February
14
February
13
Practicum Reflection: Week #1
Here we go… My first week of practicum has arrived!
While getting prepared for this week, I was super nervous. More than anything, I was hoping and praying that after 18 years of telling myself I wanted to be a teacher, that teaching was in fact for me. Luckily, I chose myself the correct career!
My main goal going into my first week of practicum was to establish myself as the classroom teacher, both in a professional and approachable way. The students have seen glimpses of me throughout the community service learning portion of the placement, but once I started full-time teaching, it was going to be an adjustment for the students.
One of the ways that I established myself as the classroom teacher was by including the students in the formation of classroom rules. I handed out sticky notes to each student and asked them to write something that occurs on the classroom that distracts them from learning. The students were very candid and truthful, writing things such as student wandering around the classroom and talking over the teacher or other students. Next, I had the students write an appropriate consequence for that action. With this information, it allowed me to create a poster that was reflective of the students’ expectations for their classroom as it pertains to their ability to learn.
Since my students have known me since September, there was a base-level of rapport that I had established. They knew that I am approachable and fun, yet I have high expectations. By building on this foundation, I was able to incorporate high-energy activities and lessons into the classroom without running the risk of the students’ being unaware of my expectations of them.
One of the many lessons from this week involved creating a puzzle piece representing what “community” means to each student. Next week, we will be beginning our novel study of “The Giver”, which is based around the good and bad aspects of a community. With the completed puzzle pieces, I created the following bulletin board for everyone in the school to view:
On Friday, I had the opportunity to go to my first ever Professional Development (PD) day! And what a PD day to have as my first experience… All 3000 educators from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board were in attendance! The highlight of the day for me was listening to Michael Landsberg (TSN’s Off The Record) give his keynote address. Lansberg spoke publicly about his personal battle with depression in an attempt to help reduce the stigma of mental illness. I’ve always seen him as the Bell Let’s Talk ambassador, but listening to him in person was incredible.
This week was definitely a transition for me and my students, but I can only expect next week to be even better!
February
9
The 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan
The 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan suggests a comprehensive program that can be implemented at a low cost into any school system. This plan targets every aspect of the issue of bullying, including the school environment, the staff, students, parents, and the administrative components that are involved. The 13-Point Plan is as follows:
- Involve the entire school community
- Establish a bullying prevention committee
- Create a caring school climate
- Implement a school climate survey
- Identify school “hot spots”
- Ensure teachers know how to deal with bullying
- Teach students bullying prevention strategies
- Establish clear, consistent consequences for bullying behaviour
- Don’t turn a blind eye to cyberbullying
- Establish a school bullying tracking system
- Establish a confidential reporting system
- School staff must provide support for victims of bullying
- Bring new staff members into the program
Despite years of implementing various bullying prevention programs and strategies into the school system, bullying remains prevalent in our school and society as a whole. The image below provides us with information regarding the types and prevalence of bullying. Simply put, the numbers are astounding. Looking at the chart, one would immediately picture the school ground as a battlefield! Children are being tormented at an alarming rate, and yet the majority of bullying goes unnoticed by the teachers, parents, and other adults in the child’s life. Why is this? I believe it’s because children are starting to accept that bullying is part of “growing up”; it’s something that everyone goes through. Due to this mindset, kids are starting to blur the lines between “friend” and “bully”, accepting them both into their friend groups.
In my opinion, the 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan provides a holistic approach to a complex problem that exists in every school. It is not realistic to place pressure on the teaching staff to address bullying and teach students not to engage in that behaviour. Rather, the principal, administrative staff, teachers, parents, and students must all be involved in the implementation process. Everyone must have the tools to address bullying and work in a consistent and uniform fashion.
February
2
Adult Education: More than a Second Chance
More than a Second Chance introduces the concept of mature student programs. These programs are provided to individuals who are over the age of 18 that wish to obtain their high school diploma, increase a mark in a specific subject area, or upgrade their overall skills. Often, these programs get referred to as a “second chance,” making the assumption that the adults enrolled in the program are there simply because they dropped out of high school. This is not always the case, and with the continual immigration of individuals into our country, Canada faces additional challenges with determining the level of education that these individuals must achieve to have their previous education equated to that of Canada’s.
In my teaching experiences, I have worked with diverse populations in various settings. At Essential Skills Upgrading in Kitchener, I worked with adults with a number of cultural, language, racial, and socio-economic differences. Essential Skills Upgrading is an adult learning centre, with many of the individuals using the centre to work towards entering into college or writing their GED. At ESU, the students learn in a classroom setting with other adult learners. However, since each student attends the program to achieve a different goal, they tend to work on their own lessons at their own pace.
During my orientation, the teachers at the program explained to me that these individuals typically have a lower self-esteem, especially because they are adults who did not do well in school in the past or they have recently been laid off. Therefore, the teachers make the conscious effort to call these individuals “learners” rather than “students”. It was explained that many of the learners are currently using the centre because they did not have positive experiences with the education system in the pass, thus leading them to do poorly in school, be truant, or drop out. Therefore, the use of the word “learner” is to remove that negative mindset, boost their morale and self-esteem, and ultimately allow them to do better in school.
While working with one of the learners at Essential Skills Upgrading, she opened up to me about her life and the struggles that she has gone through. She explained to me that her and her family lived in Palestine for a number of years before coming to Canada. She was a teacher in Palestine, teaching the Arabic language to young elementary school students. The learner told me that her life turned around when the war in Iraq began. She was afraid to put her three children in school in fear that they would be unsafe. Finally, in 2008, she immigrated her family to Canada to start a new life. Since her education was not recognized at an equal level in Canada, she must attend the program to upgrade her education.
