Aung San sushi?

Today was a really great day, I've gotta say. The kids are really warming up to Shauna and I and are giving us great participation, listening, and asking great questions. We started off the lesson by showing a YouTube video about values in communities and had them respond with ways the video connected to themselves and what we have been working on. They definitely did not let us down with their reflections and created a perfect transition into our value skit activity!

We had the students perform a "whip" around the room and share the value they had previously chosen to write about and had them draw connections to similarities and respect any differences.

This set them up great to start working in their groups writing the scripts for their skits- they are each defending their value and explaining why it is important to them.

They have a field trip tomorrow so we sadly won't be going to th school, but I am excited for Thursday to hear what they are creating within their groups!

Oh as a side note- my favorite part of the lesson was when a student pronounced Aung San Suu Kyi's name as "sushi". We corrected him and wrote the proper pronunciation on the board :)

Values and Turkey

Last Wednesday Shauna and I started off our mini values unit with our 8th graders and I have to say that it well really well! They had been discussing the notion of values for quite a while now and I was a little concerned we would be beating a dead horse, but I think we put a fun Turkey Day spin on it and the kids responded to it well!

We did this really cool privilege line up activity where we read a list of statements that consisted of things we as middle class Americans take for granted because we wanted the kids to see just how fortunate they are and how fortunate others might not be.  They blew me away with their insights about the activity and rights and values they had themselves not only as individuals but also as a community.

To follow up that mini-lesson on values, Shauna and I began our week-long unit today with a close reading of a speech given by Aung San Suu Kyi.  She is a political figure in the South-East Asian country of Myanmar that was held under house arrest for 15 years because of her political views.  We had the kids work in groups to annotate her speech and perform a close reading to extract what values she portrays in her lecture and then relate them to their own lives.  Our lesson was cut short at the end because we ran out of time, but I am excited to hear what the kids have to say tomorrow at the start of class! They are much smarter than I ever gave them credit for and they have so many brilliant ideas to share.

I look forward to working with these kids more closely this week and realy trying to teach them something of value (no pun intended!) and be able to leave them at the end of the week knowing I gave them something to think about in their lives outside of Feinstein Middle School.

Taking a Second Look

So over the weekend I had decided to take a step back and really think about everything I have seen, heard, and done (or not for that matter) over this past week and let it soak in.

Here's what I have come up with.

Book reports.
Letter book reports.
Revise. Revise. Revise.
Book reports.
Letter book reports.
Revise. Revise. Revise.

I am not sure if this is a middle school thing or a Coventry school thing, but having two assignments consume every minute of class time for over a week strikes me as odd.  These kids are continually going over the same two works multiple times and not learning anything new.  Maybe I am speaking out of turn here, but how many weeks of class time can be taken to do this?

I am really not sure if I have witnessed that much actual "teaching", as much as spitting back student work over and over again and using class time to send them off to re-type them on computers across the team.

This process makes it difficult to really get to know any of the students or practice any actual teaching.  I spent my entire Wednesday of last week helping kids fix the format of their letters and basically cross their T's and dot their I's on their book reports.  While this did give me a chance to try and learn and remember some of their names, I still feel like after two weeks I barely know these kids.

Luckily, the students are great sports and quite friendly (some even remember my name which is cool), so here's hoping that teaching Wednesday and four days next week will go smoothly and the kids will learn something new from us!

A World of its Own

I had certain reservations about this middle school placement before entering the doors of Feinstein Middle School; I was worried I would not connect with my CT, feel comfortable working with such younger students, or  connect with the material they were being taught   After finishing my first week there, I still have these reservations, but they are less scary now.  It is clear that I am better suited for a high school class room, but I am pretty confident I can adapt myself and my teaching for a middle grade room for this placement.  

Our CT is great.  He works so well with his students and it is clear that he took the time to get to know them, which is so important.  He has a ton of energy and is very obviously comfortable in his classroom.  My teaching partner and I both noticed this and recognized it as a necessary trait to possess when working with this age group.  A trait that I question whether or not I myself possess.

The students themselves are very well behaved, they even applauded our presence in the room (a first for me).  None of my high school students ever clapped for my being there, but again, this is a completely different world. 

Over the next few weeks I hope to learn to channel the energy that my CT expresses in his classroom and be able to get to know these students who appear to be such great kids.  I am excited to learn about this new world called a middle school and anxious to teach these kids something that will be beneficial to their learning.

Here goes nothing!