The reading that struck me the most is the Fleming Article on teaching in urban settings. I?m doing my internship in Chicago next year, and a lot of the article was based on the Chicago area. I found it very fascinating that the article focused on a very big problem with teacher preparation courses; new teachers are never taught a lot of the things they need to know before they are actually put in a classroom. It?s so true too, we ourselves have never had a class, or even part of a class, that focused on classroom management, one of the most important aspects of teaching. Most of our curriculum is focused on the theory and some methods of teaching, but like the article says, ?Sometimes we need to learn that the textbook gives us good methods and theories, but Piaget is dead. Freud is dead?these are kids of the 21st century?. We are taught idealistic teaching, but situations are rarely ideal. Personally, I feel very unprepared to interact with parents from more of an urban area because I?m not sure whether or not I can relate to their situation or how they might see and perceive me. Another thing is that these kids have to go through more than your average student, and we were never really taught how to deal with those situations either. Most of these kids have adult responsibilities outside of school and may not cooperate as well with authority as a result. We aren?t prepared to look at other ways of dealing with and reaching children like this, and that can be a big problem.
I think our teacher education program is a very good one, but there are still a lot of important things we are not taught in the classroom. Our placements can?t fully prepare us for all of the situations we will find ourselves in either once we are in charge, so a lot of our profession is left up to our judgment. Kind of a scary thought at this point in our education!
The University of Chicago has realized those types of issues and is specifically providing curriculum and instruction to better prepare their teacher education students for those types of situations. Even if you don?t plan on teaching in urban areas, it is always helpful to have at least some point of reference to look back on if you do find yourself in a situation where you are dealing with irate or hard to deal with parents, a very strong-willed child, or anyone having a problem with you as a teacher in general. You can never be too prepared when you are a teacher and dealing with all sorts of people from all kinds of backgrounds.
I agree with your statements on how we aren't taught classroom management and how this is a problem in teaching courses, which also relates to the article. I also feel as though I am not ready to interact with families due to not being able to relate and having no background knowledge or any idea of how to deal with this type of situation. I wish I felt more prepared in that aspect of teaching because it is very important to make connections with families and students. I agree that you can never be too prepared, or maybe you are never fully prepared, but the more prepared you are-the better!
ReplyDeleteI see that you are doing your internship in Chicago and could likely be in an urban district. I will be doing the Detroit Team internship and could likely be in Detroit, a very urban district. I don't know how comfortable I am with this. For a long time, that is the type of school and community I had wanted to teach in, because I wanted to do all that I could to help. However, I think it could be very challenging, and I think I would be more comfortable in more of a suburban area like I grew up in. I think I would be able to manage either way and no matter where I am there will be all sorts of challenges to overcome. This course will help me teach to a range of schools and students different learning levels. I will learn many different literacy skills, how to teach to different levels of learning, and how to involve literacy in all other subjects as well. I want to learn just that. I want to be able to learn to teach to students at different levels of their learning. I want to be able to teach to ELL students, students with different backgrounds, students from different communities, etc. My goal of the course is to be more prepared for my internship year and my future of teaching. I want to bloom by becoming more confident as a teacher and more confident in teaching literacy.
I can see where both of you are coming from in your posts. As I've progressed through these courses I'm starting to wonder if the point of the classes is to have us prepared to teach as we enter our classrooms in that first year or to give us the resources so that we can find our way through those first years. You both pointed out that at some point you have thought about yourself teaching in an urban school district. This is something that I have never considered doing. Taylor mentioned she wants to help in areas that need it the most, but she's from the suburbs. What kind of experiences do you have already Kelsey? Why do you want to teach in Chicago? Personally, I have seen a difference in attitudes in the urban vs. rural schools that I don't know how to deal with. Maybe it's cultural or maybe it's my personality, but I know I would have a very difficult time teaching in that situation. I grew up in a farming community, but one that is fairly decent sized. My graduating class was about 130. It is what I am comfortable with, but it's also where I live and have always lived. I guess I like that thought of sticking to my roots.
ReplyDeleteI had kids before a lot of my friends did and when they started their families the worries about how to deal with children always came up. When I thought back on it I always told them not to worry because babies break you in. This doesn't seem to be true about what we're facing in a few years. It seems like we'll have to know our teaching style right away or the year could be lost. I've had that experience with tennis teams I've coached. I had to wait a year to be able to set a new tone with a new class. I also can understand the hesitancy about dealing with parents. I'm very nervous about it and I see my kid's friends all the time. But how do you suggest courses of action to somebody without offending them? That takes practice that none of us have right now. This is probably why these readings are so important to us. They give different perspectives on what kind of teachers and pedagogical approaches there are. Hopefully we can find the one that meshes with our personality. I wanted to think as I read the Tompkins chapter that I will teach not with one of those theories, but by combining all four. I still can't pick out which one I lean more towards, but I think it may be a little more student centered.
I also have wondered many times through this program how our studies in diversity are going to affect me in the future. It seems that a lot of the focus is on urban or poor students. Students that carry a stigma of misbehaving a lot. What I worry about going into a rural classroom is how often I'm seeing mentally disabled students being mainstreamed. I wonder if I'm going to be able to teach and help them? How do I set what their definition of success is? How do I obtain the tools I'll need to teach them? This seems to be missing in the program for me.
Okay, first of all let me post a word of warning. If the site crashes when you try to upload your post, it will not save the stuff that you wrote. I’ll try to make this second attempt as close as possible to my first and not be grumpy while doing it.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that both of you are thinking about teaching in urban school districts. I grew up and graduated from Portland and I still live there. I would call it a large farming community. When my wife and I started our family and built our house we had to think about what was important to us and we both wanted our children to grow up in communities similar to ours. (She’s from Tawas City.) With that in mind I can’t imagine teaching in any other type of setting. What made you guys think you want to teach in urban schools?
I have a worry that is similar to the ones you pose, but somewhat different. I’m not as worried about the behavior management side of teaching. However, what I do worry about is the disabled children that will at some point be in my classroom. It seems that there is a lot more mainstreaming going on now and I don’t feel like I’m getting the tools to help those children.
The readings got me wondering though. Is the point of our program to have us ready to teach in that first year we walk into the room? I don’t know if that’s possible I tried to think how it could be changed to do that, but I can’t. What we lack seems to be experience. How can MSU provide that and the knowledge we need to teach? It seems that a lot of the time we are being given the resources so that we can find answers in the future.
The Tompkins article described different teaching theories. When I wrote my lesson plans last fall I realized that putting those plans together wasn’t a lot different from how I prepared to teach tennis when I worked as a professional coach. I think a lot of that experience is going to come through when it comes to my actual school teaching style. When I started that job I was very students centered and not very good at classroom/on court management. What I found was that I had to wait a whole year to revise because it was hard to change the student’s attitudes toward me midway. I think these articles can help us hone in on where we want to be in that first year so we don’t have to wait a whole year. I realize now that I like to incorporate all of the styles. I am still having a hard time picking out which one calls to me the most.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I see that it posted everything I did. Sometimes I love technology. Oh well there are good points in both.
ReplyDelete