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Today at my school placement in a center city private school second grade classroom, the three second grade classrooms were coming together to celebrate the one hundredth day of school. The teachers collaborated on an activity for the students to group up, supervised by a teacher, and tape off specified "100" measurements on the floor around the school. 

After the teachers discussed which students will work together well, they put students into groups of three to four, and assigned a teacher to each group. I went along with Teacher P (my mentor teacher)'s group.

The activity didn't have much structure other than the directions of the teachers helping the students measure out 100 centimeters, 100 inches, 100 feet, and 100 meters along the carpeted floor of the school hallways. When we began the activity, arguments immediately ensued about who would have which job, who got to hold the meter stick, who got to put the tape on the ground to mark the measurement this time...it was a little chaotic, especially when we started measuring 100 meters. At this point, Teacher P and I decided to divide the group into two groups--two students to put the meter stick along the floor and mark each one with a small piece of tape, two to take the large roll of tape and follow the other groups' measurements--to help everyone stay on task. 

1. and 2.: Collect stories/What happened? – Miranda helped Omar do his math homework

Once again, we had more volunteers than students at tutoring. Mariah – the director of Wordsmiths – asked Miranda and I to work with Omar. He had not been in school that day, so he needed to do both his schoolwork and some homework, which had been compiled into a packet. Since Miranda had worked with him before, I let her lead; so, for the most part, I just watched. Omar said he already knew how to do this, and that they didn’t need to work on it today. Miranda said that he needed to finish as much as possible, since there wouldn’t be tutoring tomorrow or the next day. She repeated that he had to do it today.

Omar started with the first page, which was 3 columns of basic addition (ex: 1 +2 = ?; 3 +7 = ?). For the first few questions on the first column, Omar used one of two strategies: he wrote tally marks for each number and counted up the total (ex: I II = 3; III IIIIIII = 7), or he used his fingers and counted from left to right (ex: 1 finger on one hand next to 2 fingers on the other hand). When the numbers were too big to fit on one hand (ex: 7), he used tallies. Miranda and I both watched him. For some of the equations that Omar was going to use fingers for, Miranda held up her own fingers and told Omar to look up. He counted her fingers and used that number. He said the answer out loud before writing it; when the answer was wrong, Miranda asked, “Are you sure?” or said, “Check that again.”

This week was my second visit to my placement, and being slightly more used to the environment, I was able to concentrate more on details than only the bigger picture. This week I had more one on one conversations with the students, and was conscious of keeping up with my observations from last week. I was still not thrilled with the teacher, and continued to struggle with understanding the class environment. At one point, one of the boys called me over to his desk and asked me if I wanted to be a teacher. When I responded yes, he told me to work at a magnet school. This comment caught me off guard, and made me think more about my observations last week concerning the teacher and the way the students responded to her. Before my first day, I looked up information about this school, and noticed that it was a high ranked public school with a good reputation. I was completely caught off guard that this eighth grade boy would warn me against teaching in a school like his. How is a kid supposed to be excited to learn, when he has such an established idea that his school is not suitable?

This post is a bit late, but it is in response to my first day at my placement. This semester, I have been placed at a public school in Center City Philadelphia, which is vastly different than the suburban independent school I attended, and the two previous placements I’ve had which were also both at independent schools. I am currently in a place where I feel as though I am not prepared to pass judgment or provide ample commentary on the school because I am still figuring out what my impressions are, myself. My first impression of the teacher is that she is not overly enthusiastic. She became irritated quickly and did not seem to feel the need for digression in front of her students. A few times she became frustrated and threw up her hands, exclaiming things such as “I just can’t!” or “I’m done!” after which she would return to her desk for a little bit. At one point, another teacher wandered into the class and the woman I am shadowing turned to her, gestured to the class and said to her, “See what I’m talking about?” The oddest part about this to me was that the students seemed completely un-phased by her attitude. In fact, in many cases, it seemed they rather liked her. 

I thought about how convenient it was for the student to have a teacher that understood both English and Spanish in terms of being understood. However, I soon thought about the teacher’s continuous attempts to have him speak English which, made me feel like maybe it’d be best to let him answer in whatever language he was comfortable with but as the class went on, I then realized just how important it was to have him to be able to speak English... because once the students enter Kindergarten its most likely that their teacher will not know Spanish and thus not be able to understand them and fairly evaluate their learning abilities.

