Summative Field Post

After my first field experience visiting Noble Elementary, I realized that I would actually enjoy teaching. This is saying a lot because in hindsight, this wasn’t even my favorite field experience. During my visit at Noble, however my partner and I observed a 2^nd and 1^st grade classroom. I observed that the teachers taught very differently and I believed that this was because of both the grade differences and the differences in the type of students in the two classes. By observing them teach, I got an insight to what type of teacher I might like to be and I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be a mix of the two teachers. The 1^st grade teacher did not snap at the children at all, even when they did not listen and I thought this was because she was more lenient because of their ages. She was extremely animated with the group that she was working with and she did not address the children who were working by themselves in the other groups unless it was to acknowledge good behavior. The 2^nd grade teacher, however said things to her students like “you need to get your act together today” to one child who was being restless and distracting in class. I believed that this was just the teacher being tired of the student’s reoccurring bad behavior in class, which I thought was understandable. The child reminded me of the situation that Bill Ayers brings up in To Teach when there was an energetic child who was labeled with hyperactive disorder by an outside observer and Bill thought that he was just energetic and needed a little extra help and attention. Observing this situation in real life made me see how easy it is to write children off with learning disabilities when they are acting up in class. This visit taught me how to be animated and enthusiastic about learning in my classroom, while also being in control of my students. I also got to practice using the descriptions and interpretations t-chart, which was a helpful tool especially in my individual field observations that I completed later on.

My second field experience was our class trip to Shaker Heights Middle School. This visit was right after our class lesson and discussion on building bridges based on Bill Ayers’ “Building Bridges” chapter in To Teach. In this chapter he describes 5 situations to build bridges. He discusses building a physical bridge for the classroom pet turtle, an internal bridge from childhood to adulthood and the individual’s journey, a bridge between teachers and students and their relationship, a bridge between students and the differences that they share, especially racial differences, and the last bridge is bridging people at a disadvantage, such as being illiterate, who have their own walk of life, with the world around them. Ayers describes how in all situations, bridge building is not forced and there is a moderator who introduces, fosters, and supports ideas that lead to bridge building. A bridge could also be built from these class readings to my visit to Shaker. I specifically saw the bridge between student and teacher in the 7^th grade math class that I observed. The teacher spoke to the students in a way that put him on the same level as them. He did not talk down to them or discourage them when they got the wrong answer. He gave the students a chance to think things through by themselves, but in a way that also made it feel like he was working it through the problem with them. After later on learning of Freire’s criticism of banking education from his chapter in Educational Foundations, I realized that this observation was a tribute to this criticism and is one example of how our education system is trying to get away from this just depositing information into students by the teachers. Sitting in this math class made me flash back to my middle school days when I learned the same math. It was extremely interesting to see how they were learning different techniques and solutions to the same math problems I learned about when I was an elementary student, which I thought was super metaphorical.

My third field experience was our class trip to Heights High School. I was placed in a 3^rd level sign language class where there was little to no talking. The teacher only communicated with the students through sign language. I thought it was really interesting to see how the teacher held class discussions on the 2016 election (which hadn’t happened yet at the time). It was really cool how they could communicate and discuss such meaningful and educated topics solely though sign language. I was extremely impressed. This visit was after our class reading and discussion of Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education” in Educational Foundations and I was curious if the sign language teacher that I observed struggled at all with this issue of banking education. From my observations of the class, I would say that this teacher combats banking education and the banking concept very well. He must use memorization in order to teach the basics of sign language, which could be considered banking education, however he broke away from this because he used this foundation learned from memorization to discuss current real issues in the world and country. This teacher used banking education, but took it a step further by engaging students in deeper thought and discussion, which I think is one of the main points Freire was trying to make. We were told at our first Cleveland Heights Public school how the district was considered an urban school, consisting of a large poor population, so looking back on this visit, after reading Alfie Kohn’s Chapter 21 in Educational Foundations about teaching poor children vs. teaching wealthier children. I realized that this specific teacher also was combating the “pedagogy of poverty” by not just teaching these students what they need in order to pass the next class test, or to do the next pointless worksheet so that they learn now that they need to just be quiet and follow the rules and just do their given job instead of creating and criticizing, and dreaming.

My 10 hours of outside observations were completed at Gesu Elementary School in Mrs. Clary’s 3^rd grade class. She has about 20 students in her class, which is relatively small, but she says she enjoys the classroom dynamic. For multiple visits I arrived at 12:45, which was after recess so the students were a little rowdy coming in but each time I visited I observed this classroom’s love for reading. They would eventually all sit down and pull out their “silent reading books” and start reading while they would take turns using the bathroom while Mrs. Clary prepared the next lesson for the afternoon. I thought this love for reading was amazing and I saw this through each of my 10 hours in that classroom. Mrs. Clary explained to me how they take Accelerated Reader Tests (or AR’s) after they read each book which are just simply 5-10 questions tests on the content of the books to see how well the students comprehended the books they read. Each student sets their own individual goal for how many books and how good of an average score they get on their tests over each quarter. Mrs. Clary has so many different series for different interests and reading levels which keeps them motivated to read books they enjoy to reach their own personal goal. I think this is a fantastic system that really flourishes in Mrs. Clary's classroom because of how interested the students are and how they sort of taught themselves how to utilize down-time in the classroom by reading books that they enjoy to reach a goal.

