Capital City Charter School

I visited Capital City Charter School in preparation for possibly student teaching here in the fall, and it was a lovely class to observe. Capital City is an Expeditionary Learning school and uses Responsive Classroom techniques. It is a remarkably diverse school, with brightly colored walls.

The teacher was warm, grounded and centered. This was great to see, because, one, it was a well-managed elementary school class, but also, it exemplified the importance of teacher "energy," voice quality and body language. I am aware of the importance of these qualities in the yoga classroom, and have assumed that these are significant teachers in the art room, but this was the first really good example of how a teacher can anchor and contain the classroom.

Judy was clear to say that not all days are so perfect, but she has an elegance to her classroom management. She has learned in her 15 years of teaching to follow her gut and maintain her center (her word). When something in the classroom feels off or like it is moving out of control, she does not hesitate to pause to address the offsetting issue.

She also does not take on more than she can handle. For example, today's class, began with all 14 students meeting on the floor. She gave them a clear outline of what they would be doing. She then called students, individually, to the table where there work was set up. Seven students continued work on still life paintings. Seven students worked with "centers," which looked like a free choice play. As students finished with their paintings, the children would switch activities. She breaks the classroom into groups in order to manage the classroom and specifically said that this is to address the issues that arise from transitions. She also does this because the small groups allow her to better focus her time and energy.

The students worked well within this system and seem to benefit from the reponsive classroom. There were small issues that came up during class, but with minimal teacher interaction, students self-regulated and carried on. One incident, between a young girl and boy, was particularly impressive. The girl started crying, and in following with the responsive classroom, the teacher encouraged her to use her words to work through issue. They did and the class carried on with little to no interruption.

This school was a million miles from my experience teaching at Amidon Bowen. At Amidon Bowen the emotional and energetic peaks and valleys can be quite steep, but I think the teacher, and a model like this one, are immensely helpful in evening out social and emotional challenges of classroom learning. I look forward to going back.

MLK

I had a wonderful time at MLK last week!  Brian was very informative and gave us an inside look at teaching in a DCPS!  There was a police officer at the door which is something that I have heard of but not seen.  However the over all feel of the school was not too hectic and had a cretin comfort level to it.  Comparing it to Cook elementary school it appeared much more organized.  I remember being concerned and surprised at the number of children constantly wandering the halls.  For the most part the children knew where they were supposed to be and gave the teacher a great deal of respect.  Brian pointed out that he was one of I believe 3 male teachers in the school which changed the dynamic of his relationship with the children.  He also talked about how as the art teacher you see every student.  So developing a personal relationship with students is harder.  Even simple tasks he pointed out such as remembering everyones names were more difficult because it was not a mater of one classroom, but rather the entire school. 

The week prior I unfortunately spent 3 hours driving around SE and Anacostia lost!  The second time around I found it better and was unfortunately very close at one point an remembered getting nervous and turning around.  Not sure how many of you drive in the last group...  But keep a close eye on your map quest because it gets tricky around 395! 

chap 8

The article this week worked well as a reminder of the many things we must look out for during our observations. It was a bit basic in the information it relayed. Most of the suggestions seemed to be common sense. Of course the argument can be made that far too often many of these suggestions don't show up in many teacher's actual practice. From what I have been able to observe from my teachers throughout my time in school is that if they are not following these suggestions it is because they are burnt out and don't care, not because they are ignorant of the importance of such suggestions. The heavy reliance on filling out little charts to help teachers acknowledge every little aspect of the classroom experience is becoming to be something I see as a problem in the field of education. Luckily good teachers that I have observed are not so married to this practice. It is good to use some of these tools as a teacher but the overuse is common and detrimental to the classroom teacher. This problem is beginning to reinforce my view of there being a major split between actual classroom teaching and the field of education. If the field of education wanted to produce more effective classroom teachers it would work towards becoming more of a apprentice type path of education than a research driven operation. The over abundance of forms in in the education field works great for for its pursuit of research but at the same time can cloud the vision of aspiring teachers to effectively advance towards their goals of working with a group of complex human beings. Teacher preparation could stand to gain with more emphasis on field placement and student teaching. If these two entities became the pillar of teacher prep then information in articles like chapter 8 would become something that is picked up in a more natural way.

Classroom variety for little kids?

I found this week's article (AKA Chapter 8 "Verifying Instructional Variety") to be very interesting. If makes sense, of course, that employing a variety of project types, teaching styles, et cetera will keep students alert and on their proverbial toes. Additionally, the more variety in teaching methods a teacher uses the more likely he is to hit on the different learning styles of his students, even if accidentally. However, I would bet that the variety called for in the article is harder to achieve than one would predict.

