Today I was being observed by my college supervisor, and she was able to witness me teaching the class of 40. I was giving a lesson on “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, and we had done “Tell Tale Heart” on Tuesday. The issue was that the history portion of this class was learning about slavery and the Civil War, and though Poe is from the same time period, he hardly fits. There’s usually the issue of “Where to put Poe?” because he was just so… different. Anyway, my plan was to go around the room with each student reading a stanza, and then after answering questions about it having the rest of the class read it again, each with one stanza. Sure, when I told them that everyone would be reading, the usual guys were immediately pushing out protests of “I’m not reading this,” or “You can’t make me read this,” but I let those go. One thing I’ve learned about this class in particular is that if you push too much against them, they’ll push back harder and with more force. So, I let them have their say, ignored them, just generally shushing the whole class which was getting chatty without speaking directly to the naysayers.
This apparently paid off, because when we went around the room, no one refused to read. Ones who had said “I’m not going to read” just read without a fight. They were quiet, but sure enough they read. I was worried that if one refused to read, it would become a revolt, but that (thankfully!) did not happen. I had given a worksheet to get the main points across, but another thing about this class is that they do NOT like to do their own interpreting. They are pushy and want the answers right away. If we were on a question and I was pulling for a student to answer, they would be quiet. Then, someone would yell out “So what do we write down?” This happens constantly with this class. It’s not just enough to discuss it, but I have to spoon-feed what they need to write down. This is the case mostly for this class because so many are at such a lower-level of understanding and reading, and unfortunately with a class of nearly 40, there’s not that much time for me as the teacher to go up to the ones who need spelling out. Despite this, I feel that the class went pretty well. Though I was being observed, it seemed that the way the students were behaving were the same as if it were any other teacher. I did need to give some notes I hadn’t planned on giving, because the students had asked why they were learning this if they were being given notes about slavery and now Poe, which, quite frankly, I had been expecting sooner or later. I was able to tie it in to what unit they had just studied recently, so I didn’t have to resort to “Because I said so.”
Once my observation was down, this class went to the art room, and boy did I encounter such a brat! This one girl always seemed to be kind of off-putting, but ever since one particular grade that shifted drastically with me.
Flashback: When I had given my art project for Thoreau, this student had passed hers back with just a pencil sketch of a modern-looking house (she had to illustrate Waldo’s House), with so-so quotes. There was no shading, and on the back she had written that it was in black-and-white because it was a dream sequence. First of all, what? Where did she get that idea? Secondly, it was obvious that there really wasn’t that much time put into it. It was given a 70, which my coop agreed was fair for the effort. The student didn’t seem to like that. She came up to me, asked why it was a 70, and when I tried explaining why as calmly and nicely as I could, she just walked away from me with a “whatever.”
The Present: Down in the art room, the students were sketching out what they would be doing for collages that applied to the topics that they wrote about for their research papers. Without actually gathering the pieces, they just needed to show us what their idea was going to be so we knew that they were planning it and had an idea of what to look for. I went up to this one girl, and asked her how her sketch was going. When I approached her, it was obvious that she had just been talking to the other kids at her table, and from the look she gave I was apparently “out of line”. Nicely, I asked her what her collage was of. The conversation that followed was frustrating and rude.
“A book.”
“A book of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your topic?”
“It’s right there.”
“Well, yes, Harriet Beecher Stowe. So, what about her?”
“She wrote a book.”
“Yes, I know, but what was it about?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t read it.”
(taking a deep breath) “I understand, but didn’t you do a research paper about it?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So what was it about?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t read it!”
(another deep breath) “But even without reading it, you must know what it’s about.”
“Well I don’t remember what I wrote about.”
(pause) “Slavery, right?”
“Yeah.”
(pointing) “So then maybe something about slavery would look good here.”
“Sure.”
“Is that going to be writing in the book?”
“What writing?”
“What you have written there.”
“Can’t you read? It says I have to find images of Harriet Beecher Stowe on the computer.”
(another deep breath) “Well, what exactly are you looking for? Besides just ‘images’.”
“I don’t know, I haven’t looked yet so I obviously don’t know what I’m looking for.”
(at that point I took another deep breath, and moved on to asking one of the other students at that same table what his collage was about)
Had my coop teacher been in the room (she was with the other group of students in the next classroom), I would have really liked to see what she would have said, because I wanted to make sure that, at all costs, I avoided making a scene.
My SAT class went well, however their Vocabulary Quizzes did not. I don’t know if they just felt like not putting effort in because they had been doing fairly well, though this week was tough. I don’t know if it was the words or what, but I hope that their grades will give them a good smack as if to say “Oh that’s right, these still count as grades.” However, I do get to read their Journal Entries which I always enjoy.
Also, I did get to talk to the woman who observed my SAT class for my new activity. She said that she had really enjoyed it and felt that it was creative and that it was pulled off with little confusion. The one bit of constructive criticism she had was one that she said all teachers have issues with, and that’s time. Sometimes, an activity that you think should take 15 minutes takes 5 for some students, but needs 20 for others. She suggested to always have something to do, and I did mention that students had been given the option to complete sections in their SAT book that we haven’t gotten to yet, though none of them have taken me up on that offer (though some need it!). That just got us both to the conversation of bringing a horse to water when you can’t force it to drink. It was nice to hear that the only comment was one that most teachers needed, and it was especially nice to hear her say that I had a great presence and was clear and concise with my directions. What a boost!
