Beginner Teachers Institute - NYSAIS 10/26

Every year NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools) puts on various conferences that support the professional development of teachers in their association. It is our (the other interns and I) second and last night here in Renssalaerville, NY (http://www.riconferencecenter.com/), a beautiful setting which certainly facilitates learning and inspiration. The conference started yesterday at 4pm and ends tomorrow morning. To sum it up: the first night we all gathered in one room and we were asked to think back to our first 10 minutes of teaching: what were we thinking, how prepared were we, what were the reactions.... then we had to get with a partner who we didn't know and share our different experience. we did the same with a different topic: sharing stories about the worst teacher that we had...the one who just didn't get us. then we turned to the positive route: who inspired us the most...possibly someone who inspired us to be a teacher. what a great idea, but i had such a difficult time remembering. I guess that could a be a good thing - to not have too many memories of bad teachers in my life. but I seriously couldn't think back too far into my educational history. I guess that's because it was so divided from going from private preschool to public elementary (kindergarten-1st) to private elementary/middle school (2nd-8th) to public hs (9th,10th) to boarding high school (11th,12th). I wouldn't trade that experience for anything but I'd say that had a unique affect on my scholastic and moral education.

After that first session we were divided into what are called "home groups". These were groups that included people from all the different types of teaching (lower, middle, upper....language, history, science, math, etc.). In those groups we shared 1. Our lowest low in teaching. 2. Our highest high. 3. Personal goals at this time in our life and 4. Professional goals.

The sharing of the lowest of lows was quite interesting and I must say entertaining too. It was great to be around people with similar experiences to mine. so you want to hear my lowest low? it's actually quite embarrassing as it only involved teaching my Spanish 1 students the numbers 11-100 (how to spell them and say them). easy right? Little did I know that i had absolutely no idea how to explain this simple concept to people who just started learning the language a month ago. not to mention this was the second class I had had with Spanish 1 and was all set to redeem myself after a not so good first class. well, let me tell you my friends, teaching numbers is not as easy as you think. I got up in front of the class and realized that I hadn't thought out the explanation of what 11-30 (ex. 11- once, 23- veintitrés, 30-treinta) and the majority of the numbers after 30 are two words for one number (42- cuarenta y dos)

when preparing this lesson just wasn't thinking like a student new to Spanish or even thinking like a teacher. It didn't occur to me that I should explain why you drop the e and the y and add an i for those one word numbers.... I also didn't think about trying to explain it in English instead of Spanish but instead tried to use words in Spanish (that they don't know yet) to explain what the heck I was doing. ah!!!!!!!!!!!!

Such lack of preparation and thinking led to 1. blank stares from students 2. a ridiculous amount of sweat dripping down my back, oh yes! and sweaty palms, too! 3. Marilyn (my mentor who observes me in this class every day!) giving looks of pain, but definitely not offering any help. 4. me wanting to rip my clothes off and jump out the window but deciding better to just give them a water break, correct the homework and then send them home.
I thought i'd had some bad classes with Spanish 2 but this class topped all the previous lows. I was having an out of body experience where i could see how it was all rolling down hill at a very fast pace....not good.

main point = forgot that teachers must teach, not just talk, they must know the ins and outs of the information that is to be presented. they must anticipate misunderstandings. Although it is wonderful to get to the point in my own personal use of Spanish where I don't have think about the whys with everything that I write or say, I need to remember that I was not at that point in 9th/10th grade and my students are certainly not there either. I am clearly being humbled here and learning to know this beautiful language from a completely fresh perspective.