I wondered if there was anything else the teacher could do to make her students even more comfortable using English? For instance, possibly try to explain to her students in some form of why English is important? If they are told why the material they are learning is important then they will be better prepared of what they will face when entering elementary school as opposed to being surprised and feeling like they are alone in facing this situation. Although these students are young, I believe that if worded in a way that they can understand the concept, these students especially the shy ones will be more willing and thus settle themselves into getting more comfortable in using the English language. 

This week on Tuesday and Thursday night I held a discussion for SJTP participants to debrief the last workshop and to look forward to the next one.  I created discussion questions based on a survey they had filled out after the last workshop.  The questions were how do we develop social justice skills? How do we move toward competence (referring to the path to competence acitivity)? How can we explore both our dominant and subordinate identities? What are problems with categorization? What are pros and cons of separate spaces for marginalized groups?

The group on Tuesday night spent a lot of time talking about how we can get people to talk about privilege from a place of privilege without making people feel defensive.  We also talked about white guilt, the romanticization of oppression, the individual vs. the institution, cultural appropriation, and marginalization.

 The group on Thursday night talked a lot about the recent signs that have gone up around campus that say something like “Do you love your gay friends but feel pressured to be gay?” and the student response that pointed out how problematic those signs were and said “Do you love your straight friends but feel pressured to be straight?”  We also talked about what safe space is and what an argument or disagreement can look like in a safe space.

On Wednesday I had a meeting with Hallie and Stephanie to plan for the upcoming workshop this weekend, which was mostly discussing logistical issues and thinking forward to our final workshop in April.

Neurobiology and Behavior

(Thank you for this conversation Paul Grobstein)

“Maybe, it isn't

That there is something

To behavior other than the brain; but,

That there is something

To the brain other than behavior.”

“But aren’t neurons black boxes?”

“I suspect so,

Still neurons are not the storyteller.”

“This is the story of science as a story?”

“Our undertaking is subject

To the VAGARIES of the currents, winds, and tides

And our own will or lack thereof.

Therefore,

We must return time

And again, not only to find

But to create, and again to find and create.”

“Neurons are stories.” 

“The nervous self system…”

“Now I see

How science is living by the sea. 

Where, washed upon the shore are stories;

There to be captured

And dropped down again. 

Again,

Littering the terrain, so

The terrain is never the same, so

Know that truth and time are interwoven,”

I wrote. 

“Yep

Rich powerful writing

Part of you

You have been keeping under wraps,”

Wrote the neurobiologist.

“Stories are black boxes.”

…

When I am storytelling my life,

People often ask what happened, and I reply,

In the middle 
In the mud 
Winter stillness is
A canny 
Animating melt
Dozing open

-- Alice Lesnick

It really hit me this week that I am learning to be literate in french. I see techniques that we talk about in learning english used in my french class. Sometimes I have the desire to tell my teacher a tip or to try something, which may be more effective in our learning. I don't because I do not want to delegitimize her work and authority. The concept of authority brings me to a movie we watched in french this week called Les Choristes. It is a fantastic movie. It involves a school for troubled boys and a new prefect, who changes the student's lives with music. This movie brings up many similar concepts to those we have talked about in class, for example, how do we motivate kids to want to be literate? Additionally, one of the most important concepts I saw mirrored in our discussion and in the movie was the need to respect the student, and attempt to learn about the student. 

Here are some ideas that Nicole and I discussed today in class - comment if you want to add/change these goals!

Goals for Field notes /posting:

1. make our notes more accessible - focus on specific moments or interactions, highlight/bold the sections that you want us to focus on
2. respond to at least one person’s notes with a question (or bring a question to class)

Goals for conversations in class:

1. bring advice/suggestions
2. hold people accountable – ask them to explain their statements
3. I (or someone else?) will scan and post my notes from our conversation – this could be a good way to bridge/connect our conversations over time
4. Ask each person, “What are you looking for in your next visit?” - if we don't get to each person in the group, then we can at least go back to this question on Serendip