4. Name five people and five resources in your community that the school's could tap to help make students’ learning and work real.
5. What would it take for you to want to be a mentor to a high school student two days a week at your workplace. I found out that one of my students wanted to be a pro wrestler when he grew up. He had the face and frame for it too, and I knew someone from my church that had been an amature wrestler. It was during Covid so I had her come to my ELD class on Zoom and it was a blast! It would have been amazing to build a mentorship with that student. I would love to mentor any of my students who would like to be a teacher. First and foremost I could have them help me in my class and tutor them in life’s obstacles that are school related. I have run many afterschool programs like Kennedy games, MESA, and talent show practice so I don’t mind staying after school or volunteering my time. I think it is different from other workplaces because you never really know the student’s or adults drive to mentor or be a mentee so I feel there is also a slight risk that has to be addressed for the safety of all.
0 Comments
1. Imagine you’ve found out that a kid you know is really interested in astronomy or ect. How would you help her go into depth in this area? What might she learn by exploring her interest more deeply? I do individual goal setting with each of my students 3 times a year. So I try to relate everything to their real life goals. SUSD has a program called Xello that has personality and school profiles where they answer questions about themselves. I give them assignments through those and have them write quick writes about what they have seen in the careers they could choose from. I also had the students create emblems and crests out of clay for an art project. They had to think about what they wanted to be in the future, write a letter to themselves, create a digital crest, and then create that crest in modeling clay. They made solar ovens and baked their crest in the oven. I also found out that one of my students wanted to be a wrestler. So I brought in a amature wrestler through Zoom to talk about how she got into it, her day job, and what she would have done differently in order to follow her dreams earlier. 4. Did you save any papers you wrote for school? Yes, I have saved many papers that I have done in college, and even some from my earlier years of school that show my goals of that time. It is interesting to see the growth and change of my ideals and goals as an individual. I was also able to study the organization of my school district as I was doing my B.S. so many of the articles I still use today. I think it is more to do with my connection to the work I have saved. There is real meaning in being truly interested in what you are studying over busy work. Many of my journals in high school and college for English have been saved, but none of the busy work. Students and teachers know the difference, but how do you ensure that there is enough practice on a particular project without practice, aka, busywork. 2. Tell about a time where something you learned motivated you to learn more? What implications does this have for education?
I grew up always playing in my fathers garden and yard, having to be helpful in killing pests, pulling weeds, watering, and all of the other mundane work you have to do when you don’t really care about something. It all seemed pointless, the idea of gardening. Some years things went amazing and our yard looked like a fruit bearing jungle. Other years it seemed as though we did the same thing, and it was a dying waste of time. It was in my Botany Class at San Joaquin Delta College. It was a lab where we were manipulating closed systems and monitoring the effects of wind and sun in different environments on plant growth. The teacher had set up all these different closed systems, and as partners we could change the variables of wind, heat, water, and humidity. We would then make observations about the plant, pick a leaf and study the stomata, and report our observations to other groups. That lab, combined with nature walks, and a field trip to the different climate zones in our, or the geographical features in the surrounding areas and adaptations plant species have to survive, allowed me to make connections to everything I had been doing in my parents garden and land. I love gardening now and am thrilled by the challenge of growing food and creating a balanced ecosystem I can eat from. The implications in education in connection to what we have talked about in class with the development in education, and giving students a wide variety of rigorous academic courses (Mirel), is almost impossible to give to every child. There is no one size that fits all in education. It was a Bio 3 Botany class, in College, that changed my trajectory and love of Science and Labs. It was a project based lab that allowed me to expand my previous knowledge, observe new information, share, and compare information. This implies that we need more student led, project based, and teacher guided learning to even come to motivating and challenging students throughout the grade spans. 7. What changes would have to happen to make a truly personalized school possible? Where would you begin? At the grade levels and District I have taught, I don't think a truly personalized school is possible at the level that was achieved at The Met. I only say that because from observations at Board, PTA, and PTSA meetings as to a student growing up to a Staff member and now a Teacher I don’t believe that the District has the ability to implement this as a District wide norm. Even speaking to teachers that have worked at Aspire Charter School's, and private school's it seems like we all are focused on Summative tests to quantify learning. There are ideas that could be implemented from the One student at a time concept to increase Parent Involvement and to create Learning plans. That is an agreement between student, teacher, and the guardian that is based on the students goals and interests with input from the teacher, parent, and guidance counselor. It should also be done 3 times a year to coincide with Summative District Tests and Report Cards. We have them as part of the SAP process for our school, but that only starts after 3 months of deficiencies in school and documentation of the learning supports that have failed. Each student should have a SAP plan. That would mean the School district would need to create and provide more support for teachers to create ones for lower aged students, more counselors across the board, and a district wide process created to streamline it and not overburden Learning Plan Participants. 2. How could a school go about showing its students that they are trusted and valued members of the school community?
