Spirituality and Learning Styles

In some of our readings from the technology course, the author has discussed the need to understand where a student is coming from. It’s important for a teacher to try to get to know each student’s academic and cultural background so that she can use this prior way of thinking about the world. Of course, and this has been the argument often with our technology book, it’s a lot easier said than done; practical advice is minimal.

I was again pondering the issue of hand-raising in the classroom the other night, and I was thinking about whether hand-raising is a part of my students’ culture. I’ve heard teachers at my school talk about the only time that our students actually all act properly and respectfully are at church. Most of our students are pretty religious. It’s come up a couple of times in my class, in the few journal writings I had them do and in some assignments. My students were given a worksheet to fill out while watching the movie Donald in Mathemagicland (a must for any K-12 math teacher). At one point towards the end, the low boastful voice of the narrator states that, “The key to the universe is….mathematics!” For my final question, the only one that the students had to answer with their own opinion, I asked “What do YOU think is the key to the future?” The most popular answers (from most to least) were God, mathematics (how ingenuous), and education.

While I don’t regularly attend a black church, I have in the past. My ex-boyfriend started attending one, playing alto sax in the “band” where he was nicknamed Kenny G. That church truly changed him and became a large part of his life; he found his way of being spiritual. The few times I attended I was extremely uncomfortable, a fish out of water. For me, I experience my spirituality in a private, quiet, reflective manner, I guess you could say in a white kind of church. Yet, the people all around me at this little non-denominational black church seemed to be in pure bliss, in a world of their own. I clapped and stood up and swayed when others did just to fit in, but I didn’t feel any spirit. I was envious of everyone there, wanting to feel the way they felt. I believe this is how most of our students express their spirituality- through loud, expressive music, praising God with Amen’s, and moving and clapping together. Being respectful at this black church did not mean listening quietly and sitting in your seat, but instead it meant singing and shouting loudly together when it was known to be appropriate; being proper was letting everyone know when you felt the spirit through actions and praises.

So when my students act their best, in church, they are actively moving and loudly shouting praises. No wonder I have such a hard time getting them to raise their hand and wait to be called on before answering or asking questions, or getting out of their seat. No wonder they erupt in a song in the middle of class, or do a little dance when they do a problem right on the board. It’s who they are, and it’s how they know to act. I learn and am spiritual in the same way- quietly, in my own world. My students do the same.

4 days...

So here are the top 10 reasons why this summer rocked:

1. Our Algebra I girls, and guy. They are amazing. I have never seen a group of students want to learn so much. They fight to answer questions, work out problems on the board. They make comments like “This is so easy now” and “My notebook is gonna look like this next year.” They are so proud (and surprised) to make the good grades they’re making. We wanna pack them up and take them with us.
2. Our 1^st year’s are awesome. They are so ready and willing to learn. I have enjoyed watching them learn, become more confident, and become better teachers in general. They just soak up everything we tell them, but they are finding their own teaching personalities. I’ve learned from them, noticing things they do that I don’t. Their enthusiasm for teaching is refreshing.
3. Watching 2^nd year’s. Again, this has to do with improving myself. I am actually really looking forward to the fall…I can’t wait to be a better teacher. I teach the way I was taught…and for our kids that’s not always enough. I need to teach much more depth than breadth, and try to integrate more across the curriculum, especially when it comes naturally and last year I just didn’t take (I didn’t really have it any way) the time to make connections.
4. Classroom management revision…although I wouldn’t use the exact word “rock,” but it did start discussion within our house and with other 1^st and 2^nd years about what works, what problems we had, and how we’ll improve. Seeing one teacher in our presentation group made me realize (again) that my rules, procedures, and all that jazz need to be what I need them to be, for me, not for Ben or for my principal or for anyone (within certain parameters, of course). I lost sight of that somehow, wanting to become a teacher that I never will be.
5. I got to live in a house full of 7 other amazing people. I must admit I had my worries before June, but we couldn’t have had a better group of people to cook, make fun of Aaron’s shaving and ironing, sit in our camping-chair-living-room, post!, gossip, and learn with. I’ve gotten to know everyone in ways that I hadn’t had the chance to, and now I feel like we’ll actually make the effort to try to visit and keep in touch with one another.
6. Weekend with the 2^nd years. I fell in love with Jackson all over again, and the genuine appreciation from our guests was overwhelming and unforgettable.
7. Ultimate.
8. All the good food: salads in the casserole dish, CA pizzas, Mexican night, Joe’s banquet of a meal, Cuban beans, banana bread, and espresso every morning
9. Conversations on the bus. Otherwise, I would never have talked or even seen many people.
10. Running and swimming again.

