Curriculum

In Early Career English Teachers in Action chapter four is all about curriculum. I’m assuming most people who are reading my blog know what a curriculum is but for those that don’t it is basically a set of plans for what a student will learn and how they will learn it.

In the introduction for this chapter Lindsay Ellis brings our attention to some pretty important points about how the curriculum system has changed in just a few short years.

The first point she mentions has to do with a school that didn’t have a set curriculum plan but rather just told the teachers what books to teach and let them teach them how they wanted to. I think there is both positives and negatives to this system. A positive is that it allows the teacher to be able to teach the way they want to and be more free and comfortable in the classroom. But a negative that could come out of it would be not knowing what to do. As a first year teacher with no other teachers experienced in what we are teaching I would be lost. I think it would be easier to teach the books better if teachers had experience in the books they are teaching. Even for new teachers being able to talk to other teachers and finding out what works and what doesn’t is huge when it comes to helping the students learn the material better.

Now a days in middle and high school teachers are seldom given a book and told to teach it. Like it was said in the book I read curriculum is seen as too important to be left to the hand of just one teacher. Today in high schools teachers gather together for meeting after meeting discussing what they are teaching and how they teach it. Unlike the old days where the teacher was able to teach a book the way he or she wanted. In high schools today administrators are more focused on testing and what is required for students to know by the time they finish that grade.

I don’t necessarily agree with that. I think we should be more focused on students and how they learn and what works for them to understand topics rather than putting all our focus in to test grades.

School Culture

In class after we read about school culture and filling out surveys about the school culture of our high schools I soon learned during discussion that my high school was very different than some of the other students in my class. Whereas some school may not let students voice their own opinions or want to hear the ideas they have for the school my high school was very different. The deans and principal encouraged student involvement even though like every other school we had those students who could care less and sat in the back of the classroom counting down the seconds till they could leave, the majority of the student population was extremely involved. Between sports, theater projects, or even clubs, the student body was very involved in everything. For example I myself was involved in three different sports ranging throughout the year and I was a part of ten or more student clubs and after school activities.

It was weird of me to hear students saying the opposite of what I experienced. Saying that their schools didn’t have much student involvement or clubs for students to participate in.

This chapter about school culture really opened my eyes to the differences between schools in different areas in the world. Some schools only care about the testing and the grades the students end up with, others fight problems about race and culture that are developing outside in the community around the school. And others such as ones in Africa that was mentioned in our book have a lot less than what we have here.

Learning about different school cultures really made me realize the difference that occurs in schools worldwide.

 

Student Behavior

In Chapter six of Early Career English Teachers in Action it talks all about student behavior and classroom management.

 http://www.adprima.com/managing.htm I absolutely love this website that I found a while back. It has helpful hints and tricks for new teachers, lesson planning, teaching methods and even classroom management. Under the classroom management tab on this website it gives new teacher’s tips on how to effectively manage a classroom and also how to manage students even when they miss behave. I think the tips on this website tie into the Student Behavior topic in chapter six.

This was by far my favorite chapter in this book. After reading the stories from the teachers I found a lot of advice that I could use in my career as a teacher.

In the first story called The Expectations by Adam Kennedy who is a middle school teacher, he states about half way through the first part of his story saying “we must be willing to meet them on their own terms”, I think this is a powerful statement for students wanting to become teacher to read. It shows how as teachers we can’t force student to learn the way we want and sometimes we have to change things to make sure every student understands and that sometimes that means meeting them half way. That really stuck out to me and I thought I was important to understand the concepts behind his meaning.

Along with the other stories these teachers put a huge emphasis on reaching out and connecting to students. Whether it is finding out what time of music they like or even movies and making connections through that. I think that giving up ten minuets during your night to listen to a couple songs or even watch a movie while grading your papers is well worth it if it helps you make a connection with students and keeping them engaged during class.

In the last story in this chapter Tracy Meinzer talks about how she had a student who refused to understand the importance to reading books. They student wouldn’t read anything during the silent reading time she gave them. So she took it upon her self to help this student understand. She found out his interests and went to the library to find a boy that would peek his interests and toward the end of the story she says that he sat silent during reading and actually read the book. This just shows that it is worth your time to find connections if it will help your students in the end.  

Teacher Identity

Before reading Early Career English Teachers in Action I never really thought about the different aspects that have to be put in to find a teacher identity. Honestly I never really thought about teacher identity at all. In Chapter 5 it talks all about finding your teacher identity within yourself and within others around you like other teachers, family, and even the students. I guess it makes sense now thinking about how different those all are.

The way you act with your fellow teachers would be completely different from the way you act around your students in and out of the classroom. https://ed.psu.edu/englishpds/inquiry/projects/yerkes04.htm this link is written by Krista Yerkes during her first year teaching and in she writes about how she found her teacher identity. During the paper she splits it up into different questions she was to answer. Two of the different questions are the difference between who Krista is and who Mrs. Yerkes is. Although it is the same person she is talking about they have to be separated and different when it comes to being a teacher. The way we interact with our friends and family is completely different than the way we should act with our students. Of course we can use personal stories to tie into what we are teaching but there are time when we have to realize our boundaries and what is an appropriate way to act in front of the students.

I liked reading the stories from chapter five, I think it was a good thing to read about new teachers and how they were on their first day and how they struggled with finding their identity. It was refreshing learning about how everyone isn’t perfect, and that some people do fail. But then other who don’t and make it past five plus years of teaching who have found what works for them and found their teacher identities.