My Musing

Three months ago I wrote about what I thought were my positives and weaknesses. I believe that I was on track with my observations. It is difficult to fully judge my teaching performance from this semester since the longest I spent in a classroom was a week. What I saw during that week was no surprise to me. It took a little bit for me to get into the flow of things but once I did it felt very natural. I was a little fortunate that the classes that I was helping with were very well behaved classes and they were pretty interested in being in the wood shop. That makes my position much easier. I was positive the entire week with the students and encouraged them to try and make their projects shine beyond the ordinary. They responded very well to my attitude and began to respect my opinions and suggestions. I am looking forward to my practicum session to have the opportunity to develop much better relationships with the school and the students. The daily visits nor the week long visit gave me a full assessment of my teaching styles but it gave me a pretty good idea. One of the weaknesses that I suggested I had is a lack of patience on some days. I did not have enough time in the school to have that patience tested. To combat a possible outburst or sngry behavior on my part, I just need to keep in mind that most of the time the students are trying to stay on task and busy. The ones that are not staying on task just a need a little direction. Some students you can show them the path and they will make their way down it, others will need help during most of the journey. Getting upset with someone will not only spoil my day, but theirs as well. During my practicum I am sure that there will be a day or two that will test me and I will have to keep an eye out for it and diffuse it as soon as possible. Overall I am not sure how much that I grew with my experiences this semester instead I received more confidence and reaffirmed that I kind of know what I am doing and that I could be good at this job if I put in the effort. The most important thing that I need to continue my growth is some time in the trenches. Growth always happens when I am under fire from all directions such as students, admin, and parents. There is nothing like a little real life pressure to establish good habits.

I had the pleasure of visiting KLO Middle School this week. The information and opinions on middle schools that I had recieved before visiting the school was that the age group does not work well. The grade 9’s are mentally and sometimes physically not ready to be the leaders of the school and bear that responsability as well as the grade 7’s being too young and impressionable to be grouped with the older students. Luckily I didn’t experience this at all at KLO. Most of the morning we were escorted around the school exploring the different classes by grade 9’s that were registered in a leadership class. They took this role seriously and understood the role that they were asked to play. I had the chance to ask the Principal about the negative opinions that I had heard and how she dealt with her middle school. She said that as soon as you have the expectation that the students can’t handle the responsability then they won’t. Just because they will not go out of their way to aquire some responsability that doesn’t mean that they can’t bear the weight. Sure there will be some students that can’t but how will you know until you place them in that situation. I don’t believe I have enough information to say whether or not I think that the middle school system works but I have seen it work very well first hand.

I have just spent a week at the school where I will be doing my practicum. It had much more of an impact on me that the one day visits. I was able to see the students two or three times throughout the week and build a relationship with them. I spent the entire week in the wood shop with my sponsor teacher and felt extremely comfortable in that environment by the end of the week. I was given the opportunity to do some safety and operation demos on a couple of the tools and they all went smoothly. The first one could have been a bit smoother since it came up very suddenly, but the message was still passed on. The students also began to rely on me for some instruction and tips since the regular teacher usually had a lineup of students waiting to ask questions. The classes that I participated in was one grade 8 class, a grade 9/10 class, and a grade 11/12. The difference between the three was enormous and the older the class, the easier they were to manage by far. It was the level of exposure and experience that the students brought to the class that was the main factor. The grade 8’s had to be supervised with every opperation with power tools since it was their first or second time on the machines. The grade 9/10’s could be left alone for the most part but some incidents on the table saw changed that. In a two week period there had been 4 kickbacks on the table saw. Only one of them ended up causing any damage; a bruise on the hip. It was a remarkably fortunate teaching moment. The students got to see first hand the negative results when you do not follow the safety guidelines and in turn learned some respect for the machines. Two of the students were quite nervous to either do thin cuts on the table saw or even use the saw at all. With a little persuasion and some wise words the got back on and did just fine. For the week that I was there every student in that class had to ask permission and be supervised by either myself or the teacher. The grade 11/12 class was a dream. Almost every student was on task creating their own project or the project assigned by the teacher. There were at all different stages of the projects but making progress. There was little need to instruct them on operating the equipment, except the jointer. They could never wrap their head around using that properly. The instruction consisted of how to make some phase of their project work or some time to do that phase better. Overall, I had a wonderful time and could easily see myself doing that job for many years and have a great time doing it.

I have always seen the connection between teaching and playing sports but I have been learning the finer points to teaching in the last few months and I wish to apply that new knowledge to help me and my volleyball team.

I have begun to focus more on how the athletes on my team respond to different types of instruction methods. I have done my best to use this to improve their skills. Some of my athletes really need to be pushed to improve. Other players, instead of bending, begin to break under that type of strain. A gentler approach is needed. Both players need to receive compliments, otherwise the game looses the enjoyment. This applies to teaching as well. Students need to be approached differently and they need to be congratulated when progress is made or else why would they keep coming back and working hard. I certainly would think twice.

