blog 8

       Over the last few months I have learned a lot about teaching, classrooms, and the philosophy behind teaching. But one of the best things that I have had the opportunity to learn is how a teacher can engage a class. The more I learned about this topic and the more I thought about it I began to realize that some of the most memorable lessons that I ever had were engaging and hands on. I recall making stucco mountains in first grade, growing corn in second grade, drawing from stories in third grade, making candles in fourth grade, making Mayan food in fifth grade and insulating jars in sixth grade. these lessons were the ones that truly taught me in a memorable way, they applied topics to my life and made me care in a way that would otherwise not be possible. 

       As I watched different teachers interact with their classes I was reminded of this importance, I was  taught the different ways that engaging a class could be accomplished. In the fifth grade class I spent the majority of my time in I saw the teacher engage the class by having them teach one another and explain their answers to the class. I also witnessed a mom come and make applesauce with the class in a first grade classroom. from little things to big things there were many ways to accomplish this goal. As I looked through my blogs I was able to see how my feelings about topics have changed and see how my thinking has progressed. In the past I thought that engaging students could only be done through big things like field trips or big projects but because of my service learning I was able to see the many small ways that teachers incorporate these things in classes everyday. Because of these blogs I was more focused in the classrooms and was better able to see these little things and engage with the teachers on these topics and hear what they had to say. I am so glad to of had this opportunity to use my service learning to engage with this class and know that this will be one of those lessons that I will be able to recall many years from now. 

Blog 7

This week I had the opportunity to talk to a fifth grade teacher about the core standards, how she feels about them and how they affect her classroom. One of the ways that she mentioned is that because of the amount of information needed to be taught in certain subjects they naturally get the most attention. My teacher specifically said that math is like this for her she stated that she puts a lot of focus on it not particularly by choice but that the sheer volume of information that needs to be taught makes it that way. She also stated that because of this there are certain subjects that don’t get much time. One example of this was art. She tries to incorporate it into different subjects and has the kids draw parts of the story when she reads aloud but there is very little time for her to spend explicitly on art. Despite this though she has found certain things that she feels passionate about. She has emphasized these things because she feels that they are important, one of these is reading. She feels that reading and learning to have a passion for reading is so important. She feels that if a child has a passion for reading it gives them the ability to learn on their own as well as help them look at and comprehend the world around them. There isn’t enough time to go in depth on all that is asked of them, but thankfully the teachers do still have a bit of power and a small amount of extra time that they can focus on what they believe matters. It gives the class variety and makes each class just a bit different from the next, it really made me wish that there were more free time for the teachers to work with. I think that having that extra time would allow the teachers to get more passionate and personal with the topics that they feel are important.

Getting the opportunity to get deeper into conversation I got to talk to her about standardized testing and her opinion on it . As I talked to her it seemed clear that she did not particularly have a strong opinion one way or another. She thought that it was a good way to see where kids were at but she also did not agree with how it was done. One thing that she said that struck me was that she didn’t like it because she felt that it affected her teaching, she felt that it drove her to teach the students to do well on the test rather than teaching them to be passionate about the information they were learning.  Despite this opinion on standardized testing though she seemed very complimentary on the core standards. She felt that it was important and a good way for teachers to all be on the same page. She thought that it was good that the standards were the same no matter where you were because it gave teachers a good idea on where kids moving into a new grade were and also when a kid moves they are still learning the same concepts and were generally on the same level. She also felt that it helped the teachers by giving them good lesson plans and helping the teachers see where their teaching should be headed.

There is a lot that still needs to be accomplished in the education system but there is also a lot of good being done. The opinions on these topics vary from teacher to teacher but I think that what matters is that we are still learning along the way and that we have teachers who care and are passionate enough to make things happen.