with a compromise: I had a student who played for my basketball team who had suffered a concussion. As required by the school I coach for, I have taken extensive concussion training and protocol, and I knew that this student absolutely had to be cleared by a medical professional before I could even let him practice, never mind play in a game. However, this parent was vehement that the student get into the game, and stormed off with their child in tow in the middle of a game when I told them that it was not an option, and wasn't up for debate. I didn't see that student again.

        Overall, however, I think that once you make an obvious effort to connect with parents, the relationships that ensue are 99% positive. As Principal J said, teaching is not a job, it's a lifestyle, which means that you need to develop a communal relationship with parents, students and teachers alike. Serving as a guide to the Annenberg protocol yesterday for the parents went a long way for me to demystify the aura of parents as some sort of roadblock to the student's success. Parents just want their children to get the best possible education, just like you do. It was also rewarding to hear what these particular parents wanted in an ideal teacher, because while their opinions were different, they were also very similar. Inclusion, excellent lessons, and a drive to develop great relationships with every child is at the top of their lists, as I'm sure it is for most parents. I also think a good idea to develop better relationships with parents and students would be to set a time every week where you go to a local coffee shop or something and let parents and students know that if they want to talk about anything in a discreet and non-school setting that I'm there. I suppose I'll determine once I am a real teacher if I actually have time for that.

In Anticipation of Teaching

         At this point in the semester, I am itching to finally get in front of the class and teach, rather than observe from the sidelines. While I have enjoyed being able to play the complacent role of observer rather than classroom leader, and definitely have gained a lot of knowledge just from watching students learn, at the end of the day, I want to teach. There have been so many little things I've picked up on and noted this semester that I am jot down and use in practicum, student teaching, and beyond, and I really want to just try them out on my own and see how it works. While I am confident in my ability to deliver a high-quality lesson, I am also a little bit nervous. In anticipation of becoming a social studies teacher, I've taken mostly American History, economics, and political science courses at RIC, and now have signed on to teach a course that I have virtually no knowledge of, History of Technology. This prospect seems a little worrisome, but after doing hours of observation in that class, I've gained confidence that I can develop two lessons that succeed in both student learning and developing my own identity as a teacher.

          As Nate wrote in his blog earlier this week, the best way to succeed at something is to embrace the discomfort that comes with not being awesome at it immediately. Throughout my experience coaching sports, I've definitely noticed that when some of the kids on my teams can't get through a drill perfectly the first time, they shut down and don't want to build on their first failures to get better the second time. As future teachers, we do need to be able to embrace the discomfort that comes with teaching our first lessons in front of real students and reflect upon that experience afterwards. That is the way to solidify and internalize what went well, and to weed out the things that didn't go so well. Maybe you didn't plan enough material to cover the amount of time in the period, or a question you asked fell flat when you tried to turn it into discussion; these things are going to happen to every teacher, every week. I do hold high expectations for myself in delivering my lessons, but at the same time, I know that they will not be absolutely perfect, and that's okay. I will learn from my discomfort the first time and create a positive experience out of it.