Mississippi Maya

Are You Ready to Rumble?

2006-05-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

During our summer training, Ben told us to never get in between girls fighting. My school has been having problems with lesbian girls fighting and was unlucky enough to experience it first hand in my classroom last week. I wish I had listened to Ben.

It was a pretty typical class. Students were working on their assignments and I was walking around the room helping students who had questions on what to do. It was a great surprise to me when Janet said, “Mr. Tran you better move your student away from me before she gets hurt!” The student she was talking about was Tina who sat in front of her and with whom I thought she was good friends with. I saw Janet was angry and very serious so I walk over and asked Tina to move to another seat. Before she could move, Jamie got up angrily, ready to start punching. I immediately got in between them and demanded Jamie to sit but she lunged at Tina again…this time with me in front of her, holding her back. I start push her towards the door to get her out of the room, telling her go to the office immediately. I almost get there before, not unlike an NFL defensive tackle, she does a swim move on me to get around me to attack Tina. I manage to get in front of her again, almost wrestling with her this time to try to get her out the room. She flipped two desks and violently swung at Tina over me. Janet was a big girl. She has about four inches and twenty pounds on me so this was quite a task for me to hold her back. The only reason I was doing this because she looked liked she was about to do a lot of damage to the much smaller Tina. I did not want Tina to get hurt. However as I was trying to push her out I thought to myself, “how do I get help?” The other students are out of the seats to avoid and watch this ugly fight. There’s chaos. I’m yelling “somebody get Coach Hanson!” I finally manage to get both girls out of the room and things finally die down. The security guard comes and both are taken away.

This was the first fight that broke out in my classroom and I pray it is the last. Next time I’m strictly sticking to Ben’s advice and not getting in between any fights. Just find that buzzer and call for help. As one of the other teachers said, “They don’t pay us enough to put ourselves in danger like that.” Both students got suspensions but for not nearly as long they deserve. Janet is suspended for five days. Tina is suspended for three.

A Student Deals with Adversity

2006-03-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

I found out a student of mine that I will refer to as Bob was kidnapped on Wednesday. He came back to class on Friday with a teacher and we talked in the hallway for a bit during class. He told me that Bob had been getting a lot of questions from other students about what happened to him to him.

I read the newspaper account of what happened to Bob. It pretty much said he was abducted while waiting for his bus. The man touched him and tried to make sexual advances but Bob had escaped without any harm. So Bob got in front of class and told his story. He told his account of what happened and it pretty much matched up with what I read in the paper. But then he said he was raped. When he said that, my jaw dropped and I almost cried. I wiped my eyes real quickly and maintained my composure. He said he didn’t tell the newspaper everything. He had been raped by this man.

He was waiting for his bus in the morning when a man approached him in a car. He knew the kid’s name, his age, his grade level, and that he took part in a particular academic program. He offered Bob a ride, which he refused. The man pulled him into his car through the window and drove away with him. He said the man tried to kill him but he escaped and got to a gas station where he called for help.

He said he wanted to get in front of class to warn his classmates to be aware of their surroundings and try to not be by themselves. This kid was poised, composed and extremely articulate. He had just been raped two days ago. I admired his attitude. He was dealing with this way better than I even was.

I’ve had several classes with Bob since it’s happened to him. It’s almost as though nothing has happened. For days after he made his announcement in front of my class, I was just thinking about how sick the man was who did this too him but also how well he has dealt with what has happened to him.

Who’s who?

2006-03-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

I was having a tough week of school. The school year was going just too long and I was on my prep period, feeling tired and just waiting for the day to end. I went to the teachers’ lounge to check my mailbox and I found a Who’s Who envelope. A student had nominated me to be recognized as a Who’s Who teacher. It said one of my students chose one teacher from his academic career that most positively influenced him (or something to that regard). And this student chose me! It made my day.

It picked me up to know at least one of my students was getting something good from my classes and enjoying it. Even with all the first-year mistakes I’ve made…even with all the issues with classroom management, a student felt I most positively influenced his academic career. The next day I saw him, I told him I got the envelope in my mailbox and I appreciated the gesture. I told him it made my day.

