Observation Posts...

“Anticipation”
Observation #1 – February 22, 2007

I always feel so good walking into Ms. A’s classroom because of the greeting I get from the students. Regardless of what they are doing, they always stop what they are doing and turn around to say “GOOD MORNING MS. RICHARDSON!” The feeling is so good and so different than going into the fifth grade classroom for Reading Bloc class…the greeting is non-existent and it’s more of a stare than a smile. The student’s in Ms. A’s class are young and excited about learning and today, kept asking when I would be coming back – gotta love it!
While observing the classroom today, I was reminded of how much I admire Ms. A and her ability to maintain a stable classroom environment. She rarely has problems with classroom management, as the students are used to routine and a system set in stone for everything, so there is no question about anything. Clear management is even more apparent from last semester, as students have had more time to get adjusted. Even with the loss of a student teacher to help with teaching and assisting, management is still not a problem. A lot of this has to do with Ms. A’s “no tolerance” kind of policy, and the many years of experience she has had as a teacher. I wonder how long it really takes to have this management thing under the belt.
Meeting with Ms. A after class kinda changed my mood from feeling so loved from the student anticipation to having us back. It’s so stressful to take six classes this semester and have to find five days to teach lessons that also work out with my partner’s class schedule! We weren’t quite sure what unit topic we were going to be assigned but tried to remain flexible with her schedule and how we would fit into things. We went into the meeting thinking we were going to be teaching about women’s studies but for some reason, it was changed to economics, which Ms. A didn’t seem to be a fan of assigning us to teach. I think this had to do with wariness about it being taught in a particular way for so long, and then having to allow us to come in to teach five of the lessons. I have to say, as the teacher, I might have felt the same way. If something has worked for so long, who really wants someone else coming in to change it? I hope we can impress her and come up with some great ideas – now its my turn to be filled with anticipation, but I can’t figure out if it’s a good or bad feeling?

“My Mother?”
Observation #2 – February 23, 2007

Today I paid a lot of attention to Ms. A and everything about how she runs her classroom, how she speaks, how she teaches, how she interacts with other people, and came to the conclusion that she reminds me of my mother in all elements, scary though eh? As if both the women don’t look almost alike, they are close to the same age, and have identical personality traits that make them so similar.
Ms. A is what you could call an “old school” kind of teacher. Her voice is stern yet strong and her students take her very seriously. She is hard on her students as well as with us and our planning, but in my opinion, it’s better to have someone tell you the truth so that you can grow from it. Ms. A doesn’t play around! My mom is the same kind of teacher, and well…the same kind of mother for that matter. Her students always complain about the difficulty in her assignments and grading and she is known around the school as one of the hardest professors. But what makes a better teacher anyway – someone who is easy and nice to you all the time and doesn’t make you work hard?...I think not. I would much rather have a teacher who is hard on me and makes me work hard and utilize the skills that I know I have, or else I would never know I have them! As long as the teacher uses the right methods and tone of voice, a little chastisement and stringent policies will never hurt anyone. On the rare occasion that Ms. A has a discipline problem, the student seems to know they are “in for it” because there is absolutely no violation of Ms. A’s policies! She has high expectations which I also like, because it holds them accountable and makes them responsible on many levels.
One thing that I noticed about the students today was a slight sense of what I like to call “jitterbug syndrome”. I’ve never been to the classroom on a Friday before and the students are old enough to know what Friday means – it’s the beginning of the weekend. The energy is high and in not necessarily a positive light by all means. Anticipation on this day was not excitement about seeing Ms. Richardson – the student’s already knew what time it was…


“It’s Almost Time!”
Observation #3 & Preassessment – March 1, 2007

Today I noticed some change in the classroom in regards to decorations. Ms. A’s classroom is very supportive and conducive to the topic being taught and the room has been set up to prepare for our economics unit! There are pictures and definitions and charts everywhere, the literacy support is amazing. She always has books on display that showcase the current topics as well for students to browse through. It makes me feel happy and confident to know how supported our unit will be. At the same time, I am nervous about not knowing what Ms. A is going to be teaching about economics that will coordinate with our lessons. I hope we don’t have a lot of overlap and I hope we can stay consistent.
After observing this morning, we did our preassessment and the students were of course “all abuzz” wanting to know why we were doing this and when would we be coming back. I have to amid the preassessment wasn’t as successful as I had hoped it would be. First, we didn’t have a written copy of the lesson and now I understand why we have so much practice with writing lessons! Also, I didn’t feel like we put as much effort and planning into it, as it only covered want and needs and that’s not all the economics encompasses…guess we should get to work on writing out each lesson! Lastly, when we showed pictures of different objects for students to decipher between which were wants and which were needs. I wish my partner and I would have communicated more on this one because a picture was shown of a car and of course hands shot up in the air to argue this one out. The truth is that the only “needs” we have are food, shelter, and clothing. I was reminded that cars are not things that every family has, and there are other means of getting around. Not all of my students will have the same experiences and “luxuries” that I might have had growing up and this shows up in the classroom. I also realized that I don’t know everything, and my students will be VERY quick to correct me…