This just goes to show that we cannot buy into the specific viewpoints that surrounds the adult education sector. Everyone has a story and each person is working towards their own end goal. We must be supportive in every venture that a student takes.
January
31
When Students Drive Improvement
Eric Hardie, author of When Students Drive Improvement, details the most useful wealth of knowledge when it comes to changes that should be implemented in the school: the students themselves. Hardie suggests that teachers can only assume what issues students are facing and what feelings they have about school. Therefore, when teachers and administrators attempt to implement programs that rectify these issues, they may not be fully effect or at all relevant to the feelings the students actually have.
By truly listening to students and creating opportunities for the students to take control of their own school, the information provided and implemented within the school is invaluable. One school created a student council consisting of students from a wide variety of areas within the school (academics, athletics, arts, etc.), which created a system to solve the problem of individuals feeling bullied and as thought they don’t belong. Additionally, the students sought to solve other problems within the school by acknowledging the problem, brainstorming ways to solve it, and putting a plan into action, all of which was student-driven.
I feel very strongly about the viewed expressed in Hardie’s article. It is one thing for students to learn a standardized curriculum, but if students are simply meant to absorb information and go on with their life, then there is a problem with the system. Students of all ages have very real opinions, especially when it comes to issues regarding their time at school, as do they have very real solutions that could be implemented. By putting the problem and the solution into the hands of the students, they are provided with an opportunity to learn social justice, equality and equity, empathy, time management, and initiative, among other skills that are not explicitly taught in the curriculum.
At my elementary school, St. Matthew in Waterloo, we had a “house” system in place. Our mascot was the wildcat, so we had four “cat team” which every student in the school was sorted under. Throughout the year, students would be able to earn points for their teams by being recognized by teachers for being good students, winning intramural sports, submitting great assignments, etc. This created a sense of belonging, team unity, and a desire to do well, not only for one’s self, but for the entirety of the team.
January
15
Poetry: An Insight Into A Student’s Soul
There’s a big push in our society to “talk to someone” to solve every difficult situation that you are experiencing. While this has great merit and has produced so much positivity, there’s something to say about a child’s ability to portray themselves in ways we don’t expect at their age. Even at such a young age, students have experienced situations that we as adults may have never encountered.
I am currently student teaching at an urban school in Ottawa, Ontario. The students come from all different backgrounds and experiences, which makes for a dynamic learning environment. At the conclusion of our poetry unit, students were instructed to write a poem demonstrating their best literary ability. Students had the freedom to choose the topic and structure of their poems, allowing their full creativity to flow! The only restriction was that their poetry must be respectful to everyone.
There were a few pieces of student work that I just had to share.
True works of art. Was all the spelling correct? No. Did the students use proper punctuation? Not always. Did the students demonstrate an ability to portray a feeling in a descriptive way? Absolutely. While I used to think of poetry as boring and redundant, I now view poetry as an insight into a student’s soul.
January
13
Graphic Organizers
These things are KEY…
Often, students get into a rut of receiving the same grade over and over again. They are quick to see a trend in what they are accomplishing and end up settling for that mark as their goal. But how can students excel past their normal quality of work without receiving a little guidance from the teacher? How can a teacher help a student go from a level 3 to a level 4 while also offering differentiation to students who are not even reaching a level 3?
Graphic organizers help students classify ideas and communicate more effectively, which help students achieve that next-level quality of work. The many uses of graphic organizers include structure writing projects, help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research and brainstorming. These organizers provide students with the opportunity to transfer ideas from their minds down to paper while also writing them in structured, yet creative, ways. Most importantly, they’re FUN!
Here is an example of a graphic organizer that I created with some fellow teacher candidates in our Social Studies course:
In Math class today, I had my students a chart-based graphic organizer about various types of angles:
Graphic organizers can be used in every subject and are a great learning activity for students. Try them; they might just become your favourite thing!
January
10
A Teacher’s Prayer #7
January
5
Teen Pregnancy
The relationship between teenage pregnancy and education goes in both directions. Teenagers who become pregnant are more likely to drop out of school and teenagers who drop out of school are more likely to become pregnant. Also, children of teen mothers are less likely to graduate from high school than children whose parents were older at the time of childbearing.
– Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
We often talk about poverty, race, and learning disabilities as key factors that prevent students from excelling in school. But another trend in education is the amount of teenaged pregnancies and their effects on success in school. During my time in high school, there were a few girls that I knew of that had given birth or had an abortion, yet the stats displayed below really intensified this topic for me:
Abortions and childbirths are occurring in astronomical numbers, and these stats are only from Canada! But just how serious of an effect does pregnancy have on the academic success of a study?
- Only 38% of teen mothers who have a child before the age of 18 graduate from high school, compared to approximately 75% of women who delay child bearing until 20-21.
- Parenthood is a leading cause of dropping out of school among girls. 30% of teen girls cited pregnancy or parenthood as a reason for dropping out of high school.
- Woman who are 20-21 when they give birth are over 4 times as likely to have a college degree by the time they are 30 as woman who have a child before the age of 18 (9% compared to <2%).
- 2/3 of children of teen mothers graduate high school, compared to 81% of the children of parents who were older at the time of childbearing.
- Children of teen mothers are 50% more likely to repeat a grade as children of older parents.
- Teenagers who drop out of school are more likely to get pregnant than their peers who stay in school.
Catholic schools teach abstinence; public schools teach contraception. Which is more effective? Is abortion a better alternative for teen students than childbirth? And what are the effects, if any, on the father? I will definitely look into these questions and more during further research on this topic.
December
27