The other aspect that I have been applying to the volleyball court is the method that I help the athlete learn. I firmly believe in asking questions to prompt an answer out instead of just telling them the answer. The Socratic method. This helps them analyze what they are doing and to make changes appropriately. This method also helps for the future. By analyzing their own actions, they will become less dependent and will be able to make changes when needed without being told.

Originally when I thought about my expectations on Wednesday, I thought about stuff like an organized shop and respect from the students. I see now that these are not things that I should be expecting on my first day on the job, these things are what I have to either earn or achieve. I can not be expecting that I will walk into a well run shop where all I have to do is step in and carry on. From what I have seen and heard from teachers is that a new shop teacher has to work extremely hard to achieve that well run shop most of the time. This could be from a teacher that you are replacing let the shop go to ruins or you might be starting a new course. Whatever the reason for it, the first couple of years will more than likely be very time consuming.

My expectations walking into a new job are very few. I expect that I will have a place to put down my coffee and given a chance to apply most of my thoughts and ideas with regard to my course where appropriate. That’s it. As a new teacher I will not say no to a job opportunity and will make the best out of any situation possible. The jobs where you have no where but up to go with a course can give you more creative ideas about how to rebuild and gives you greater flexibility on the direction of the program. My expectations list will more than likely get longer as I progress in my teaching career, but at the moment I don’t feel that I have earned any right to expectations.

I had the opportunity to visit an elementary school on wednesday and spend the day with the children and the teachers. I found this was useful in helping me confirm or deny wanting to teach at the secondary level.

In the morning I was sitting in with a grade 5 class. I first thought was about how small they were! It really made me realize that I wasn’t at a high school anymore. All of the students had something to accomplish before the teacher began class. Whether it was a job, such as checking off who brought their homework book that day, or a problem to solve up on the overhead. It was nicely structured and helped to settle the students upon arrival and get the classroom behaviour started. The teacher thought that grade 5 was the perfect age to teach. The class isn’t about personal behaviour adjustments as it is with the younger grades. There is still behaviour models to conform to but the majority is educational learning of the common subjects such as math, english, socials studies, etc. The students understood enough of the english language that they understood sarcasm and words plays. They are beginning to think critically. The students came up will a wonderful variety of answers during the lessons that really showed that they were breaking down a problem and thinking of multiple solutions. The schedule for that morning was very hectic with a RCMP officer doing a 1 hour presentation on the D.A.R.E. program. This made the morning feel very rushed but that situation had to be faced at least once a week from what I understood. Overall I enjoyed spending time with the students and I believe that I wouldn’t mind teaching at this level.

My afternoon was spent with the grade 1’s. These children were much smaller yet. They were absolutely adorable and the classroom was dramatically different. The classroom was divided up into to parts that blended together. There was the rug area where they spent much of the day learning about calendars and days of the week, singing songs, reading, or just playing. The other area consisted of the desks and the chalkboard. This area seemed to be used to do writing exercises and arts or crafts. The first piece of advice the teacher had for me is to do and say exactly what I mean. The students appeared to be unable to interpret meanings or actions. Behaviour modelling was very important. I found it difficult to do and at times I don’t think the students had any idea about what I was talking about. The classroom radiated energy from the students and the teacher had to flow with it sometimes, or calm it down other times. I had a good time during that afternoon but I don’t think that I would be able to have as much energy as these students require. The teacher had to be very positive most of the time and neutral some of the time. Negative behaviour would be affect the students dramatically. If we as student secondary teachers feel that there are high expectations of us as role models, we haven’t compared ourselves to elementary teachers.

Overall I think that I made the right decision about going to the secondary level. I would have to give up the trades and technology specialty in an elementary and being in that specialty is a big part about why I am teaching. I also enjoy helping students learn when their knowledge base isn’t too far away from my own. It creates new ideas to help both of us grow. I respect and admire the elementary teachers but I am happy with the directions I have chosen.

I believe that the 1 to 1 laptop program is not going to positively affect myself in the trades and technology subjects in a secondary school. From what I have heard about the laptops is that you cannot load any additional programs onto it and the idea wouldn’t even be considered. If that is the case, I cannot imagine how the laptops will be used in a wood, metal, drafting, or automotive class. I have not had the opportunity to explore one of the laptops supplied by the District and I am not sure what their drawing programs are. If they are more technical than a standard paint program then they might be utilized. 

If you could load additional programs such as AutoCAD or MasterCAM then I could see the laptops being very useful in the wood, metal, or drafting class. This would save the need to have a computer lab available that was not at the other end of the school during class time. For the automotive class, a program such as All Data could be used to help the student with their vehicles. 

