Growing Pains

Wow! It's already March and I haven't done a second blog post. I have been reflecting on my experience enough to make me crazy, but not in the blog. I knew it would be difficult to get in the habit, but I guess that's the theme of this post: getting in the habit... and that's not just because I love the movie Sister Act II: Back in the Habit. No, I'm talking about setting up good routines and planning ahead n order to stay afloat. This has been challenging not only because of the amount of work I have to complete in addition to my internship, but because I still haven't completely mastered the whole planning-for-every-single-scenario-ever in my lessons. I still inevitably overlook one detail that can make or break the whole lesson (usually the latter).

I see five third grade classes for thirty minutes, once a week to teach them PowerPoint. This is the culminating activity in their research projects on the US regions. Each kid is doing a different state, and after weeks of prep (using the FINDS model for research), where they brainstormed things they would need to know about their state, learned about the FINDS model (I taught a few of these lessons after observing JU do it for other classes), and took notes using a handout which JU made, they were ready to learn PowerPoint. This is where I came in. The original schedule had one thirty minute session each week for four weeks, for the kids to complete the project. Because there is no teaching computer in the computer labs, the instruction had to be in the classroom, and then we had to transition over to the labs for work to get done. I figured I could teach for 10-15 minutes, and they could work for 10-15 minutes for the first couple of weeks and then they could have the full time in the lab the last two days. Now I know it is just not going to work out that way.

First, one of the four days  was used up for a really cool thing that JU set up for each class: each class has come (or will come) to the library and got to Skype with another class of elementary school kids from the US region they are studying. Neither side knew the state the others were in and so they had this fun question and answer session until they could guess each others states. The kids love it, the other schools love it, and the teachers love it. It's fun and puts the kids learning in the real world context.

But now we had three days (spread out over three weeks) to complete the project (I had seen this as a firm deadline, and I have been stressing out over it the whole time when in fact all we had to do was ask to have another day). I had planned for the kids to make and save three slides the first week,  four slides the next week, and four slides the next. Those of you who have taught children before, please try to remember I am going into this cold.

The problem started with the handouts. I didn't think I would need one. When I showed up at 11:30, and my first PPT lesson was at 1:30, JU set that straight. Lesson learned: handout is always better than no handout (I also had some weird hang-up about using a bunch of paper... it's allowed and encouraged in this context!). The first class got a weird and unhelpful handout that resembled a PowerPoint handbook. I realized after that lesson that what they really needed was a model handout, nothing more, nothing less. You have to be very straightforward, the students miss the nuances, and they do not assume what you do not explicitly tell them. The next classes got a much more simple and clear handout, and the lessons went relatively smoothly afterward. For the first week.

By the time the students were ready for their second week in the lab (the last class got to it last week), the problems really started -- and I'm just talking about with the way I planned the lesson to be, never mind having to deal with classroom management at the same time. The information on the slides were supposed to come directly from the notes they had already taken. It didn't even occur to me that they wouldn't have completed the notes. They were supposed to have done them before the first week in PowerPoint but the teachers had completely handed the reigns over in this project (a fact I was slow to realize) and they didn't know that this was the case. When they sat down at a computer on the second day, many of the kids had no information to put on their second round of slides because their notes were incomplete. I was unprepared for it, and we're still trying to get on track. For now, I will make it very simple (after watching JU teach the one class that meets when I'm not there on Thursday): goal 1: complete the slides you can. Goal 2: complete the notes. I will not hand out the final slide handout until they have completed these steps. They will need at least two more days in the lab to fully complete the project.

In some ways, this series of lessons is going just as well as I would expect. This is my first time really in the classroom and there's no way I could have planned ahead for some of this stuff without having lived through it. Still, the growing pains really suck and I don't think I'll see a lesson planned and performed perfectly in my time at FSUS. This project in particular has been a challenge in the set-up of the technology, and in the scheduling: my planning had to be in the confines of a larger project that I had no part in the planning for.

In addition to this project, we had our final meeting in the Middle School Book Club. Some people still hadn't finished the book by the end, but it didn't matter. We played a homemade version of the $50,000 Pyramid where I held up the categories behind someone head while the others tried to make them guess the category (they'll be things that run, things you crush, etc.). In our book (When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead), the main characters's mom goes on the real game show. some of the 8th grade girls forgot to come to the meeting, and they wrote me a nice letter requesting that we have another chance to play the game. I happily obliged: a wonderful time was had by all. That was an enjoyable experience after I gave myself permission to have fun with it.