I love the idea of a democratic environment! It would be so much easier if my school could have a Town Hall Meeting instead of one AVID class, and a handful of PLUS Middle school students in a CLUB who were handpicked because they only wanted students who “cared”. That would be a way to teach collaboration and teamwork. The possibilities would be endless if schoolwide issues and problems were addressed in classes with students bringing solutions. The buy-in from Student and Staff would be amazing to see. Even at a larger school, they could be held within life levels in groups, student representatives could be picked or volunteer to bring their life level ideas to the school site council town hall meeting. Then as a group solutions and ideas could be voted on for the school. My only thought is that it would take a very confident, smart, and innovative administrative team to have the skills and drive to make it work. They would also need to be able to give up their control, which is something I have seen is hard for some to do. 5. Do your colleagues share the same philosophy or vision about your school or workplace? How does this influence the way you work together and think about your work? I started off in the district in 2008 as a library media specialist and worked at a school that had a very supportive administration team. The school invested in programs that directly benefited the largely migrant and low income families. There was Staff, Student, and Parent participation and time for feedback in all aspects of the school. The unspoken philosophy was everything had to be in the best interest of the students. It was not a perfect school, but you could see that there was a level of trust that people were all there to be a positive drive for student achievement, and test scores. That school was one of the reasons I felt like teaching really was something I should be doing because it was possible to have an educational community that worked. I have seen it happen at a couple school's, but you have to have an Administration that encourages all stakeholder participation and actively reflects on what is working, and what is not. They then have to have the drive and courage to change for the betterment of the community their school serves. Unfortunately and fortunately I have worked with colleagues who do not share the same educational philosophy, and have acted like they were participants on Survivor. Lying about what they do in class, cheating on District and State tests, talking negatively about other teachers to their students and staff, not supporting teachers in front of parents and students, shifting blame to other teachers and grade levels about why students are not doing well in their class, and downright being mean to students, telling them to transfer to another school because they didn’t want them in their classes. Those types of staff members on a team make it toxic to even communicate, let alone collaborate to create school improvements. 2. If our society committed itself to the idea that we cared about kids more than we care about school, what would need to change?
"You cannot know kids whose voice you don't listen to, whose interests are a mystery, whose family is excluded, and whose feelings are viewed as irrelevant to the educational process." (pg. 21) I could write a whole paper on this question and quote.I believe that one of our jobs as teachers in a K-8th school is to teach them how to set goals, make a plan, and how to self-reflect. I am sure this is coming from my B.S. in Organizational Behavior and great presentations during PLC conventions about student motivation and goal setting. The data that we start the school year off is always about state test scores and Growth monitoring scores from the previous year. This tells me what we are paying attention to in the eyes of the administrations. Decreasing absences and student time out of class, not for the reasons behind it, but for the need for them to be in class to access the teacher and learning material; just to do well on the tests. Trying to play catch up to COVID by pushing two hours of intervention on all the K-6th teachers at my site with no support in the Core curriculum. I like to goal set with my students and the district purchased a program called XELLO which is great for students to look at different careers online. I sit down 3 times a year and we talk about school and what they would like to do when they get older. We reflect and I offer a plan and words of encouragement. I hand them their class reflection folder and we work on the best way for them to stay on their goals. I have the student explain it to their guardian, we goal set on the back to school day and parent teacher conferences too with guardian/parent input. I have used a version of it in 2nd, 7th, and now 5th and I feel it is a starting point to help us form a connection and a plan for the year. If we truly cared about family involvement in the educational process we would be requiring them to come to goal setting meetings in the first 2 weeks of school to help set up their student plans. Translators would be on hand for all languages based off of the Home Language Survey at each school through Zoom or the phone if they could not be there physically. The parent volunteer would be easier for all parents to sign up and use in one central location they could just visit and finish the paperwork. SUSD’s parents need an actual computer, it is as long as a job application so they need to be fluent readers in a title 1 school district. Then they have to schedule their own TB and finger printing separately. The district has nurses and finger printing through SUSD Police, but yet the whole process takes months. My experience though is that many administrations and the district do not really want parent involvement because they fear parents understanding their rights. 