Over the last couple months in this course, I have observed multiple classes of young children (3rd grade and below). Some of these classes incorporate variety deep in their design, like SEEC and SWS. Specifically, SEEC is rooted in learning through 'choice time' when student gets to choose from stations of activities to help them learn tactically, visually, kinesthetically, etc. Each day the student gets to participate in a variety of learning-inspired activities. Yet, as I mentioned in my previous blog entries, there was much misbehavior during the varied activity times.

Of course, multiple factors contribute to students' behavior, and the open-learning style cannot be blamed for the pandemonium. My point is more that, contradictory to the article, variety in learning activities does not necessarily eliminate misbehavior. I believe the problem at SEEC lies lies in a misnomer; the children get to choose from a variety of activities each day, and because it happens each day, the various activities actually prevent the instructional variety called for in this article. Simply put, the same format every day, even if disguised, isn't variety. The SEEC students were used to choice time. The novelty had worn off, and now that block of time was just another place to goof around.

Does this mean a teacher must plan for variety within their variety? SEEC instructors should mix choice time with choice-free days so that students learn to appreciate both? I do agree with the ideas presented in this article, but I think they are a lot more to expect from a elementary teacher than a high school teacher. Is there an easier way for elementary school instructors?

Peabody week 2

Peabody is an experience. This is the second week I have gone there and I have very mixed feelings. I know we just came at a bad time but I feel very let down. On one hand, the environment is insanely incredible. Materials are everywhere and the kids can really explore and grow. The have a bird cage!!! (OK, random, but it gets me excited). The school is beautiful/decorated/full of stuff and the kids are really cute. In short, there should be so much to learn from here.

BUT we didn't get to see any teaching in action. We were asked to help scan in some notebook drawings of the kids, which I don't mind so much but I was under the impression we are supposed to be observing teaching. Also, there is a school auction coming up and the kids were asked to make ornaments for a lamp that will be sold off to raise money for the school. So the kids were handed a ready-to-make project with little creativity or thought involved and then were given free time, again. Grrrr. I wanted to see some Reggio in action but like I said I guess our timing is off. What was impressive was that the kids hammered their own holes into bottle caps with an awl and hammer, not s/t I would let a kindergartner do but they managed quite well. I guess I will just have to have nice little memories of the birds and turtles.

My time so far with Jude at WVSA

Hey folks, Eddy here.
I've been observing Jude at WVSA for the past two weeks and I must say that I enjoy the environment as well as the students. The environment is really lax and there is room too really help each student develop their individual techniques. My only concern is the lack of structure with regard to a curriculum and the like. This might be due to the fact that the art works that are created in Jude's class are works created to sell, which is the main goal of the students from my talks with Jude. Another reason is for the learning disabilities and other issues that may limit goal setting. I feel as though something is missing. I know the students have learning disabilities, but they have been able to learn how to draw, paint etc. I think it would be more productive to have the students learn more about what they do as well as better techniques in order to enhance their products. If in fact the art work is made in order to garner income then it makes sense to enhance the artwork in order to solicit better prices for the work.

Eddy

Wilson High - the environment

This week I started my shift at Wilson High in NW. I found it to be a very enjoyable place that I would not mind doing my student teaching at. It is probably one of the most diverse schools I have seen in the district so far. It is located in NW yet it sounds like they bring in students from all over the city. The student body is about 1,500 but is in quite a beautiful large old building. There is a definite advantage to having such an old building for a school. It provides an interesting environment that one can be proud of walking into everyday. The tall ceilings, old oak mill work and furniture, and large windows are just a few things that help a student bodies pride that come along with an old building. Yes the new high schools are supposedly less dingy since they are newer but often this is only true in our minds. The new schools are often windowless and uninspiring to be in. They even end up being just as dilapidated and sometimes more so since the materials used end up being so cheap. My teacher Ms. Huberman mentioned a renovation was in store for next year but hopefully this will not throw out many of the old beautiful craftsmanship and architectural details that exist in the building today. Unfortunately if you look at renovations of other schools like Wilson the outcome is usually negative due to lack of funding. Goodbye 12 ft. ceilings and inspiring old light fixtures hello office ceiling board and and cheap plastic office lights. Ms. Huberman who used to be a architectural preservationist has taken advantage of her luck of being in an old school and appreciates the fact. She proudly showed off her heavy oak chest of map drawers for the kids work and many other beautiful old oak pieces of furniture such as a piece form the library that double as a chest of drawers and magazine display shelf. He also pointed out the amount of natural light the room received thanks to it large windows. Ms. Huberman's enthusiasm about her surroundings reminded me of how lucky i was to be in a similar era high school when i was a student and how much it affected me. (especially in the art room)

Roger