He said he chose me because he felt I was teaching him a lot…that previous math teachers didn’t teach him, they didn’t provide guidance and they rushed him. Well, that made me feel ok. I just kind of felt I was doing the bare minimum. But I still felt good in that I had a positive effect on at least one student.

rap and test scores

2006-02-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

My kids listen to rap. For most of them I’m sure it’s the only music they listen too. I listen to rap and I’m aware that a lot of the themes prevalent in rap music relate to promoting yourself and disrespecting someone else especially police and other authority figures. In rap the portrayal of success is too often as a drug deal, pimp, thief, or rapper. School is almost never portrayed in a positive way. To maintain a tough street image, rappers have to hate school and police.

In one of our classes Ben, our program coordinator, brought up a statistic about how beginning in 1987 and 1988, the test scores of black and Hispanic students started to decline. The reason of AIDS and crack cocaine were brought up and I think those were definitely main contributors but rap music also popped into my head. In 1987 and 1988 rap became popular...getting more play time on the radio and tv video stations and it’s stars were becoming more mainstream. One of its biggest stars was NWA who introduced gansta rap which promoted violence, drug dealing, and prostitution in every song they made.

I listen to the lyrics my students recite in class and they filled with negativity and anger. Rap and hip hop exudes itself in my students. From the way they act, talk and view school and rules…hip hop has had a powerful impact in their lives, most of it for the negative. I listen to rap and I know not all the songs and rappers are negative and portray this image. However, the songs that are reaching my students…the songs that they like are often very negative and I believe it’s impacting them by the message it’s sending.

Since the late 1980s the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and crack cocaine has declined (no research done but I'm pretty sure this is true). However test scores for blacks and Hispanics have continued to decline and the popularity of rap and hip hop (with it’s “f” the police attitude) has soared.

math basketball

2006-02-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

My students love to play basketball. They love it so much they shot their trash into my trash can almost non stop. They’d shoot. They’d make it. They’d shoot. They’d miss. They’d get up, pick up their trash, sometimes they wouldn’t. Sometimes they’d shoot while I was teaching and it’d bug the heck out of me. So what I did was I moved the trash can and put it under a table. And it’s worked beautifully.

It’s worked so well that last week I decided to take the trash can back out but this time for a game. I broke up my classes into teams of about 4 or 5. Give each team a problem to do and if they get it right the team gets two points and the person who answers gets to shoot a free throw for one point. Each time the team answers a different team member must answer but they get a chance to confer with each other before they answer. The team that wins either gets candy or points on their next test.

They all get involved because they motivate each other to get involved.

Thoughts on the Reading Wars

2006-01-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

After reading The Reading Wars I think the argument or whole language and phonics is overblown and the two sides are too caught up in the argument to try to come to a common ground.
In general I think phonics is most useful for beginning learners because it provides the necessary foundational structure for the learning process. Without this foundation I think the whole language method would be much less effective leaving the learner to make assumptions about proper practice that may or may not be true. For example if a person were asked to write a book in Russian without having any knowledge of the Russian language they would have no foundational knowledge to rely on.
I think in the first and second and third grades phonics could be used very effectively to teach reading but as children get older whole language should be integrated as they become more dynamic in their learning.
Once the foundation in reading is firmly set, the learner needs the freedom to build on that foundation on their own with independent reading and writing. If a high school teacher were forced to teach phonics to his/her students I don’t think the students would get very much out of the class.
However learning word origins, root meanings, and the Latin language could fall under the phonics method of teaching and these subjects would be very useful to better learn and understand literature. I just feel that the older a person becomes, in order for their mind to expand its creativity and reach its full potential, some of the rules of written language need to be emphasized less and independent thought needs to be emphasized more.

I'm a new teacher...not a first year teacher

2006-01-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

Since returning from Christmas vacation, I’ve enjoyed teaching my classes more than ever have this year. I’ve gotten into a routine and the students know the routine. Although they will continue to complain, there is a stable structure to my classes that I rather enjoy.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have classroom management issues. I had an outside observer come into my class who gave me really good reviews to the administrators. It made me feel good and relieved when the principal told me Ms. Connely (our observer) had nothing but good things to say. She mentioned minor classroom management issues but regarded them as typical first-year teacher issues.