            Mrs. Clary also assigns different tasks to different students each day such as paper passers, board washers, or office runners. On days when I would visit on Wednesday’s at 12:45, the students would fill their “Wednesday Folders” which are folders containing graded work, class projects and school news that go home for the students’ parents to view. On these days, the paper passers help Mrs. Clary by passing back papers to fellow classmates so that they can put them in their “Wednesday Folders”. During one of my visits, I observed that one paper passer was congratulating her fellow classmates when she noticed that they received a good grade on an assignment, which I thought was really cool. I think it shows the camaraderie that has been built among the students in the classroom, especially because most of them have been together since kindergarten.

            One Wednesday, after “Wednesday Folders”, Mrs. Clary did a Kahoot game for the students to review for their Health test on safety. They were really intrigued by the game, however they were a little rambunctious at this time of the day and Mrs. Clary had to keep stopping to quiet them down. Then, the students had to switch to another class for social studies and they did not get to finish their game, because of how rambunctious they were, and the students told Mrs. Clary that they understood why they didn’t finish. I thought that this was extremely important because it teaches the students that they are in charge of their own learning, which is what our class just talked about with the DiGuilio Chapter in Educational Foundations. Mrs. Clary's 3rd graders are learning that their actions will affect their productivity, learning and ultimately success and they don't even realize it because they just think that they're playing a game and because they didn't utilize their time, they didn't get to finish.

            The students frequently switched to other classrooms for Social Studies and English. One day I visited, they were working on Native American Projects where each student had a tribe to research using books and printouts. They specifically researched how each tribe found food and the houses they lived in. The students had to write paragraphs on each of these topics and then they would have to put them together into one large page. Other than the teacher providing an opening topic sentence for each paragraph, the students were required to find all the information themselves and had to formulate and organize their paragraphs on their own. I got the opportunity to help the students with their paragraphs by proof reading them when they were complete. The final part of the project is a diorama of their particular tribe's house, made of only natural resources (no plastic). The students seemed to be really excited about this project and interested in the topic and being able to discover and find out information on their own. The teacher made the children believe that she was learning along with them when she would ask what the students had found out about their tribe. They felt like they were enlightening her. Another occasion that I visited, the students were watching a video on the Pilgrims and other early settlers. The students were required to take notes on the video and then share their facts with the class at the end.

The students also switched for their English class where they were working on a haunted house story where the students plugged in descriptive adjectives and verbs to a pre-made story about an encounter with a haunted house. They made rough drafts, and then wrote their final drafts on a nice colorful sheet of paper. When they were done with their story, they got to draw out their haunted house and color it. The students were extremely intrigued by this project and I was impressed on how advanced their vocabulary was. I thought the assignment was a really cool way to allow students to be creative and also work on vocabulary and grammar at the same time.

Throughout my visits the students did many different activities in order to learn their required class material, such as using iPad’s to make collages of math facts and strategies, using LEGOS to make catapults in Science, play competitive games to review their Phonics, use Halloween short stories to teach about themes, vocabulary and other aspects of stories, and the entire 3^rd grade class’s Christmas Pageant to learn about and celebrate the birth of Christ in the Catholic Faith. All of these examples I witnessed reminded me of Freire's "Banking Concept of Education" in Educational Foundations because in this setting, the students were discovering and creating for themselves. The teachers were allowing for the students to make academic discoveries about the world and the lessons they were being taught. I believe that based on the readings in class, the authors that we have encountered, including Freire and Ayers would be very pleased with what I have observed in these scenarios in our education system today.

Blog Post 8

TIB Proposal and Blog Post 10

Blog Post 10

Throughout this class and in completing my course blog, I have realized that the field of education is a complex and complicated career path and not everyone is cut out for teaching. There are many aspects to education, and how one handles them is what determines what kind of teacher they are. Many of these topics have been discussed in our class and my course blog. For example, we discussed the importance of self-reflection when looking into the field of teaching and we reflected on the 10 questions posed by Herbert Kohl in Chapter 3 of Educational Foundations and personal inspiration for becoming a teacher in John Taylor Gatto’s Chapter “The Green Monongahela”. The impact that our previous teachers had on us as students was evident in this discussion and in many other discussions and how previous teachers frequently served as our inspiration for becoming interested in teaching. We also discussed the importance of developing relationships with students to learn more about them in order to educate them more effectively in Bill Ayers’ To Teach and the issue of relying on generic lesson plans instead of adapting lessons to fit specific classrooms and students from Susan Ohanian’s chapter “On Stir-and-Serve Recipes for Teaching” in Educational Foundations. Ayers also touched on the issue today in the education field with administrators, teachers and parents diagnosing students with learning disabilities sometimes prematurely instead of trying to work with them differently to help them learn in a way that works better for them. We discussed today’s issues with the inequity of district financing and also Paulo Freire’s criticism of the “Banking Concept of Education”.

