weeks 7 and 8 reflections

Week 7
During this week I tried to go over expectations with the students before the activity began. I also started a class sticker page for the kids to earn extra recess. I made sure to choose a goal for the first week that I knew they could meet. They did and they were so proud of themselves. The students can still earn stickers for behavior beyond the class behavior. The behavior during whole class activities seems to be improving. My CT and I also set up a personal space for the child with autism, E, last week. He used it a few times during the week and his emotional state was improved when he chose to rejoin the class. The previous method of talking with E in the hallway did not always work. First of all, it was very time consuming, and even when E said he was ready to come back into the room, many times he would get upset right away. When he returned from his space, it was on his terms and he stayed in the group longer, much longer, without getting upset again. When E got upset and my CT or I asked him what he wanted to do, he told us that he wanted to go to his space. I am documenting the times that E uses his space to see if there is a pattern in when he gets upset. I hope this is as successful when we move classrooms. My goals for the next week are to continue to encourage the students to work together for whole class rewards and to encourage E to continue monitoring his own needs.

Week 8
This was our first week in our new classroom. It has been slightly chaotic. Since my CT is moving back to the old classroom after Christmas, we didn't move everything to the new classroom. Also since she moved over a weekend, there was not a lot of time to get organized. I think she did a fantastic job. But there are still times when one of us is looking for something and we're not sure where it is. The students have handled the move fairly well. They seem to be flexible when we have to change small procedural things because of the new setup. E did not use his space at all. In fact, we saw some different manifestations of his behaviors this week. Luckily he hasn't started hitting his head again or screaming, but his behavior is certainly not going in the same direction it was last week. I didn't take time to show him where his space was before he got upset, so I need to do that this coming week. When he was upset I told him that he had his space in this room and he could go to it, but he didn't want to. The class behavior continued to improve this week. The students earned twice as many stickers and where very proud of themselves. We went to the professional building next to the hospital on Friday to go trick-or-treating and their behavior was wonderful. They followed directions promptly, waited their turn patiently, and were extremely polite to the professionals handing out candy. I handed out stickers quite often during the trip to encourage the behavior to continue and I used a lot of verbal praise. Before we left I wrote out 5 expectations for the trip, went over them, and told the students that they could earn 2 more minutes of extra recess (a total of 7) if they earned their last class sticker on this trip and that I would be handing out stickers when I saw the students following the 5 things I had written down. I think this helped a lot. The students saw and heard what was expected of them and they knew that there would be immediate reinforcement and reinforcement later. During a two hour trip most of the students earned 6 stickers. I made sure to tell them that they earned the stickers because of their behavior. I had been dreading this trip but we had a blast.


Misc.
There are new pictures posted on flickr. Hopefully I will post about the wedding and my trip to South Padre soon. I'm tired and am ready for this semester to be over. I still want to immerse myself in reading.

week 6 reflection

Last week we had a workshop on behavior management with Jo Weber. I had taken her class on Emotionally/Behaviorally Disturbed students a couple of years ago and she gave us the same information then that she gave at the workshop. It's amazing how much more of an impact it makes when you have specific children and situations in mind. I also don't know why we don't go over expectations with students more. They are only 6 and 7 years old, they need a lot of reminders simply because of their age. At the end of last week I started going over expectations before our lessons on the carpet and before we walked in the hallway. I saw a little bit of improvement on the carpet but I noticed more improvement in their behavior in the hallway. I'm thinking about starting a class reinforcement system for appropriate behavior during lessons. They would be able to earn extra recess on Fridays. This is just an idea that I had today that I still need to talk over with my CT. I've also started rewarding the students with stickers more frequently. I've noticed that the students who do not respond as well to verbal praise are coming around and starting to make a point to earn a sticker. The sticker is, of course, accompanied with verbal praise so that it can be reduced in frequency later on. I also realized that some of the behaviors that occur in the classroom that irritate me are simply just the way the room is set up. You have more behavior problems when students are crowded so it makes sense that I get irritated during carpet time. Not only are the students having trouble sitting still because there is no defined space, but I am feeling a little crowded which makes me more irritable. The students are also closer together so they are more likely to talk, play, or touch each other. And I'm not sure that I would have my students sitting in groups. A lot of the unnecessary talking that occurs is because the students are facing each other. I favor the idea of having group activities planned for a certain time of day so you just move the desks and/or chairs once during the day and then move them back before you go home. I also got some great tips for strategies to try with the child with autism so we can start working on him managing his own emotions and problems. My goal for this week is to make sure that I remember that the students are 6 and 7 and need lots of reminders and reinforcement. I'm also going to remember that my room would not have to be set up the same way as the class I'm in now.

recently...

