Another day

Today we did not learn more things that overwhelmed me, since I know how to make lessons already, and we planned a lesson for something I had already started doing, namely giving options. When I have things in hand I feel more confident, and when I have a game and am told that I can "use that" I get more nervous. Since I don't have the picture of previous experience to go on, I feel like I have to have a picture of what everything will look like before I do it, or else I feel completely paralyzed and unsafe. I understand that that's what a curriculum is for, so that you don't get lost along the way, but mine isn't the most helpful in that regard. I hope I can get my classroom together enough, and figure out which way is up, before school starts.

From one of our viewers on what I posted last time, and my answer below:


The language of self-differentiation doesn't sound that different from what we talk about when we say differentiation. Maybe that's because I have a strong association in my mind of using differentiation to help kids learn how to self-differentiate - the more we can help kids realize how they learn and what their strengths are, the better we serve them. And if this is 'post-UbD' classroom - what do they consider outdated about UbD? What are the primary differences - such that you wish Pardes would give us this theory to supplement UbD? Or is it just for the specific forms?

None of it is actually much different. Just the theory words and the forms are.

The big difference really is that the lesson is not the main thing, like in Ubd. The lesson is serving a higher goal, which is social learning, done by building community and only then teaching content. Thus "Teaching Tanach"'s method of coming in on the first day and teaching, and thereby showing that the content is important, would not be permitted. The first ten days all you can do is play games and build community half the time, and the other half spend modeling every behavior in the schoolday from walking in the halls to sharpening pencils, so that you teach good behaviors. Then you start teaching content, and when the students forget, you remodel or at least remind them of the modeling. They believe in sweating the small stuff, batttling everything (we learned to pick our battles), and be consistent, both in your class and across classes. That's because they believe that little things are what builds community, and that students can't be safe if someone is tapping their pencil and you don't allow that in your class.

I think what Pardes should have taught us was that behavior has to be a part of teaching, not something that gets in the way of teaching, but a huge indicator of the needs of students that your teaching has to address. I think also teaching us a language to use while re-directing students to work, such as "I've noticed you are not writing. If you keep this up you will not finish in the time limit, and we agreed as a class that work has to be finished. What can you do to get back on track?" instead of telling us that those of us with good teacher-stares are fortunate, and the less assertive ones, like me, 'will just have a hard time finding your sea-legs'. That person like me, who notices everything but has never wanted to be forceful and yell about it can thrive in an atmosphere where I never am expected, or even allowed, to judge a student or his behavior, and where we don't punish but rather re-direct. It would have been valuable to talk about how to stay objective and reflective when you're frustrated, and how managing a class is not a necessary evil but a golden opportunity to build a safe haven for students.


In other news, I learned today yet another thing I wish Pardes would have taught us-- how to put up a bulletin board. Mine looks like a cow chewed the paper, and I will hopefully post pictures tomorrow. But I have to say that the way my room looks, I am quite embarrassed right now. I know new things come slowly, but I wish we could have imagined our classrooms, talking about more than desk arrangements, and just done enough thinking so I don't wonder how soon my room can get a makeover...

The Newly-Married

She's nice, the other new girl. She's prettier than me, only a year older, and the most important part, not still in her first year. I think we will be friends, since we laugh well together. Or at least I hope we will be.

Now I'm tired since I spent two hours talking to her instead of going home and taking my nap and I will, I WILL, find a schedule that works and that I can handle, and manage all this, I will. And hopefully soon.

Virginity

I felt like today was the initiation rites into a large cult of education that may or may not be practiced in the real world. We have a week-long seminar in Responsive Classroom, which is a pretty package that is a lot of UbD, kitchy games to build community in a middle school, and some very odd "forms".

At first I was overwhelmed at all the new things to learn, and not a tiny bit resentful that I had been having my brains stuffed with differentiation and goal-setting and most of all reflective teaching for 2 years now, only to be handed a very thick book and a week of new learning and be told that everything I've learned until now is outdated.

But then, after talking to the other teachers, I saw that they were resentful for all the new "teacher language" and the things that they hadn't been able to pull off or take seriously last year, and was told that I was really ahead, since making lessons interesting and relevant is all we've talked about in ages, and most of the teachers are just learning now how to do that. They've replaced all the talk about differentiated process and product with talking about giving students options and letting them self-differentiate, Ubd lesson plans with "planning, work and reflection" charts, and, in the most radical change of all, gone from the stat of 40% of students being auditory, 40% visual, and 20% kinesthetic, to "most" students visual, "many" students kinesthetic, and "few" students auditory, thus making my own personal style of learning rare and mostly obsolete (focusing on written and modeled instructions and not speaking them at all to not add to the too-many words that teachers already say each day). I guess I don't mind. Learning new things every day is healthy, having my mind and world turned upside down will keep me humble about my new-teacher status, and having too many terms for the same ideas seems to be an important step in becoming self-authoring.

I'm going to be like Rashi and not give my mission statement for this blog until at least chapter 3 verse 8, even though responsive classroom says to "get skin in the game" the first day and make goals in the first ten minutes, but the most important thing I learned today is that teaching is supposed to keep you on your toes, never quite sliding into comfortable. Speaking of which, my favorite new form so far is having a "Take A Break" chair, where students (and occasionally the teacher) can go to regain self-control, while still sort of remaining part of the class. (It's a comfy place off to the side but still facing the class, where students can sit for 2 minutes, by teacher's or their own request, not talking, when they feel out of control.)

And the real last thing is that I wish Pardes would teach this, just like Delet, so I would not be swimming in a theory that they actually would have really liked us to have.

In other news, I have a classroom, all mine for just my classes, and I want to try out my crazy desk arrangement, provided my promised new trapezoidal tables show up sometime before the students do (2 weeks from today). I'll post pics of my bulletin boards once they're up, of course :-).

I think that's all for today, going to take the first of my regularly-scheduled before dinner naps now, but I'll write again tomorrow, of course.