Southern Gents...and a guy from Massachusetts

This past weekend with the 1st years was awesome. Or, as Hunter would say, “it was a blast.” I really think we had the best group of guys, ever (no offense to any of the other first year guys!) I’ve never been around such gentlemen. They went out of their way to make sure that Brooke and I knew how much they appreciated all that we did.

We (Ruth, Tiff, Hunter, Chris E., and Landon) went down to Yazoo on Friday. We kinda set up those boys for disappointment in their apartment/house search because our house really is a home. It feels sorta like gramma’s house. Add two cats, a guinea pig, a hamster, a fish, a polar bear, and the best little white-haired saucy 89-year-old neighbor, and there’s no competition. They loved it, and we loved to have a houseful of guests.

Saturday we went to Basil’s, then went on a housing search. Brooke directed me around all of Belhaven. We went down every single freaking street. Good thing we did, because at the dead end of St. Ann’s street they found a duplex that’s about as perfect as you can get in Jackson. While it’s not huge, it’s tucked away back from the street that is surrounded by trees. They were even able to see the house on Sunday…we’ll see how things pan out. In the evening, we all went to Keifer’s and Fenian’s to chill and eat. Oh how I miss Jackson.

So why do we love Jackson so much? I’m not sure…it’s not that pretty, and there’s not that much to do there. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with it being the location of my undergrad years, but there’s more than that. I think Dave Mo put it well when he said there’s not a lot of anything, but there’s one of everything- one art museum, one good Indian restaurant, one good pub, one good college.

So the trip was “a blast.” I got to know those guys in a way that I never would have had the chance to. They’ll make great teachers because they are doing it all for the right reasons. I know they're good guys after I got turned around and almost got us in a wreck and then got us a flat tire…and yet I never heard a word of complaint.

What makes a "bad" school so bad?

I had a good chat with Mason on the bus today about our respective schools. I knew we both taught at "tough" schools, but we've never really talked about our schools together. My school has been labeled "the second worst school in Mississippi" and also a place where "teachers cannot be successful." His school was taken over by the state. So what are some of the similarities of our "bad" schools?

1. People not working together
Our (I use 'our' not as in Mason and I, but as in all of us in MTC that faced the challenges of our school together) adminstrators did not work together. The top two adminstrators in our school had very different philosophies of education. One adminstrator believes that children should enjoy school, that discipline should only be used minimally to regulate problems after they occur, while the other believes that students are children and need to be guided by rules and structure provided by the staff at school. These different ways of thought resulted in students always wanting to go to one administrator when they got in trouble because they could talk their way out of any situation.

This difference in views caused harm to every other aspect of the high school. Teachers who asked about an issue would get two different answers. Each administrator would often make decisions without concurring with the other, resulting in the next similarity…

2. Complete disorganization
We often did not find out about any assemblies, bell schedule change, pep rallies, or anything else that effected the normal routine except from overhearing our students talk about it during the day. For example, we did not find out the final exam schedule (which exams will be given on which day) until the day of exams, and this changed two or three times after we received the schedule.

The most consequential implication of this disorganization is the lack of a consistent discipline ladder…

3. Lack of rules and consequences
In the beginning of the year, we were told that we were all going to enforce the rules and that the students weren’t going to get away with not wearing the uniform and using cell phones like they had done in the past. Later on in the year during an assembly in which the principal was lecturing the students on the need to be respectful and follow rules, his cell phone rang in mid-sentence, and he answered it…

We have no discipline ladder. While they tried to use detention as a consequence, it didn’t work because the next consequence was not enforced – if you skip detention, you will be suspended. Students would skip, knowing nothing would happen. They could skip class because teachers stopped writing students up because it was yielding no results.