school visit to Concord Academy

So at this point in my teaching career I feel like I really haven't established a teaching style for myself. I see myself more like a big sponge than anything else because i just have so much to learn and I am just soaking up everything I can from whatever resources are presented to me. last wednesday the language department took off and went to visit Concord Academy in Concord, MA. Not only was the trip itself a great bonding experience with 3 other of the female teachers (Marilyn, my mentor, Lauren-a french teacher. she was an intern last year. and Sabra- french teacher from canada) but it was a wonderful opportunity to see different styles of teaching. Señor Cambria was by far the best teacher that I have seen yet. I visited both his spanish i and spanish ii classes. I guess what was so impressive was how well organized and high achieving the classroom was. when students walked into the classroom the first thing they did was go find who their class partner was for the day. apparently they switch partners every day and this partner is the person with whom they speak, correct homework and do other exercises. every class starts with dialogue with your partner about the segment of the Destinos video that was assigned the night before. Destinos is great program where students' learning is based off of a spanish telenovela (soap opera) called Destinos.through this telenovela they are exposed to multiple aspects of many spanish speaking cultures as well as all the necessary grammatical education. It is very interactive and useful and i noticed a stark difference with the level of the spanish used by the concord students compared with Emma students. These students were using preterite (past) tense as if they'd been doing it for a year. while I struggle daily to get full sentences out of my girls, these students were speaking with ease and comfort, seeming quite knowlegeable of what they were saying. it was incredible. also there was no whining or complaining about assignments or requests. maybe the class could be more disciplined because it was coed and unfortunately I think that the gender dynamics of the classroom definitely affect the atmosphere of learning. girls at emma are way to babied but they also would break down if I were to demand the same kind of performance, respect and discipline as the students at concord academy.
so the point is, that I learned a whole lot from this visit. I'm anxious to apply some of the ideas from Cambria's class to my own classroom. I'm feeling that I got no where to go but up and I am so grateful for all these awesome examples. this coming week I am going with the other interns to the NY state Beginner teachers' Institute in Rennsalaerville. it's a three day gathering and training of new teachers from all across the state. Seminars will be given to educate us on teaching tools and methods and also we will be able to discuss the experiences we've had up until now with teaching. it'll be a good experience but i'm a little upset because i am missing classes for it. tomorrow on my day off I need to make up lesson plans for both Spanish One and Two because Marilyn will be taking them over for me while I'm gone. It's funny because I feel like those students are my guinnea pigs, babies is probably a better word, and I don't want to be away from them for too long. I especially don't want them to get confused with the switching back and forth between teaching styles. good things is that I've been told by students and parents that my teaching style is very similar to marilyns and therefore the students haven't noted much difficulty when we switched from marilyn to me....

okay so now I'm getting tired and it's noticeable in this writing. what happened to the days when 11:30pm seemed early to me?

Parent Teacher Conferences

So I did it! I made it to a very important date here at Emma Willard - Parent Days. After being away from their little darlings for about a month and a half the parents arrived in full force. Classes and hallways were packed on Friday as parents were shuffled from one class to the next by their daughters. I can't believe that I pulled of teaching yesterday. When asking about how to plan for the Parent Days classes one teacher told me that you should save your best show for that one day...in other words it needs to be your best class ever taught. Well you could say I felt a lot of pressure as a someone who is doing crash course in teaching by doing. So honestly as this day was coming nearer it still wasn't clear to me that I was comfortable if front of my own students (Spanish II is definitely better than Spanish I, which I just started a week ago) so how was I going to feel settled in front of their parents, the one paying putting down the big bucks for a top notch education. I mean I just began teaching 3 weeks ago and now i have to give them my best show? You mean I have to act as if it's completely naturally, normal, and comfortable and as if I don't want to vomit every time when kids give me blank stares back? as if really know what the heck I'm doing up there with that chalk?

Okay, so it hasn't been that bad. Actually, according to Marilyn, who's been observing my classes, I'm doing very well. She told me that i have a wonderful way of bouncing back. By that she was refering to the way I have disaster classes (like my first and second classes with Spanish 1 where I was sweating buckets just trying to explain how to write and say the numbers 11-100....it's not as easy as you think!) but then I will fix it and get it right by the next class. I'll take that as a compliment. I guess I'm determined not to fail at this teaching thing because it's the education of 24 girls that I'd be messing up. that's not to say that I won't let myself make mistakes but rather I'm committed to make this an experience where I learn and improve every day from each class. I'm realizing that maybe I'm learning as much about teaching as the students are learning about Spanish. I give kudos to all my teachers that I've had because this is no easy job. In order to teach Spanish I have to learn it all over again in a completely different way. I know how to count from 1-100 but how do I explain it to people who have never heard, seen, or written those numbers?

anyways, this is a great experience that I'm having here and the conversations that I had with parents during their conferences on saturday went really well and reassured me that I am in my right place. people are responding well to what I have to offer and that is what truly matters. more to come later.....