6. Why do you think kids drop out of school? My husband dropped out of high school. His parents grew up in Guatemala and immigrated here illegally while my mother in law had a 1 year old and 6 months pregnant with my husband. They came for the American Dream, work hard, go to school and get a good job. My husband loved school as an ELD student in Oakland Unified and was reclassified very early. My mother in law transitioned from being a house cleaner to watching children through their elementary school teacher needing childcare. Jacob, my husband, excelled in school, was a conflict manager, so much that in the 6th and 7th grade he would tutor other ELD students during free time. During that time he started tutoring a student named Jose who was an 8th grader that had been held back. During that time Jacob was becoming bored with school. Oakland Unified had been cutting many of their extracurricular programs so tutoring and conflict management were the only other elective classes for students on grade level. Jose did not care about school, had been failing for multiple years, and cutting school. Jose seemed so much cooler to Jacob than all his other friends and decided to cut school with him. The school system's notification was through the phones and Jacob would make sure to erase any outreach attempts. He would be the translator, so would just translate incorrectly to his mother, and his father who spoke more English did not participate in their education communications. His parents trusted that everything was going well, until Jacob got caught and his parents went to the school to check on his attendance. Unfortunately Jacob had been cutting his classes and doing to bare minimum to pass, felt there was no reason to start caring about school again, and since he had missed so much time, it was too hard. School was hard, he felt stupid, he was in remedial classes, and make up classes. He was placed in a Charter School to try and make up classes by his parents, but he had no goals for school. His fathers solution was to get him a job, so he started working odd jobs. He was working for a print shop and the owners were always telling him how smart he was and how quickly he learned everything. They started talking about all the different opportunities he could have in school, and questioning him about what he liked and how he saw himself in the future. His brothers graduated and Jacob started having nightmares about not finishing school, so he tested for his GED and passed. Jacob had it easier than most drop outs since his family still supported him with his drumming for church and pushing him to work in smaller close knit jobs. He feared his Father and God more than he enjoyed parties and mind numbing substances, so that saved him from falling into addictions and becoming a young parent. His parents kept him very busy working with other men in their very small church and his drums. He worked odd jobs, but realized he liked to be out in the open doing more manual labor types of jobs where you had to pay attention to details. A man in his church needed some laborers at a construction site, paid off the books. Well he loved it and he loved the cash payments. He ended up getting hired on as a laborer and has worked up the chain of skills because he still is a great worker, fast learner, and pays a lot of attention to detail, which are skills his elementary school teachers knew he had, and is perfect for carpentry. I think the change in dealing with students who are struggling is to help them recognise their strengths and focus more on goal setting for short term and long term plans. I also have seen how the drive for schools to have great test results makes them hyper focus on intervention classes instead of diversifying the types of classes a student is interested in. I think all K-6th grade classes should have Art, Music, and P.E. with actual VAPA and P.E. teachers teach our students at least 1 time a week in each subject. K-6 teachers could still focus on the ELA, Social Studies, Math, and Science. Students would have the chance to share in more creative ways, make mistakes and learn from them before high school. Teachers would have more time to plan and prep while their students would have a more well rounded education going into middle and high school. High school's should be teaching more skills, trades, and home economic classes as well as the basics for college. Colleges could offer more classes to high school and middle school students during the summer. Teachers would have multiple sources of information from collaborating with the VAPA, P.E., SPED, Counselors, and Administration to be able to set goals with them and get them resources earlier. The Real Goals of Education1. What are your " real goals of education"?
My real goal in education is to teach to the needs of the whole child. Each student, child, or person learns differently, and that can change depending on the events of that persons' life. Teaching a child's "whole being" concept is something I struggle with coming out of COVID and in teaching in general. I believe in making connections with the child, but my connection is that I am their teacher, a mentor, and a Christian that truly cares about them as an individual. I am not a friend to my students, just like I am not a friend to my own children. I am a guide to understanding the world and all the subjects I have access to within one school year. But it is unfair, and unrealistic to think that I can do it all plus make connections with 32 plus students. So my goal is to help that child comprehend and maneuver their whole mind around the projects we create that are connected to the world around them. I love the fact that more counselors and welfare and attendance personnel are being hired, but I feel we are still missing the mark. One teacher cannot teach all of the authors goals in one year. Those combined goals have to be the mission of the schools and the whole of community, maybe even society, for that to be a realist outcome. Maybe that is why we have so much teacher burnout. 2. My definition of learning is taking information from previous knowledge and combining it with observations to answer questions and make connections to understand a concept. Knowledge is the repeated use of an idea or concept that has known results or similar results when used or tested with different variables. |
Photo used under Creative Commons from keenduck