Now is the time when I wonder how long can I use the first-year teacher excuse? Does it go into the second year a little bit? Can the term be changed to new-teacher issues…new-teacher meaning 1st to 3rd year teachers? This would give me a few more years to get my classroom management together. Otherwise, what’s going to happen at the end of this first year? What if I have some of the same problems my 2nd year? Will I be a bad teacher? Quite possibly. I feel that I’m expected to have everything straightened out by the end of this year. What if I don’t?

The one thing I’ve been good at and improved the most on is having work for the kids to do and lecturing as little as possible. I’ve also been much better at giving individual help during class because more of the class is on task. However, I have quiet a few characters in my class. Although I love their personalities, I don’t yet know how to most effectively deal with them in a classroom setting.

getting mean

2005-12-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

About 3 weeks ago, Dr Rowland came into my classroom to observe my 2nd period for my evaluation. It went was really bad. 2nd Period is my worst class and they lived up to their reputation when Dr. Rowland came in. It was embarrassing. I had students throwing paper, and all types of other objects. After that class I decided it was time to put my foot down. I’ve done so by yelling screaming, and threatening to call parents. My overall everyday teaching voice has increased quite a bit, almost yelling as I teach. It’s actually been working. I’ve had to write fewer students names on the board. I told one of the teachers at school about what had happened and he told me the students are probably responding more to my yelling at them because that’s what they’re used to at home.

I don’t think it’s just the fact that I’m yelling and screaming at them but that I mean business when I’m in the class and they can’t walk all over me. It’s still an issue of control and I need to work at asserting my agenda. I’m going to keep doing it. The past three weeks I was finally called mean. I’ve taken an attitude of “drill them and kill them.” I’m giving them a lot of work to do during class and I’m expecting them to do it…yelling, threatening and demanding when I have too.

Anyways, I also think I’m getting a better feel of what to do in the class and not being so mechanical in my day to day lessons and management style.

summer blogs

2005-12-03T06:28:00.001-08:00

I remember during the summer when we were student teaching. I taught a eight kids and I thought it was pretty easy. I remember seeing Mrs. Raybon have such control of those students and when I was up in front every once in awhile I that I’d lost their attention and talking would begin even while Mrs. Raybon was in the class. I would try my teacher look not to much success but I thought once I had my own class room things would be a lot easier because I would be the teacher and the students had to listen to me. Well I’ve found out it definitely isn’t easier.

I remember watching myself teach and still feeling like I was a student preparing myself. I now feel very much like a teacher who’s worn out and ready for a break. During the summer I felt much more idealistic in what type of activities I could implement in the classroom. Now I know only a few activities work and I that my main method of teaching is drill them and kill them (with work). I don’t feel like the class room should be so fun. I now feel more like the students should do work and put more effort into doing their work.

Success Story

2005-11-04T13:07:00.000-08:00

I don’t know if I have one solid legitimate success story to share as of yet. I wish I could tell about a story where I’ve touched a student in some way and his or her grades have dramatically improved. But I can’t. I think my success story is that I haven’t died. I’m happy that I’ve made it this far, I’ve enjoyed most of it and I want to get better.

There have been days where I didn’t think I’d make it. I think I’m getting used to the teacher schedule and the rigorous work day. Classroom management is another thing I’ve adjusted to. It is getting better but it can get much better. With all the things my that I’ve had to physically and mentally get used to I think my big success is that I’m still here to teach another day and I’m looking forward to it.