Introduction

This was one of the reasons why I chose to further research Paulo Freire’s work with the banking concept of education. Through many of the readings and discussions from this class, I have discovered that there are many different strategies and approaches to effectively educate students. From what I have observed through our 3 class visits, 10 hours of outside observations, and personal experience as a student, I have been happily surprised and the many different techniques used by teachers in our area. I think that this makes sense because the schools I have visited are very different in many ways, so it is only logical for each of them to have their own different techniques and systems for teaching their specific students in their specific environment. This lead me to see the importance of Freire’s criticism and alternatives. I believe that completely relying on the banking concept of education, as criticized by Paulo Freire, is wrong to use in the teaching of today’s students and that a system where teachers foster discovery and creativity, allow for a deeper understanding of human existence, and are partners with students should be instilled in our education system instead. My observations and experiences have showed me that this topic is relevant in today’s education system and the fact that it seems as though it seems that we are no longer as dependent on the “banking concept” as we were during the time of Paulo Freire’s writings.

Problem Statement

This belief of mine responds to the techniques used by teachers in the field of education and how these techniques affect how students learn. This is extremely important because if poor techniques are used in educating students, then their schooling experience is not used properly. As we have discussed in class, we all have memories of past teachers, both good and bad. We also realize that both kinds of teachers have had an effect on us and our career decisions. This affects their future learning both in higher level schooling and also learning in the real world such as in the job atmosphere or even simply in social situations. It also affects how we view school and education as a student. I believe that the field of education is a cycle. Teachers teach pupils, and they continue to learn and teach others throughout their entire life. Therefore, teachers teach their students and some of those students may become teachers in the future and the way in which teachers teach determines if their students choose to become teachers and what kind of teachers they become and the cycle continues. So the teaching techniques used in our education system effects much more than how well students do on their tests. I plan on specifically focusing on the banking concept of education and its criticisms and alternatives, however the teaching techniques I just referred to include more than this. For example, we read Susan Ohanian’s chapter “On Stir-and-Serve Recipes for Teaching” in Educational Foundations, which also discusses teaching techniques and how to be a good teacher. Similar to the criticism of the banking concept, she criticizes “stir-and-serve” lesson plans. She discusses how each classroom is different and therefore lesson plans and teaching techniques need to be different for each of them. That is the most effective way to teach specific classrooms and students. This is similar to the problem of banking education. Both are critiques of techniques for inadequate teaching in the field of education. With this paper, I hope to find out more specific alternatives to banking education and the specific impact that it has on students. I want to see evidence and examples of how affects students as they grow up and continue the cycle as adults. I believe that the effects of teaching techniques such as banking education can be seen throughout many different aspects in students’ lives. With this paper, I hope to reveal why the criticisms and alternatives to banking education are so important and relevant in our education system today. I also hope to see how our education system is currently using these alternatives as I connect my research to my outside observations and experiences. Through the class assigned readings and discussions and along with these personal observations and experiences, I have realized that alternatives are currently being used to combat this issue and I hope to convey this realization in my paper.

Field Post 9: Gesu Elementary (11-11-16)

During my third visit to Mrs. Clary's 3rd grade class, I got the opportunity to give two students a spelling test. Even though this is nothing major, it meant a lot to me and I really enjoyed it because it was something different than just simply observing the students and I got a very tiny taste of what it's like to be a teacher. I arrived just as the students were coming back from recess, so I administered the test while the rest of the class was getting settled, using the restroom in groups, and reading silently. Again I saw how interested this particular class is in reading, as I have explained in previous posts. Upon my arrival, one student ran up to me before I even saw her and gave me a hug and excitedly said " Yay! You're back!" After everyone was settled, Mrs. Clary directed the students to take out their math notebooks. They were learning multiplication and different "strategies" they can use to find the answer until they have all their math facts memorized. Mrs. Clary had them each individually think of a fact (such as 3x4) and then give the answer and 5 different strategies to find the answer. Once they finished this, they brought them up to me to show me what they had learned. They were very proud of themselves and I realized that by doing this, they were also learning the concepts even more because I know when you try to explain things to other people, you learn them more yourself. After that, they were assigned to use the iPads in groups of about 4 to make a collage of math strategies using an app. The students weren't really sure how to use this app yet, since it was new so I got to go around to all the groups and help them. I thought it was really cool how they were strengthening their math skills while also strengthening their problem solving skills. The students finished off the day by cleaning out their desks and their lockers.