Second day of student teaching? Better than yesterday. (I’m smiling). I observed a female teacher. She teaches 6th grade social studies. Before class started I was sitting in her classroom while she talked to an 8th grader about the fight he had yesterday-he was serving an in school suspension in her class. She was telling him how it was unreasonable for him to be a mentor to a 6th grader if he is always getting into trouble. That was a good question to ask this young man. He didn’t have an answer but I could see that her words had phased through him. His reflection was about as long as a blink of an eye because he soon started making jokes about how some of the teachers can’t teach and how bad he is and how he wasn’t going to go to his graduation because he thought the whole idea was dumb and boring. He was funny. We all chuckled. The librarian walked in and she joined in and talked about how boring her graduation was. In the midst of the now lighthearted conversation the teacher I was observing said, “Mr. Caruthers you’ll be teaching him social studies you know”. And then it hit me. That young man was no longer funny. Just like yesterday I started staring. I just looked. I watched this boy and started thinking about all the discipline strategies I’ll have to implement to ensure that he learns just like all the other children. (Ain’t no playin with me! Ain’t no way I’m a let kids cut up while I command the teaching stage!)
The time came and the 6th graders began to file into the classroom. I curiously watched them march to their seats. They were a quiet class. They had seatwork for the entire 90 minutes. Which was cool. I watched this one kid, I’m a call him “karate Kid”. Well Karate Kid wasn’t done with his report on Julius Caesar so when he finished his seatwork he took a seat at the computer, which so happened to be right next to me. I watched Karate Kid “Copy and Paste”. That’s right “copy and paste” his report onto the word document. He had skills. He didn’t use the mouse. All keyboard. I wanted him to know that I could see what he was doing so I did like a giraffe and craned my neck out so it was obviously over his shoulder. (If you’re in education you’ll know that I was using the P.E.P=Proximity Eye Contact and Privacy). It didn’t work. Karate kid turned looked at me. Paused. We made eye contact for about 2.3 seconds and he turned back around and continued to copy and paste his report. I have to perfect my P.E.P and also get my Assertive discipline on. I don’t like cheaters.
Well after that class period the second hour came in. They asked a ton of questions!!! It was ridiculous! But what I observed left an impression on me. Earlier that morning a boy came in to see if his presentation would work and he couldn’t get his YouTube video to work because the school blocks YouTube. He was pretty bummed and I felt for him. I like showing movies in presentations but I knew I couldn’t help him out because the site was blocked. Remember the 8th grader from earlier? Well he asked the teacher when this boy was done could he help him with his presentation. The teacher hesitantly said yes. So I watched this small 6th grader receive help from an 8th grader who before was told that he wasn’t an ideal mentor because of his behavior. The 8th grader impressed me. Although he got into fights with other students he cared for people. He was still human. He hacked the server and got through to YouTube but it still didn’t work out. In my mind I clapped for him. I’m going to remember that as I interact with him in my U.S History class! Bad Kids can learn, that is another mental note that I must keep.
Lunch came. I had few “Bonnie”-(explained in previous blog) incidents nothing really to report. THANK GOD. It was now third hour and it was the team plan.
O
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School was out meeting was over. The excitement didn’t really occur until I got back to campus. Tonight on OC’s great campus a documentary was being viewed. Now I missed the MEMO. When I got there the place was crowded. I seriously thought that it was just us (Oklahoma Christian University) Education majors that were going to be watching this film. Nope. Wrong. False. The State Superintendent was there, some lady from Indiana, a lady that told us she was getting old, a man, Tea Party People (I’m kind of afraid of them), some teachers, weirdoes, other college students, community folk, weirdoes, but the most important people in the room were (to me) my fellow Student Teachers, Dr. Winn, Dr. Feuerhelm, and our very own department chair Dr. Miller.
I had not the faintest idea that it was that serious! I mean people were taking pictures I’m assuming for their Facebook for some default picture action. People were in suits. I’m kind of glad that I didn’t walk in their looking sloppy. It was funny because I watched my fellow student teachers walk in kind of surprised by the crowd. Seriously we all got the memo that was like “hey come eat some pizza and watch a movie!” Pressing on.
The Film revealed the corruption in the New Jersey Schools. A lot of money was devoted to a state that was doing a bad job of educating their students. I learned that U.S Teens were the worst at Math and reading. New Jersey spends the most but only 39% of their 8th graders are reading on a proficient level. Sad. I learned that New Jersey a small state has an astounding 616 school districts!! Florida a bigger more populous state has only 75 school districts. Basically the film was saying that New Jersey schools spend a lot of money on education like around 400,000 but less than half of it enters the classroom. It was obvious. People were getting rich! The film said you can tell how bad a district is by the number of Mercedes, Lexus, Infinities, and BMW’s are in the parking lot. I plan on keeping my 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix for a while! It wasn’t a bad film. It was very informative and reveled that changes have to be made in how funds are going to education. That’s Good.
The weirdness came with the panel. Not the people on it but the audience. My goodness! They had the memo that it was revolution time. I seriously thought they were going to storm the Bastille (European History Reference from the Social Studies Ed Major-That’s me! High five for me) and burn books and kill people! It was scary! I swear some of those people were packing heat! Like Guns! Not water guns. But Guns. They shoot people and they die. This one guy in the brown sweater was the scariest. Some of his memorable words were: “I have a son that’s retarded and he can fix school buses!” he also told us: “I have a son that’s retarded and he can use a switch!” he spoke again: “I have a son that’s retarded and he can fix the air conditioning!” I DON’T CARE WHAT NOBODY SAYS, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF. HE WAS RETARDED AND HE WAS TELLING US. Another lady said, “THEY CAN’T DO WORD PROBLEMS IF THEY CAN’T READ!” and “MY GRANDSON LIVES IN CHICAGO AND WE DO HOMEWORK ON THE PHONE EVERY EVENING!” I was thinking. Ok thanks for sharing…
It was odd. They talked about how kids need to be beat with paddles and some of everything (they don’t believe in “Love&Logic”). There were some good comments but some people were just saying stupid things. Some of these people just felt like education was seriously down the drain and it was going to take a TEA PARTY to get it together. SCARY. Dr. Miller said a lot of positive things about teacher education and preparation and how that end is being worked on and also about how the residency teacher program needs a revival. Very good. The state superintendent Janet Barresi said some good things about how things are too easy for our students. I agree. It was interesting I learned a lot from that panel and the people in the audience.
I’m awake to the issues that I’ll be facing as a teacher. I found it intriguing that socialist countries like Sweden and Denmark are kicking the United States in education. Do we really have freedom in America? Hard for me to say! But I know I have freedom in Christ and plan to use that as I plan to enter the classroom and teach to inform my students about the world they live in. Groups are good and movements are not bad. In Dr. Martin Luther Kings’ Letter from a Birmingham Jail he wrote: “Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Neibuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals”. I wonder if administrators will give up the money they make for the kids. I wonder if citizens will give more money for the kids. I kept asking myself do people really have all students in mind? Can groups like these really do some good? I like to be an individual. I know I have to work with people but I want to ensure that at the end of my life I can say that was myself. I want to make sure that I didn’t fall in line with every movement because it all sounds good when we talk but it takes a entirely different attitude to walk that talk. GOOD NIGHT! Keep me in prayer!
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