My parents

2005-11-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

When my parents first came to this country they had nothing. They didn’t speak the language, they didn’t have any skills, and they had no money. My dad cleaned people’s houses while my mom worked at McDonalds but at the same time they also knew they wouldn’t be able to survive living that way. They saw education as the key to their success and both managed to take classes at the community college while working full time. Then came a key moment in our family’s history. My dad’s brothers and sisters decided to move to Texas to venture into the dry cleaning and restaurant business. This would be the first time my family would slit up since being in the United States. My dad decided to stay in Virginia to continue his schooling while his parents, brothers and sisters moved to Texas. Many of his friends who arrived in the US decided to continue working their manual labor jobs, earn and save money, and not think about school. Today, both my parents have earned degrees and have been working in Fairfax County Public Schools for over 15 years. Many of their friends who didn’t go to school are still doing the same jobs they did when they first arrived. My parents, because of their education, have continued to climb from one position to the next.

I told this story to some of my students after they served their detention on Tuesday. I told them whatever their situation is at home, however bad it is….education is their key to making it out and not to throw it away. I told them that it may not seem like it sometimes, but in this country, if you want to work hard, you will make it. You’re only limited by how hard you’re willing to work. I reminded them that my parents didn’t know English and were able to find work and go to school. There are people in this country who know the language and are unwilling in some way to find a job. I reiterated to them that as long as you work hard, you will be successful. I hope that story will have some type of lasting impact on them.

inductive/deductive

2005-09-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

To this point I’ve been mostly having the students learn deductively. In doing so, I feel as though I’ve been doing too much of the work and not allowing the students think more and come up with things on their own.

I introduced inductive learning to transitions to algebra classes. The lesson was for them to differentiate between solving, evaluating and simplifying. I put a chart up on the board and I gave them examples of each. Then I asked them to determine what made one different from the others and list the distinguishing characteristics of the three expressions. From their determinations we came up with a definition for all three.

They came up with a list and we discussed them in class. I like doing the inductive method because it allowed students to do more of the work. I had been doing more deductive lessons than I should because in math there are many opportunities for students to induce the premise from examples given. It went over pretty well even though it would have been much better if my class was a little better disciplined.

september struggles

2005-09-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

It’s been pretty rough month. I’ve had ups and downs. There was one day this month when I had the best day of the school year up to this point. But I’ve also had some days recently where I just can’t seem to keep up with everything. Grading papers really takes up so much time and every day I feel so overwhelmed. I hate this feeling and I need to work to get through it.

It’s difficult because I can’t seem to get the kids to respond to me. In one class in particular I asked them to take out notes and write things down. Maybe 5 kids out of the 20 wrote what I had on the board. I feel really drained. At the end of the day I stay till 4:30 to tutor kids who come to me for help. That’s often the best part of my day. I feel drained and often times I don’t know if I can continue. I like teaching but only when the kids are attentive and not misbehaving.

When I get home at around 5 or 5:30 I eat and shower and before I know it, its 7:00 and I have a ton of things left to do. I just need to manage my time better. Not only that, I need to manage my classes better or I’m going to be worn out.

Anyways, today was tough also but my last class went well. My classes lack discipline but when I get to on a roll teaching then it’s really fun. But those times are too far in between. Is just something I need to work on.

Evaluation of Classroom Management Plan

2005-09-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

The classroom management plan that I came up with during the summer has been reconstructed a great deal. I would not say that it was a success by any means. The only reason why is that I did not have enough bite with my consequences. After being tested early and often by several unruly students and handing out behavior write ups left and right I found out I hadn’t really thought of a way to make them write those reports so it became a bit of a joke. I had thought that having them do if as homework and counting as a homework grade would be enough to scare them into writing it but it didn’t at all. So I had kids with 6, 7, or 8 write ups due for me and had no intentions of writing it.

So I had to change what I was doing. I talked with Coach Harris, our assistant principal in charge of discipline and we came up with a plan to send them to ISS to write if they came to my class with out the write ups. I was excited about this plan until when we implemented it the kids came back to my classroom and said the ISS teacher had told them to go back to class. I was at wits end when this happened although I managed to keep my cool. So I had these five kids back in my 2nd period class as my plan had backfired. I talked about it with the ISS teacher and he explained that the arrangement wouldn’t be possible because if all the teachers did that then he would be inundated. Part of me thought, “but you aren’t!” But I did see his point and I had to come up with something else quickly before the next day.