The speaker that gave the 1 to 1 presentation to us last Wednesday seemed to avoid the question of where this money was coming from. Whether he ran out of time or just didn’t want to answer it is unknown. I know the district has a surplus and they used at least a portion of that on the computers but I wonder if that money would have been better directed elsewhere. With all of this push from the government to get shop teachers out in the schools and to train skilled workers for the future, I would have thought that upgrading the trades and technology sections of most schools would have been a top five on the priority list. There are some shops out there that are in desperate need of upgrades all for the cost of ten laptops per class. I guess I am just falling into the trap that lots of teachers fall into and that is we believe that our subjects are the most important and should get all the good stuff.

After spending the day at OKM here are some thoughts and ideas that I observed. 

                The most important lesson that both the metal shop teacher and the wood shop teacher felt the students needed to learn was the skill of sketching. The students are unable to communicate their ideas to others properly without being able to mentally visualize the object. Both teachers were currently conducting lessons on three dimensional and two dimensional views. 

                An idea that I saw one of the teachers use in a safety lesson was using a pair of students to demonstrate a piece of equipment in the shop. Every piece of equipment was done by a different group of students. Once the student went over the safety sheet the teacher would then emphasize some key points and to cover anything that the students might not have covered. The students appeared to pay more attention to the students conducting the lesson than they would if the teacher was to give the lesson. I believe that you always learn more completely when you are forced to teach a topic to others. 

                A project idea that the wood shop teacher used was to give every student a wood pallet to create anything that they could design for the amount of wood they had. I like this project because it really pushes the student to be creative with what they have to work with. This will also reinforce the skill of sketching. The big benefit to this idea is the cost. It would be very easy to acquire the wood pallets at little or more likely no cost. The drawback was the quality of the wood. The pallets that the teacher supplied the students were very poor quality. There was water damage and cracking on most boards. It seemed to disappoint the students and take some of the thrill out of the project. I think it would be possible to obtain pretty good wood pallets for the students but it still won’t be maple. 

                I asked the teachers about the possibility of creating new classes such as a duel credit class in the trades. At OKM it would not be possible to obtain the approval to begin a class in that area because it is not the focus of that school and would be drawing funding away from areas that the administration wants to promote. It is only possible to be as creative and innovative as your school will allow you to be.

Never before have I been asked to fully examine my philosophies. After a week of reflection I realize that there are some inconsistencies with them or under-development of others. I really appreciate the pairing of this class and the history of philosophy class. Reading about the old philosophers and what they believed in has helped me decide what it is I believe in and to reflect on some ideas that I might not have fully examined before. 

I am just beginning of my philosophies of education class and have not had the chance to familiarize myself with most of philosophers. I have liked what I heard from Confucius, Socrates, and Plato. The idea of bringing the knowledge out of the mind of every student instead of pouring the knowledge in is intriguing. I have always liked the teaching method where you ask the students questions instead of just telling them the answer. They know what you are asking them, they just need a little help remembering. I have always felt that to really learn something you have to experience it, whether that means you apply a math formula correctly or run a bead with the TIG welder. Until that point, all you have is theory. 

I look forward to reflecting on some more philosophy and ideas as I get more familiar with the old philosophers. I really appreciate the opportunity so solidify what I believe in which will in turn make me more successful in what I do.

For the first class of the year, I thought that I would summarize what I think that I can bring to teaching and what my strengths and weakness are.  The idea would be to look back on this at the end of the semester to see if my thoughts about me and teaching change in any way.

                I believe that I will be a positive influence to my classroom as well as to the school that I will work at. I do everything I can to surround myself with positive people and thoughts. Life is way to short to dwell in negative thoughts and situations. There is rarely anything that happens that is so important to worry yourself about. Stay positive and fix the situation if you can. If you can not fix the situation then there is absolutely no reason to be negative about it. I enjoy smiling every chance that I can. This act seems to help others smile and stay relaxed. I am hoping that this attitude will help my students enjoy my lessons and work hard in the class.

                Another strength I hope to bring to my classroom is my ability to help students to relate to what I am teaching them. Everyone needs different examples to grasp an idea and I feel that I can find what the students need and tie it all together. Most of the time you can not individualize you lessons but you can find the happy medium for everyone. After the larger lesson, individualized instruction can take place for anyone that might have missed some of the important points of the lesson.

                A weakness of mine might be a lack of patience on some days. As much as I want to remain positive, I still have days where smiling might be one of the hardest things to do. Everyone has these days but I would like to be able to let the issues go that are dragging me down and at the very least be neutral, if not positive. Negative behavior is infectious and no one has the right to bring another down.

                I will expand on these thoughts as I have more time to explore them and will do my best to never forget them.