Two Saturdays ago I had the rest of my back tattooed. It still needs to be colored in but the outline is healing quite nicely. I'm not going to post pictures of it on Flickr because it is a custom design and I want to protect Eric's work and keep my tattoo original. If you're a friend of mine I'll email you a picture once I find my @%&*! camera software and re-upload it.

This past weekend I went to Abilene for Christopher and Heather's wedding. It was a gorgeous event. The day was calm and they seemed to have fun. It was at Erinshire Gardens which is probably the most beautiful place in all of Abilene. I didn't know anything like that could exist in West Texas. When I'm in Abilene at Christmas I think I'm going to need to make a trip out there,take a walk, and take more pictures. Unfortunately in December the monarchs won't be passing through and probably not very many flowers will be in bloom.

Also, I'm not sure I want to be a classroom teacher. I'm considering a number of other options that would still put me working with elementary age children. Among the options are speech pathologist, counselor, and librarian. I also think that I would like to be a tattoo artist. I just don't know. Luckily I don't have to decide yet. And no matter what I decide I know my education will not have been a waste.

I must also recommend a wonderful book. It is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I can say nothing except that it is amazing. I cannot imagine how a story that interesting can come out of someone's mind. For now I'm going to forgo the fiction and focus on the plethora of other books that I have. Father Bruce has been kind enough to lend me a Bible with the Apocrypha in it, the Gospel of Thomas, The New testament and Other Early Christian Writings, and two books on Lectio Divina. I also have The Cloister Walk, The Rule of Benedict, Traveling Mercies: Some thoughts on Faith, New Seeds of Contemplation, and a Thomas Merton reader. All this to read while student teaching. Aye!! What a time for a thirst for faith and a thirst for information to hit. But I'm glad it has. I just wish that I had time to sit undisturbed and drink in all the words and wisdom these sources have to offer.

week 5 reflection

During week five I got the chance to observe several parent conferences. It is amazing in the different reactions of parents. One parent said she'd tried everything and nothing works to discipline her child. Some parents are concerned about what their child needs help on and will even request extra work for practice at home. Some parents seemed concerned for no apparent reason over behavior or academics while others give the impression that the problem only exists at school. It was a beneficial experience to see my CT talk with the parents. She started the conferences out on positive notes and tried to put positive spins or seem hopeful for situations that are not ideal. After one conference she'd had to tell a parent something they didn't want to hear and she expressed her nervousness to me after the conference was over. It was good to see that even after 5 years of teaching she still is not sure how to handle some situations. Some very interesting information can be revealed at conferences. Some of the students were there with their parents and being able to see the dynamic between parent and child can be a window to a child's behavior. There is a student in the class who is quite inattentive and my CT found out that it is because he needs tubes in his ears. It is something that should have been caught when he was a toddler, but for one reason or another it wasn't. The mom is in the process of trying to get this taken care of. It was an eye-opener for my CT and I. Of course he has a hard time paying attention, we sound like we're talking to him under water. I hope he gets the procedure taken care of soon because he is already behind. I would also like to see first hand the difference that it makes. One of my goals is to try harder to take into consideration more frequently things outside of school that affect the students.

week 4 reflection

This week was more frustrating than others. It didn't have anything to do with the kids, but with all the other stuff that goes on. I'm beginning to tire of half of our meetings being complaining and griping. We have meetings during planning time twice a week and a grade level meeting after school once a week. I don't feel like much is accomplished in these meetings. A couple of the teachers are trying to make an agenda to help keep the group on topic and on some kind of similar train of thought. I'm also tired of hearing the teachers talk about each other. The school is using a language arts program called Balanced Literacy. It is a good program, but doesn't leave much time for subjects other than math. We are also using a new math program that is interesting. There is not enough time in the day to cover an entire lesson, which makes it hard to reteach if needed and not get behind. In the last couple of weeks we've spent a few days on clocks, a few days on money, one day on addition and the very next day on subtraction. It doesn't seem to allow the kids time to master a concept before moving on to the next one. The teachers are extremely frustrated because they are being told that they have to fit in science on top of all this. The kids need to learn science, of course, but the teachers are being required to use these other programs that take up so much time. And the principal has told the teachers that she wants them to be pulling reading groups throughout the day. The low readers are supposed to be pulled for reading groups everyday. First grade is still mostly group instruction. The only thing they do independently is workstations. It is almost impossible to teach what you need to and pull for reading groups more than once a day. It just seems like there are some very unrealistic expectations. I don't know if it's just the school, if it's this district, or if this is pretty typical but this last week has been kind of discouraging.