Fitting In and Loving It - Week 3

    The week began like every week at NorthPointe -- with small group prayer time with the other teachers. It’s such a blessed way to begin my week; not only do I get nourished through prayer, I get to know the other teachers and their hearts for the Lord in a particular way as I pray for and with them. It’s these moments that are set apart from my other field placements that remind me how much I was blessed to grow up in Christian education and how I still love it today. It’s two chapels a week, with singing and speakers who make the real world connections to the teenager’s lives as Christians. It’s student-organized and student-led Wednesday morning worship, because these kids really want to have some extra time to worship the Lord. It’s being able to ask my students to include a section of their research paper that ties in the Christian perspective, or asking students to compare the piece of literature to what the Bible says. It’s knowing that in all I do, I’m working for Christ, and asking my students to do the same. I’m prepared for and comfortable in a public school setting; I have no objections to teaching in a public school during my career and am fully aware I can let my light shine in that setting. But there’s something about Christian education that holds my heart, and I’m grateful to once again be in that setting.

    There isn’t too much to report from the classroom when it comes to my teaching this week. Monday, the 27th, I’ll be teaching full time, both the 9th and 12th grade units. This week I was still mostly observing as the semester drew to a close. I have almost all the names of the students in all three 9th grade sections memorized, but 12th grade is harder mostly because there’s no seating chart for me to study. I know some of the students who participate a lot, but I’m going to have to think of something creative to learn all of their names.

    That being said, I did actually start some teaching this week! The 9th grade finished their unit, and I started the research paper unit on Friday. However, the beginning to the unit ended up being a strange start. I was on my 1st hour plan period, making copies of my materials, and contemplating what I might add into the lesson to lengthen it; as I reviewed it, I realized I might have some extra time to fill, and didn’t want it to turn into social hour. As I was thinking about this, the announcement was made that we would be releasing early because there was a blizzard coming; therefore, all classes would last 25 minutes. It actually worked out well, and I was able to get in what I needed to say. Some adjustments were made -- a short assignment was added because we didn’t have time to do it in class, and one activity’s writing portion became just a conversation portion -- but overall it went well and I still feel confident it was successful.

    I have noticed a couple of things management-wise that my teachers do, and I’m evaluating what my approach may be. In the talkative, energetic 9th grade classes (which is pretty much all of them), the teacher usually raises her voice to get their attention. This might work for me, and I certainly have used it with teenage groups before with effectiveness, but I’m thinking of other techniques I may try out. The teacher also adjusts the assignment, based on if they get everything finished in class or if they don’t because of interruptions. For example, she may not have an assignment planned, but because she was being interrupted too much, they didn’t get through all of what she planned for class, so it becomes homework. I think the assignment policy makes sense. For most of what I’ll be doing with the 9th graders, they’ll be able to complete the research in class so I don’t have a lot of assignments planned. However, if they aren’t using class time wisely, it makes sense that they then will have work on that outside of class. I’m creating benchmarks for where I expect students to be weekly, so if they realize they don’t have enough work done to reach the benchmark, they’ll be doing it at home in order to reach that goal (barring the exceptions of students with different abilities, which may have reasonable accommodations made). As I transition into teaching these classes, I will be testing management styles to find what gets through to the students; this may change from class to class or even day to day. However, in my one lesson I’ve taught, on Friday, all of the classes were pretty well behaved and quiet; maybe that will continue! Even with those hopes, I am fully prepared to have more management that needs to take place.
    In 12th grade, they are much more settled down and so not as much class time is wasted. That isn’t too say there aren’t students who are disengaged during class, because there are. As I’ve observed these classes, I’m mulling over in my head what I notice about those students that I can use in my lessons that might help to engage them more; it’s still a work in progress, and I may just have to do some trial and error the first couple of weeks. The main thing in this class that weighs on my mind management-wise is a policy on homework that I’m contemplating re-doing while I teach, but am struggling to figure out how. Students who don’t complete their homework on time are allowed to finish it in the hallway during the discussion time, getting half-credit for late work. I see pros -- they have to read it still and not just complete the answers given during discussion, plus they still get some credit rather than a zero -- and cons -- they miss out on the discussion time, which is important for the lesson and their learning. Since most of my lessons are based on discussion, I’m sad they’ll miss out on this time if they continue this policy. The teacher also recognizes this drawback, but this is what he has set in place. I don’t want to change this suddenly, plus I can’t figure out at the moment another policy that might still hold the same benefits. So, I may end up sticking with it until I think of something else.
    As far as my teacher’s support as I transition into managing the classes, they each are supportive but have different plans for being present (or not) in the classroom early on. In 9th grade, my teacher has said she’ll remain in the class to support me for the beginning, and then ease out of the classroom eventually to give me full control. In 12th grade, the teacher believes it will be beneficial for me if I’m in control of the class without his constant presence; he plans to sit in on half of the classes the first week to see how I’m doing, but transition out rather quickly so I can really have full management control. Either way, this will be the first time I’m left completely in control of a class on my own. It’s exciting, because I can hardly wait to be a teacher, but also nerve-wracking. We’ll see how it goes!

    I also got a new toy to help me teach lessons this week... a Mac book! First of all, NorthPointe has a one-to-one initiative they just began, so all of the 9th graders have Macbooks. So it’s also beneficial that I have a computer I can use to view their work (like on a shared drive) and so I’m familiar with the system they’re operating. Moreover, these classrooms don’t have classroom computers; rather, they have an Apple tv projector that syncs with Apple products and displays that screen on the projector screen in the classroom. Thus, in order to show the videos, slides, and pictures I hope to include in lessons, I needed my own Macbook. I was lent one from the school just for the remaining time I’m here, but it’s felt like I have to relearn technology because I’ve never worked on a Mac before. Even so, it’s fun and a good learning experience for me, and just goes to show how integral technology has become in education. I’m very grateful I was given this opportunity to be trusted with school property, and it does make me feel included in the teaching community at NorthPointe.

    In the middle of the week, I had the opportunity to go to a staff meeting. NorthPointe is in a middle stage of accreditation, so they were discussing next steps. It helped me to learn some about Christian Schools International (CSI) and the accreditation process; since my dream would be to teach in a CSI school, this was beneficial for me. More importantly, NorthPointe staff are doing a wonderful job of including me as a pseudo-staff member, which makes me feel much more professional and more like a teacher. It is also teaching me about collaboration and the outside-the-classroom work I’ll be participating in.

    It was a good week, overall. It was a week with a little more participation, but still allowing me to be an outside participant. However, now it’s the real deal. My teaching begins tomorrow, Monday, and continues daily until I return to Illinois to start over in a new placement. The overall feeling? I’m pumped; I’ve been planning for so long, and now I get to apply it. know not every day will be fantastic, but I love what I do and can’t wait to do some more of it.