So I was thinking all week about what an extra set of eyes did for us as we observed. I'm not sure that was the right question though. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of what did we see as we guided a new pair of eyes? I learned that I'm not as bad at navigating the school, I'm still pretty bad mind you but not as bad as I thought. I think it also livened up the observation a bit. I think once the newness of it wore off a routine started forming. For me I noticed I stopped noticing as much on the walls, and how the classroom was set up and started paying more attention to the teacher and the students. While I don't think this was a bad thing I definitely got the chance to step back and guide my observer a bit which helped me noticing some of the things I stopped looking for.
This got me thinking about how I always used to think you had to know a lot about what you're teaching in order to teach it. While I still think that's true I also think you learn a lot while teaching. I think there's something to how you focus on something so much when you're teaching and attack it at ever side to gain understanding so that you can share it with your students that makes learning happen so organically. While I wish I could say I learned so much while showing my student around I can say I saw things a lot differently.
I also saw things differently when we had visitors last week, but unfortunately I took note on more of the bad things than I usually would. I guess I removed the optimistic rose covered glasses I normally put on and I examined everything as if I was trying to find the bad. Maybe I did this so that I could defend against the bad if approached about it. Whenever I mention that I am in District C once a week to people, they immediately bring up the bad publicity, and I guess I was trying to notice consistencies with that. It made me realize a little that if you focus on good or bad you can find some of both, and I made note that I should try and look for a balance, as we should always note both the good and the bad so we can adjust our practices.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I mention to my friends or family that I'm at District C this semester, I too have been met with negative comments and misconceptions. This semester our class really has become part of the school's community, and thus I have become painfully aware of what the students and teachers there must experience so frequently, a need to defend their school and community and disprove all the negative assumptions that outsiders have made about what happens there. It must become tiring, I know for me it has. I also wonder how these opinions have shaped the students' and teachers' feelings about their school. It must be difficult to be told over and over that your school is horrible and I feel that for some this type of pressure and negativity could make them feel that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
DeleteYeah you're absolutely right. I think that it's tough to separate one's self from, as you put it, the rose colored glasses. I'm only just now doing that myself. While I chose in this post to discuss the positive things I noticed I won't lie and say I didn't see some negatives as well. For instance in one class I noticed that the way the teacher had set up her class she essentially alienated an entire group of kids they were in 'group forms' for their desk but really it was more like clusters. One group was at the fair end and many of the desk were facing the wall that their desk was pushed up against. The students had to turn their bodies around to pay attention and some really barely did that. It really showed me how important the class room set up can be.
ReplyDeleteThere are times when I sit down and I think, "Am I really ready to teach? Do I know my content well enough to teach it and be able to answer questions? What happens if someone asks me a question that I don't know?" and I think you're right when you say that a teacher learns a lot through teaching. What better way to learn about your content then to teach it every day? So when a student asks me something that I don't know, I'll tell them that I don't know, I'll find out and it'll be a learning experience for the both of us. I really believe that there is only so much that you can learn, and then the rest happens over years of teaching.
ReplyDeleteI really thought playing the role of ambassador was an important experience. I think that the students we showed around were really impressed by what was going on there, and what misconceptions they might have had were mostly debunked (or at least it seemed like it). It also gave me the chance to see a couple of teachers again who we might have seen on the first day, but haven't had a chance to see since. This time, a teacher who I'd observed really struggling the first time was doing an excellent job; asking in-depth questions, keeping the classroom under control, etc, etc. That perspective emphasized the fact that sometimes, teachers just have a bad day, and you can't let that color your view of them. I felt as if I was able to give the Phys.Ed. student as complete a view of District C as was possible in our very limited timeframe. I also loved seeing the gym class because it was just a section of the school we hadn't had the ability to see yet.
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