First Week

The first few days saw a lot less community building than I would have liked. Expectations were just laid out there, without much classroom democracy used. I won't be doing much of anything actively in the AP Government class, mostly just grading papers and similar assistful type duties, which is to be expected, as I've never had AP training and there are 48 kids in the class. The kids are slowly warming up to me, but with each interaction so far, I've made a stronger connection, which is what the first days are all about for me.

Without much community building, it's been on me to learn the students' names using a seating chart as my main guide. Subvocal repetition, repeated self-quizzing, and borrowing last year's annual has gotten me to a point where I'm pretty sure I can greet 75% of the students by name, and without hesitation, in the hallways. (And I do.)

There are often lessons learned in theory that one can't really appreciate the importance of until actual practice comes around. Three big ones from the first week, and a conclusion:


1. Assume nothing, pre-assess, yet walk the knife's edge between patronizing and condescending

In our Pacific Rim Studies humanities course, one of the opening activities was a map fill-in assignment. A textbook map was provided, and as long as the locations and capitals were on those maps, they were fine. However, not all of the information was on these maps, even though it could be found around the room, whether it was on wall maps, or atlases in the room's decently sized classroom library. The assumption of basic research habits of "if I can't find it here, I should look elsewhere" resulted in some frustration when they couldn't find the answer and we wouldn't simply give it to them. "Where am I supposed to find the answer?"


2. ELL students and weak readers may not understand you or the text. They'll appreciate further explanation if they are brave enough to ask for it or if you are attentive enough to explain. Make it so neither is necessary.

My mentor teacher is very conscientious of the needs of his students. Still, benefiting from the opportunity to observe while he is talking and caught up in activity, I've noticed that we both occasionally talk too fast for our many ELL students to understand. Whether it's explaining an activity, running through vocabulary, or reading aloud or own their own, keeping these students in front of one's mind is helpful. I've thought of some strategies such as asking students to repeat my directions back to me in their own words, slowing down my pace when speaking, and monitoring the vocabulary I use.


3. Along with pre-assessing, built-in scaffolding is crucial. Without the skills and understanding to perform an activity, the only possible assessment is how well the teacher chose and explained the activity. We can't expect students to show us their learning without the skills to complete the activity in place.

If it involves research, scaffold research. If it involves vocabulary building, scaffold figuring out words from context. If it's paying attention to the news and then taking a quiz on what was in the news and discussion, scaffold smaller versions in groups and note-taking strategies. I've already seen a few struggles in performing class activities, and I believe they are entirely attributable to a lack of properly scaffolded skills. This is especially poignant for the English Language Learners.


Conclusion: Much of this seems like it can be accomplished with student-centered community building activities in the first day or two.

Getting-to-know-each-other activities that are easily understood and involve elements of skills involved in expected daily tasks might inform the needed scaffolding and trouble spots. An introduction to the room is necessary before the students can be expected to use the resources the room has to offer, for instance. Worked into this should be classroom expectations, democratically created. (I've worked out what I hope to use to do this, if my professional readers are interested)

All in all, I'm still processing a lot, there really is no substitute for jumping in when it comes to learning the practice of the craft. I think the theoretical base I built last year is definitely giving me a schema to use in the processing that I would not have had otherwise, and for that I'm grateful.