What teachers make

I received this via e-mail from my student teaching supervisor (the one who observes throughout the semester). I thought I would share it with you guys because it explains exactly why I became a teacher! Enjoy!

What A Teacher Makes............

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"

To stress his point he said to another guest; "You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?"

Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began...)

"Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.

I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor winner.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 without an I-Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.

You want to know what I make? (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table)

I make kids wonder.

I make them question.

I make them apologize and mean it.

I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.

I teach them to write and then I make them write. Keyboarding isn't everything.

I make them read, read, read.

I make them show all their work in math. They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.
I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know about English while preserving their unique cultural identity.

I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.
I make my students stand, placing their hand over their heart to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, because we live in the United States of America .

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.

(Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)

Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money isn't everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant. "You want to know what I make?

I MAKE A DIFFERENCE. What do you make?

It's Spring Break so Time to Update!

It's been about two weeks since my last update (sorry it's been so long). The first grade classroom is keeping me very busy, along with trying to complete my teaching portfolio. My first grade placement, as you know, started out a little rocky and didn't really seem to be improving much as the weeks went on. I don't look forward to school as much as I did when I was in the 3rd grade classroom. It's not the students that I don't enjoy. The school is just a completely different environment than my first school. It is hard to feel welcomed there sometimes, and I don't always feel like part of the team. I often have been used as the copy girl, the person who will climb on tables to hang artwork from the ceiling, and a janitor. This was quite frustrating because at my first placement I was treated as an equal that could always contribute new ideas to the third grade team. They enjoyed my knowledge, as I enjoyed theirs. Now, I am afraid to contribute new ideas that I learned at Luther because I get the vibe that my soon-to-be-retired teacher doesn't really want to see anything new. If she does it her way then things get done a lot quicker rather than having me try something new, or learn how to do something she normally does everyday. This didn't make me feel welcomed in the classroom at all.

This last week was a three day week because we had parent-teacher conferences and the start of Spring Break. This week was much better than the previous weeks. I was able to teach all of the language arts lessons Monday-Wednesday. It was fun to teach these lessons because they didn't follow the textbook curriculum. We decided to theme each day with a topic instead of cramming a 5 day literacy unit into 3 days.

The first day we talked about lions because it is March and we had talked about March coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion. The students loved learning about lions and telling me all of the information they already knew about them.
The second day we focused on Spring. We read stories about spring and wrote descriptions about spring using our senses. To prompt the students descriptive vocabulary, we fingerpainted with chocolate pudding. Yes!, we are crazy! It was my teacher's idea but I thought it would be fun so I didn't oppose to it. It created a huge mess since we didn't have the correct paper and first graders with pudding is just asking for disaster. The students really enjoyed it, though! Some were even hesitant to put their hands in the pudding because they didn't want to get dirty, they quickly got over that! The clean-up of this lesson was awful! All of the papers stuck to the tables when they dried because the pudding soaked through it. So, some students artwork ripped as we peeled them off the table and I had to scrub the tables to remove all of the pudding and paper. (My 'Art in the Elementary Classroom' professor would not have been impressed with my clean-up process!) The writing and paintings were hung in the hallway when the students. (As seen in the picture at the top of this blog post.)

The third day was focused on Clifford. This was also a huge hit with kids. We read books and did activities that talked about the plots of the stories. I was really impressed with the hard work the kids did this day. I paired students up to partner read books and fill out a worksheet together. The pairs were usually a low reader with a high reader. Some of the high readers usually throw a fit if they are paired with certain students but they did a wonderful job and worked very hard to help their peers read the books!

As I mentioned earlier, we had parent-teacher conferences for three days. Two of the days were at night after school from 4-8pm and then we had one full day this past Thursday from 7:30-4pm full of conferences. These were very exhausting days! A lot of preparation and work goes into these conferences. Each parent showed up for their scheduled time, so we had 24 conferences in all! I enjoyed meeting the parents because it gives some insight into the students. They share stories from home but you can also just see behaviors that are similar between the parents and children. Most of the parents are very involved in their child's learning at school and at home. They do whatever they can to help their child succeed in school. Many parents asked for book suggestions, what math activities can be used at home to help the child's math skills, and if the teacher needs any help during the day in the classroom. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there were a few parents that liked to give off the impression that they were doing extra things at home and making sure their child is staying on top of math homework and reading. We know it's not true because we never see a single math homework sheet return to school (and we make sure it makes it home) and the student can barely read a word longer than one syllable. It makes me so sad when the parent just doesn't care and their child is struggling a lot in school. We do all we can at school, but parents also have to keep an enriched home environment for the child. Trips to the library would more than enough for most of the students! There is homework help and free after school programs for students who need extra help. These programs help most students but not all, so parents really need to support their child's learning at home.