Now I have the kids staying with me for detention and writing the write ups for me. And if they don’t stay for my detention then they stay for the school administered Wednesday detention to write and if they don’t stay for that then they’re suspended for three days. The only fear I have with this plan is if I have all of my most disruptive students in one place at the same time it’ll be more of a headache for me then a punishment for them. But right now that’s what I’m going with and I’m ready to tinker with it as necessary.

So my evaluation of my classroom management plan would be that it was a effective because I didn’t know of all the options that the administration had for me in dealing with discipline. Now that I know my options I think this plan has been much more effective. I received write-ups from five students although seven more owe them to me. I now have a plan for getting them. My plan is still in the works and I’m sure I will tinker with it some more.

Another issue I had with my classroom management was consistency. Although it sounds very easy to say you’ll be consistent it’s actually very hard to be so in regards to handing out punishment because so many situations can arise and you have assess the situation really quickly to be consistent and fair yet understanding. So what I did was I focused on being consistent with two things (not getting up out of their seat without permission and disrupting class in any way while I’m teaching) and then doing the best I could with any other situations. It’s working out and things are much better than they were the first two weeks.

So I would give myself a D for my original plan but an A for making adjustments where needed. I will update you on how it works out as the year goes on.

Favorite Math Teacher

2005-09-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in class I will think back to some of my favorite teachers and ask myself what they would do in a particular situation. I’ve had some really good teachers and they’ve all impacted my life in a positive way. As I am now teaching math, I sometimes think back to my favorite math teachers. I never really had a math teacher in high school that can really stand out as my favorite teacher. I think they were all good teachers in the own way but I think I excelled at math in high school because I simply enjoyed doing it.

Looking back, I think the reason I enjoyed doing math in high school so much was because I had a solid foundation. My elementary school teachers were very good. My 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Fancher and my 6th grade teacher was Mrs. Saah. They were very different teachers and in being so, they provided a very good balance and transition for me in those two years. The one thing they had in common was that their favorite subject to teach was math. Mrs. Fancher was very motherly and encouraged and scolded just like my own mother. She was extremely caring and nurturing and yet could be the scariest woman if we misbehaved. Her face would turn red and the meanest look would appear on her face as she slammed the door and yelled at us to put our heads down on our desks for misbehaving at lunch. She would go on a tirade about how embarrassing our behavior was on her and kept the lights off for a good 15 minutes of complete silence. She was also very personable, telling us stories of her family. We knew her family very well by the end of the year just from the tangents she went on about them. Sometimes when we wanted to get her off the subject, someone would ask her something about her family and she would go on a tangent about it for 10 or 15 minutes. We did that about twice every day and it was a good break from our work.

Mrs. Saah was very different in that she was more business like and meticulous to and extent. She stressed responsibility and not doing the bare minimum. If you did the bare minimum you got a C. If you did the extra work, you got an A or a B. She always related school work to our future jobs. She would stress to us that in the work place, if something is late or incomplete, it was unacceptable and we’d lose our jobs. Mrs. Saah was very strict in regards to grading and everything else. I remember always breezing through with all A’s and B’s in all my classes until the sixth grade (and after) but Mrs. Saah gave me 3 C’s the first quarter and I was astonished I had received C’s. I actually had to work hard to get my A’s and B’s for the next 3 grading terms.

The thing I remembered was that they were both extremely enthusiastic about math, especially Mrs. Saah. I think their enthusiasm and interest in math really made me work harder for them in math. They did a great job in building the foundation for me and by the time I entered high school, all the gaps were filled in and I excelled.

The one thing I should emulate from these two teachers is there enthusiasm for math and their caring nature. There are a lot of things I would not emulate like the tangents Mrs. Fancher would go on and I would never do as Mrs. Saah did and give myself 3 C’s. Their enthusiasm and their care were the main ingredients that helped me to become successful. The other routines and things that they did were apart of their personality and styles. I would relate that more to icing on the cake. I try to emulate them as much as possible every day because they were very good teachers but I realize that I must fit my own personality into my classes and not try to be another teacher.