If teachers and staff alike not only knew but actively used the rules together, perhaps they could achieve what similarity four says we don’t…

4. No common vision or unity
I have heard veteran teachers speak longingly of a past principal who had all students (and I would guess the faculty/staff) sing the school song every morning and at every assembly. Our school is extremely disconnected, with each classroom seen as a separate entity with its own set of rules and procedures. Students know which teachers make them wear uniform shirts (you can see them borrowing shirts and turning theirs inside-out) and which ones they can’t skip.

Academically, the only time our school rallies together to perform well is during state-testing. During this time, posters were put on the walls, students came regularly to tutorial, and teachers became encouraging. I wish that we could this same positive energy for learning in other ways, so that we could overcome the next problem…

5. School is for socializing, not learning.
The only reason that out of school suspension sometimes works is because our students actually want to be in school so that they can see all the fights, flirt, “show out,” and generally not get behind in the gossip. They don’t come to class prepared because they don’t take school seriously. They come to talk, and if we try to teach, we’re getting in their way.

All of what I said above certainly does not apply to every student, teacher, or staff member. There certainly are the wonderful exceptions. Our secretary works her butt off to try to make the chaos thrown at her somewhat organized. There are students who want to educate themselves with as much as our classes can provide them. There are teachers who use rules consistently and accurately, not needing any more consequences provided by administrators because it never gets past their room.

But, there is so much need for improvement. I didn’t leave because I know these kids need me (and other teachers who try and care) more than they even know, even if it might hurt me at times.

How to start the year (assigned)

One thing I plan to do differently at the beginning of this school year is to implement more procedures, have the students actually practice them more, take longer doing so, and assess them on their knowledge of the procedures (give them a test in which one question will be like, “Where does your butt need to be when the bell rings?”) Besides the first year teachers with very few discipline problems (which are those rare teachers who actually took heed to the advice that we heard from day one), I’m sure most of us will do something similar to what I have described.

A fellow teacher told me that at one school, a young, white, blonde, and small first year teacher was not expected to have any classroom management skills at a “tough” school. She went in there and made her students practice procedures for first couple of weeks. That’s all they did; she didn’t teach them anything about literature, writing, or grammar (I believe she was an English teacher). She ended up having the fewest discipline problems among the first-year teachers, and I believe even in comparison to many of the veteran teachers she worked with.

I don’t want to spend weeks and weeks teaching my students how to be on time and how to act in my class. Perhaps a week…because they need to get in into their heads how they are not only expected to act in my class, but must act in my class. I’ve gotta be firmer, whether I like it or not first. I’m not an authoritative teacher, have never been and will never be. I smile a lot, I like to laugh. It’s not my teaching personality, but from day one I’ve got to get them into the groove that they’ll be in for the rest of the year- they will have to follow certain rules and procedures so that they can learn a lot and enjoy it in the process.

It seems kinda silly to think so much about something so simple and seemingly trivial, but I keep changing my philosophy on whether students need to raise their hand before asking/answering questions. At first I thought yes, then in class it worked better (I thought) to allow open answering during the lesson, then I reverted back when I was evaluated, then it gradually changed back into free-for-all responses. Even in summer school, I didn’t want to make a class of 11 wonderful students have to raise their hands. And it was fine, but our first-years were having some issues with too much chatting (the students were getting too comfortable) and now get them to raise their hand before answering questions. The students haven’t been deterred from being as participatory as they were. They still love to volunteer and work out problems on the board. But, it is just in a more organized way. So, in the end, I’m going to do the hand-raising procedure. Kids need to be given clear instructions on how to act and behave, and instead of saying “Sometimes you need to raise you hand, but if I tell you that you don’t have to then you can answer without raising your hand.” It’s even confusing right now to try to quote myself on what I’d say.

