What do we Expect from our Expectations?

Online Reflection #5

Recently a student said to me, “Mrs. Michaud, your class is like an honor’s class!”

I wasn’t exactly sure right away if they meant that in a good or bad way. So, I asked a follow-up question, “what do you mean by that?”

“It’s hard sometimes and we move quickly,” they said.

My heart sank for a moment as now I interpreted their statement as a bad thing. The last thing I want is for my students to dread my class. I apologized to the student if they felt like I was rushing them and asked if there was any way I could help them or if they needed me to slow down.

To my surprise, they responded, “no, I like it!”

Through a bit more conversation I learned that they liked the challenge and were enjoying the pace and flow of the class. I will admit in those first moments of our conversation I was worried it meant that not only had I assessed them incorrectly but that my students were not enjoying Language Arts. Thankfully, I ended up relieved because not only through my daily assessments did I feel that my students were successful with the content and that they were progressing well, but it also meant that I was creating an environment that is conducive to learning and fosters their love of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

This conversation got me thinking and created a domino effect of events. After asking myself, do our students rise to our expectations, I recollected a reading in core 1 of our teaching program by Harry and Rosemary Wong, The First Days of School How to be an Effective Teacher. I had to reread the chapter, and this rejuvenated me a bit. Wong and Wong point out, “students tend to learn as little or as much as their teachers expect” (p 42), which is exactly what I am now seeing my students express to me, just not in those words. In turn, I looked up some blogs online and found one titled, Students Will Rise to the Level of Expectations, by Justin Bechtold that suggests watching the movie Stand and Deliver. I have not watched this movie yet so I can not vouch whether it is good or not, but I can say that his post provides a short clip of the film showing a meeting with admin and teachers discussing and reviewing the recommendations for accreditation as it appears they may be about to lose theirs. Through this small clip when a teacher points out students will rise to our expectations, I can say I will be watching it soon.

The point of this is not to toot my own horn, rather it is to point out that sometimes we get in this funk wondering if what we are doing is working and I think that’s totally normal. Reflection on these things are what keeps us on our toes and striving to better teachers. Especially at this point in the semester when things feel as if they are picking up all around us. I know our KPTP is due in almost a month, most of us are studying for our Praxis and PLT tests that are coming up, a lot of us are preparing for our assessments and wrapping up our KPTP units in addition to our own lives outside of school and school. My point here is to hang in there my fellow classmates and educators, or Edutators, if we stick with our group chat name. Ha! Know that you are making a difference and loved by many students, even some you think you’re not reaching. Just keep on keeping on and continue maintaining those positive and high expectations of your students. We’ve got this!

Ps. 77 days until graduation! 

Language Acquisition

Online Reflection #4

One of the aspects of student teaching I find to be of great value is when we are placed with mentor teachers that teach more than our content area. I have fellow English education colleagues that are placed with teachers that also teach theater, interventions, and I’m sure many more. In my case, my MT also teaches ESOL. These unique experiences allow us to explore other options and witness classroom dynamics in a different environment.  

We were recently assigned a reading in our methods class giving us an overview of language acquisition, which was beneficial for me as it revived some knowledge on ELL students I previously understood from another class but was much more pertinent now that I am currently working with ELL students. I witness on a daily basis, misunderstandings like that of the example used in our assigned reading where “fall events” in English translated to “fall down events” in Spanish. So, using instructional strategies like read alouds, visuals, modeling, gestures, graphic organizers, and think-pair-share are important for the success of our students. This got me thinking, while these are working and are beneficial tools to help us along the way, what about those students that verbally express their thoughts and ideas, but struggle with putting those thoughts in written form? For example, I have a student that speaks five languages and expresses themselves fairly well orally, but when the time comes to put those thoughts on paper, they struggle. For now, I have used sentence starters, and have taught them how to restate the question in their answer. This works for the most part, but when we begin working on the body of our paper, they get stuck again with no idea how to proceed. I have considered whether this student struggles with simply writing in English, but that does not seem to be the case as they spell decently and do well with sentence starters. It appears that while they can connect ideas orally, they just don’t see a way to put that on paper.

In search of answers, I found an article by Jennifer Gonzalez on Cult of Pedagogy titled, A Strength-Based Approach to Teaching English Language Learners. Reading her six tips made me think that this student perhaps needs a confidence boost. It’s a joy to talk with this student. They teach me new things every day, but perhaps I’m not pointing out their strengths enough. Working with what I know about this student I can deduce they want to do well in school and work hard to reach that goal. They critically think and connect to the content, but I think maybe they are focused on doing so well that they struggle with putting those thoughts on paper because they are trying to do it the way they think I want it.

So, this coming week, we will be discussing voice and word choice. While my students are writing, I will be conducting mini-conferences with each of them. My plan for this is to assess each student and make sure they understand their first language is an incredible asset, I will uncover their strengths, and highlight what they do well. 