Conferences also brings to light some sad family situations including illness, divorce, poor financial situations, etc. It breaks my heart to hear that 6 and 7 year olds are having to deal with these kinds of things at such a young age. They don't really have the coping skills yet at this age to deal with any of these situations. The families seemed to be doing all they can to help their children make it through the tough situations, but it is still sad to see the kids go through it.

Needless to say, conferences were an eye-opening experience for me. I learned a lot about preparing for them and how to communicate with parents their child's accomplishments and your concerns for their child.

I've been busy, and will only be busy because as soon as my break is over in 1 week, I am full time teaching. I am excited for this because I'm just going to teach my way, not my teacher's way! I know I have good ideas and can carry them out, so I'm going to prove to my teacher that I can do what she sometimes appears to think that I can't do!

Thank you for all your support throughout this semester and especially the last few weeks!
I'm going to relax and enjoy my spring break in Madison with Justin and then get back to work so I can end this placement on a high note!
Dana

It's been a while!

It has been a few weeks since I've updated you on my adventures in first grade! It has been quite interesting and challenging to say the least.

Let's start back at the first week again. It was an overwhelming week because 1st grade is such a change from 3rd grade! I felt lost the every day just trying to get my bearings and follow along with the schedule and the content. I was still uneasy about the whole thing because I knew that a previous Luther student teacher had taught there earlier in the year. To make matters worse, this student teacher showed up on Wednesday morning. The students were very excited to see her and she worked with a few of them on their reading, while I taped number charts to students' desks. Not really my idea of fair learning. This really upset me because she was taking away from the relationship I was trying to build with the students and staff. This was my last day at school that week since I had to go to seminars at Luther for Thursday and Friday. I discussed this issue with a few people at Luther and brought it up with my cooperating teacher the following Monday. She said she could tell it was awkward for me. Great! But then she said that she did tell her that she could come whenever she wanted to help the students with reading because they always need that...not so good! She just didn't seemed to worried about it.

Since then I've tried to move on from that. I've been trying to get into the swing of things but that has been hard considering the crazy schedule we have had the past couple weeks. Last week we had two morning filled with standardized testing in reading, along with math testing two days this week. We had projects to get ready for the Science and Learning Fair last Friday, which the students were really proud of. They had traced themselves on huge sheets of paper and then we glued cut-outs of organs and body parts that students colored on them. The students then stuffed these bodies and they were placed on their chairs at their desks for their parents to see that night. Unfortunately, only 7 out of the 24 students came that night. It's frustrating that it was on a Friday night because many families are busy and others can't get rides. It was a long day at school (almost 12 hours) so it would have been nice to have more students show up. However, that is the reality of teaching and after-school events.

The other day, the students almost made me cry when they were singing "God Bless the USA" for a fun activity between recess and gym. They had sang the song for their Veteran's Day program so they knew all the words. They had so much passion and were so proud of their singing. Watching and listening to them brought tears to my eyes.

I've learned that 1st grade, involves a lot of arts and crafts related to the seasons, holidays, and language arts. Almost everyday ends with some kind of art project. We've made leprechauns, shamrock collages, chicks in eggs, painted rainbows, Arthur's, riddles with pictures, and something else that I'm sure I'm missing. The students love the art projects and really need this at the end of the day because they can't think too much at the end of the day. Art is a good way to keep them occupied when they would otherwise run wild around the room.

1st grade has been a difficult adjustment and I'm trying my best to keep my chin up and be hopeful that it will get easier for me. I still feel lost in the curriculum and not really sure what the actual schedule is for the class. I am coming to think that there is no schedule for the first grade and it's just cram, cram, cram. This is frustrating but it is also teaching. I hope to have positive updates the next time I write!

Thanks for your support and hopefully I will update you sooner rather than later!
Dana