I am going to really try to do what we have always been told to do - make realistic rules, consequences, and rewards that we can use, and stick to them.

one student (assigned)

So I’ll just call him…Dave, just for the heck of it. Dave, oh Dave. He drove me crazy for most of the year. We had two parent conferences. I tried calling his mom, and talked to her, only to have him come back the next day complaining to his friends that I called his mom. And I know she didn’t do any kind of disciplining. She’s a sweet mother, too sweet than he needs right now. Yet…I know he hasn’t had it easy. His father died not long ago, and she’s doing what she can. He has a temper, and I really expect he has ADD. I’ve learned the hard way that you have to learn to talk to students in different ways, knowing how they are and how they react. Dave didn’t pay attention in class. He isn’t a note-taker, as he proclaimed, which really would have almost been okay (except for the notebook checks) but he wasn’t paying attention anyway. He was flirting, with me and any other female in the room.
Yet, I never could help being concerned for him. I’ve seen him play basketball several times. He’s the team captain. While in school, he rarely wears the correct uniform shirt and never tucks it in on his own. Yet, when he’s on that court, he keeps them all in line. He makes sure all the boys have those jerseys tucked in. He’s respectful to the coaches and the ref’s. I know he wanted it, but he wasn’t a ball-hog; in fact, I would say the team would have played better if he hadn’t passed so much. He was aggressive, and I could see him getting mad, but it seemed more at himself than at anyone else. I could see the goodness in him.
I’ve seen it in the classroom before, too, but it was only once in a blue moon. He told me, and I agree, that he should have been in a different period, one that wasn’t full of so many of his friends to play around with. They looked up to him, and he naturally assumed the role as one of the lead clowns. He was supposed to be the bad boy, and he was. He couldn’t take tests and quizzes with people around, and would often check out of school so he wouldn’t have to, so that he could make it up later during my planning period or after school so he could concentrate and have my full attention. He needed lots of attention, lots of prodding, and a lot of assurance.
I guess I chose Dave to blog about because I think he’s like a lot of students. He’s had it hard, and he’s not nearly as bad as he seems. He’s around friends and cute girls, and he’s showing out. He’s smart, oh was he bright when he wanted to be; he certainly has it in him. So many of them do, but they don’t have the will and they don’t have the strength to be a “nerd” in a classroom full of friends who don’t care. One of my physics students told me that Dave was a softie, that she had dated him back in elementary school and he was nothing but sweet, that he had cried, and that he was bullied. I believe it, and I wish students didn’t have to be so mean. I wish caring was the cool thing.

a few thoughts, that could be advice (assigned)

Oh let’s see...some advice for the first-years...

1. Be flexible. I finally learned that every day I went in, anything could happen. I often found out about assemblies, pep rallies, or a shortened day from my students asking me about it, not from the administrators. In the beginning, I tried to keep my four Algebra II classes all together, on the same lesson, on the same example, with the same homework. You must not be rigid in your lesson planning, but instead be able to “catch” periods up by shortening lessons or giving a shorter assignment, or to have extra work for those that are ahead. Know that it’s certainly okay for the lesson not to go as planned, because I never knew when my kids would get a concept quicker than I had anticipated, and when they were confused enough to cause an extra day or two of discussion. Just be flexible; you never know what the school or your kids will throw you.

2. Be firm, but be fair and consistent. I should have been firmer from the start, everyone says that. You may have to learn the hard way, but stick to your rules and consequences. You don’t have to be mean, but let them know you mean business. And DO NOT play favorites, as tempting as it may be. If you favorite A+ student breaks the same rule as the one you send to the office every other day, you need to try to give them the same consequence. It’s only fair, and the students notice everything you do, and being inconsistent is one of the first things they will “call you out” on.

3. Be organized, from the very beginning. Keep all the documents, etc. you have to keep and fill out in the beginning some place you can come back to at the end of the year. Try to keep your lessons and their materials together. Try to have some kind of system to collect and pass out student work. Any organization will make your life that much easier.

4. Have some kind of routine in your classroom. I really believe that students like to do the same thing almost every day. It makes them feel comfortable, a part of the classroom culture. The schedule should be about the same. For me, it was the warm up, notes and examples, and start homework. Boring, perhaps, but it made my life easier and let the students know what to expect every day. Of course, you’ve gotta change it up, have a math game, do some group work, etc, but don’t throw them something new too often, but just enough to keep them interested.

5. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Don’t volunteer to help out with homecoming after you have duty at the basketball game after you had after school tutorial. Know your limits, and learn to say no sometimes. I think administrators take advantage of the new kids, because we generally are harder workers, more energetic, and don’t say no. Don’t let veteran teachers take advantage of you. You have the same rights, and they have the same responsibilities. You need some time for yourself, however little it may be at times.