I have also chaperoned a filed trip! One Friday, the fifth grade went to the Challenger Learning Center and got to be the pilots of their own mission, watch an IMAX movie and a planetarium presentation. I really enjoyed being with the kids in that context. I was proud when my group need to kill about 15 minutes and the kids organized a quiet game of heads-up seven-up at my suggestion. Some of the kids were bouncing off the walls by the end and a couple of boys were particularly rambunctious but I was neither surprised nor really bothered by this. Their teachers, who deal with this same behavior problems every week with them were a little more in tune to it than I think I was. This is a thing that has been happening a lot. A little talking is OK in my book, and I have somehow become accustomed to it so that I ignore it. That does not cut it when you need all hands on deck and learning... that's another post for another day.

My next post will cover my forthcoming lesson to sixth graders on MLA. Also, my next lesson to second graders on a topic of my choosing (we're reading the first chapter in Sideways Stories from Wayside School -- will it be too much text, too boring for them? I'm just going to try it and see, as JU agreed with a mischievous glint in her eye). Oh boy, now I'm thinking I should have moved from reading a picture book to a chapter book more gradually but we'll just. have. to. see. how. it. goes. I am also going to do a short lesson to Kindergarteners this week, so stay tuned.

Things I need to work on (still from before):
Being more deliberate in my word choice and clear in my instructions - part of that is thinking through what questions might arise
Being more attentive to the students' status as I'm teaching - are they following me?; am I calling on everyone equally?; am I shushing when I should be listening?
My pacing - I'm still focused on getting through the lesson foremost
Assessments - I wasn't required to take a course in assessments and it's something I'm definitely lacking

Things I am proud of myself for:
Attempting to relax and enjoy the experience.
Writing this blog post.

What Are We Doing Here?

So I'm basically starting this blog as a means of self-reflection in order to improve my skills as a teacher of youths. I consider myself an introspective person, able to look honestly at my self and dissect my private thoughts without lying to myself. When I feel that embarrassed tug, where I want to pull away from the truth that is lurking in the recesses of my mind, I only delve deeper and face it head on. I intend to be painfully honest with this blog, and this is the first in a series of posts which will catalog of my experiences at my internship, the last hurdle before I can truly call myself "librarian." I figured having the day off for Florida's "snow day" was the perfect formula for finally beginning this blog I've been thinking about for so long. Plus, I just took a Buzzfeed quiz that told me that the career I should actually have is writer, and the picture for that profession was Tina Fey so I basically had to.

"The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night." - Lewis Carroll

This is one of my favorite quotations, from one of my favorite poems, for which this blog is named. I think it fits what I've been feeling in my first few weeks in my internship at a school library. I can do everything I know to do, but I still have a lot to learn; there's still some important elements incubating before I can emerge victoriously from the egg of graduate school into the real world of being a school librarian who doesn't suck.

The Details
First, my internship is at a K-12 Charter school, chartered in part by my University's College of Education as a research "lab" school. I had been volunteering in this library for almost a year before my internship was secured, and  Jennifer Underhill, author of the Three Ring Library Blog, is my mentor and guide through all of this. I shall call her JU from now on. I couldn't have asked for a better mentor than JU: I admire her ability to get. things. done. She's got gumption (I've always wanted people to say that of me), and she challenges me daily. I have been creating displays, cataloging, learning some nitty-gritty inner-workings stuff, teaching, observing, and running the weekly Middle School Book Club.

This week was my fourth week interning (Monday afternoons, and all day Tuesday and Wednesday), and so JU filled out my first evaluation form. We went over it together, and there wasn't anything that I disagreed with. We both agreed that I needed to work on the teaching aspect of things. Now, last Friday I taught a whole days worth (actually, just five forty-five minute class periods) on the merits of Creative Commons and Public Domain resources for the middle and high school students' video productions; and after watching JU teach a lesson on the FINDS research model and guiding them through a KWHL chart on Monday, I tried my hand at the same lesson for third graders. We intended that I would be filmed teaching it again today, but alas, school was cancelled due to inclement weather.

I have also started observing classroom teachers, especially paying attention to their classroom management. I have learned that everyone's a little different but they all are successful because they have this underlying sense of purpose to the day. They want the kids to know this stuff, so they make sure it gets taught. Some teachers have gimmicks, some have been at it so long that they can simply give "the look" to set things right. Most of them seem to found their classroom management on having the respect of their kids. Maybe it comes naturally through familiarity but I've been told numerous times that you can't be insincere with your students, and that seems to be true of these teachers, especially as the kids mature.

Things I need to work on:
Being more deliberate in my word choice - part of that is thinking through what questions might arise
Being more attentive to the students' status as I'm teaching - are they following me?; am I calling on everyone equally?; am I shushing when I should be listening?
My pacing - I'm still focused on getting through the lesson foremost
Assessments - I wasn't required to take a course in assessments and it's something I'm definitely lacking

Things I am proud of myself for:
Being able to teach without my notes because I know what I'm talking about.
My ideas.
Writing this blog post.
That I still want to do this even though it's not going to be easy. Yeah, I just said that and I mean it.


I leave you with this quote from Jake the dog: "Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something."