Emotions

Genre Reflection #2

Stress because we still have loads of homework while also writing effective lesson plans and building relationships with the students that we will forever remember as our first class.

Timid as we burden mentor teachers and disrupt their classroom and space so that we can learn.

Uncomfortable because we are forced to step outside of our comfort zones on a daily basis.

Defeat when we were not as successful as we thought we would be with that lesson we worked diligently to design considering every student’s ability.

Envious of how easy our mentor teachers make teaching look and wonder if we will ever have it together like they do.

Nauseated due to the whirlwind of responsibilities and new information we process.

Tired like we have never felt before.

Tolerance as we learn first-hand that teaching requires flexibility.

Excited when we begin to find our groove because, at one point, we thought we’d never find it.

Amazed at the brilliance of our students in so many ways.

Composed because we are developing our own teaching styles and stepping into our roles.

Honored that WE have the BEST job in the world.

Encouraged by our fellow core members, teachers, and mentor teachers.

Realization that this is almost over, and we will be as ready as we can be to start our career where we will continue to learn and develop. 

Self-Care: A Temporary or Permanent Fix?

Online Reflection #3

I’m one of those people that always has something going on. I’m not only a married mother of three, but I am also a college student, student teacher, and a student assistant for my university. I am a lot of other things too, but I’m going to go with these as the key items that take up my time. It was brought to my attention in class a few weeks back that I don’t engage in self-care. I say, “brought to my attention”, because as I was traveling through my day-to-day life I hadn’t realized that I was taking care of everyone else and skipping over myself.

Having realized this, I decided it was important to evaluate why I do this. And the plain and simple answer is - guilt. The complex answer is – without trying to write a book to explain this –  that I have a need to be great at or try my hardest in every way possible at everything I do, and if I don’t work hard at all my responsibilities than I feel that I let down others involved. This, of course, creates guilt on so many levels. I feel guilty during idle time, so I work through that time instead. I feel guilty when I don’t reach my expectations - and let me tell you my expectations of myself are extremely high. I will say, I typically looked at this as a positive though, because, well, we’ve all heard the “shoot for the moon and you’ll land among the stars” saying.

As a child, my dad always told me, “if you try your best, your best is good enough”. Perhaps that’s why I feel the need to give my best at everything and take on the world. I also have a hard time saying no to opportunities that come my way because I’m an adult student who wants to explore and experience so many different things. I got a late start and maybe I want to get it all in now? I don’t know. But the fact is this backfires at times because then I’ve got so many things going on it’s hard to find a balance and I end up over-worked.

I find this to be the case for many teachers. We accept a ton of additional responsibilities as we love to and want to help, but we sacrifice our own sanity or peace in the process. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying we shouldn’t put ourselves out there. I love that as teachers we want to help and do all we can, but I think knowing when to say “when” is important. This is a fact, that was brought to my attention the other day by a valued mentor and I’m thankful for this advice. I think all teachers should hear it, remember it always, and adhere to it.

In search of answers, I found a blog titled, “Why It’s Hard for Teachers to Take Care of Themselves” by Jennifer Gonzalez. I look to her often for ideas, thoughts, and answers. If you don’t subscribe to her blog, I highly recommend it. Anyway, in this post, she speaks with Angela Watson who is practically an expert on how teachers spend their time. She outlines a few, of the many, reasons teachers exhaust themselves, and ways to combat this. What I found most interesting and perhaps the biggest reason I felt compelled to reflect on this more, was that we cannot simply rely on quick fixes to get us through. We need to treat self-care as a lifestyle change. Getting a massage every six months is not committing to the self-care we are not only entitled to but need. It’s nice but is only a temporary fix for the moment. One of the few options Watson suggests to make self-care a permanent fixture in our life, and possibly one of my favorites is to essentially condition yourself through the pairing of one action that is already a habit with a new one. So, for example, as soon as dinner is finished, you soak in a warm bath. As a mother of three, the option of soaking in the tub after dinner is not a viable option for now, but I will continue to reflect and decide on a pairing that works for me.

This weekend I did start a mental health journal (inspired by a picture I saw scrolling through Facebook one day) and a doodle page that is similar to a bullet journal. This is not only therapeutic for me because I am one who loves color coordinating calendars, organizing, and journaling, but I’m also using this to conduct a little research on my own about myself. What are common themes about the days I am stressed, feeling meh, or sad? With this information, I will be able to contribute more to my self-care by weeding out the things that do not contribute positively to my mental health, happiness, or productivity. I’m excited to see how this works out and encourage others to try it or something similar if you find yourself in a similar situation as myself.

Doodle "Things of November" Page

Mental Health Journal

I can report that so far, I’m loving the times I get to doodle on the “things of November” side. Even if just for five minutes, it’s satisfying and... all. for. me. I’ll have to report back in a couple of months how this journal turns out. 


Update: 

My oldest daughter was inspired by my journal and created her own. I'm sharing it here in case hers can inspire others as well.