Katrina Kept Me From Submitting this Blog on Time (2nd blog for august)

2005-09-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Memphis, TN.. I am in the middle of an unexpected weeklong vacation due to Hurricane Katrina. Last I blogged, I wrote that classes were challenging and they still are but I think I've got a hold of the situation better than I did the first two weeks. Essentially my writing assignments that I handed out as consequences were a joke. I wrote the checks on the board (each check represented a behavior report they had to write me) but no one turned in any behavior reports. I had some kids owing me 7 or 8 reports. Anyways, my policy now is if you owe me a behavior report, you have to turn it in the next class or I send you down stairs to Coach Harris and he sends you to ISS (in school suspension) where you write my behavior reports for me...only after you finish them and turn them in will you be allowed back in my classroom. I haven't actually had a chance to implement this as I only told my classes about it last Thursday. So I haven't actually had to send kids to ISS to write behavior reports since school has been cancelled this whole week. But I feel much better about my consequences and about my enforcement of them. Now hopefully I can move on to the next phase where I don't have to use them.

So back to the Hurricane...I've come up to DeSoto County to stay with Kate as my apartment still didn't have electricity or running water. It was supposed to have been 96 degrees in Jackson yesterday so I'm really glad I got out of there. I drove around the day after the storm and about 70% of the traffic lights in the city weren't working. Trees were down...one huge tree came crashing down right outside my apartment complex, just missing doing some major damage. At my school, two fallen trees were blocking the street where the buses unload kids.

When I left Jackson (Tuesday afternoon) about 90% of the stores were closed. This meant walmarts, mcdonalds, gas stations...everything. I had to wait an hour to fill up on gas in order to make it up here to DeSoto County. I'd never seen anything like it. The only thing I could really compare it to were big blizzards but not even big snow storms have ever done as much damage as I saw in Jackson. Anyways, I'm going let some else use my computer as there's a long line of people waiting.

Two Weeks In

2005-08-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

The first two weeks have been rather tough. If I were to relate an analogy to my experience, I would compare it to being in a fight, being hit in the face, and then myself responding with wild haymakers instead of sticking to the game plan.

I really feel rocked and I’m really tired by the end of every day. I felt really prepared going into this but there were some situations that I really wasn’t prepared to handle. One was what if the whole class is not paying attention and talking? I can’t write down one person’s name if the whole class is misbehaving. Also, what do I do with the students who totally disregard my rules and don’t care.

I’ve struggled and I’ve somewhat abandoned my consequences. Sometimes there are so many names on the board that it looks ridiculous. I have to get back to it and stick with it and remain consistent. I feel like this is some type of a test of my character. Is my character strong enough or will I just give in when something gets difficult? I also feel like I’ve given into the kids too much and I’ve been a little too open with them. It’s so difficult not to. Anyways, I’ve found it really difficult but I need to press on, not give up, and remain strong and consistent.

The one thing that has worked pretty well is calling parents. I didn’t have that as a consequence before, but now it’s going to be the third warning. After the 4th warning they’re going to be sent out. Hopefully this will work a little better than the long drawn out consequence steps from before.

Memories of Nepal

2005-07-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

From May 2002 until April 2004, I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. During that time, I lived in Kalaiya, a small city located in south central Nepal, 20 kilometers north of the Indian border. My primary assignment was to teach sixth and seventh grade science in the local Nepali language and to share effective teaching methods with the other teachers. Those two years in Nepal were the most happy and fulfilling of my life.

Now as we are going to begin teaching in Mississippi, I would like to share some of my experiences in Nepal and hopefully provide a new perspective towards our upcoming challenges in the Mississippi school system. I know the conditions in Mississippi (the Delta in particular) will be below the standards of what we expect from schools in the US and our students will face obstacles that we wouldn’t wish upon anyone. But when I think of my students in Nepal, I can’t imagine children anywhere in the world that have to deal what they dealt with every day in the class room. The following are some of my experiences with class room conditions and corporal punishment:

Classroom Conditions
Both my sixth and seventh grade classes were very large. My sixth grade class had 120 students while my seventh grade class had 90 students. The students were cramped into their benches and there was no room to move. On particularly bad days, some students had to sit outside the classroom and observe through the windows and door.

The actual classrooms were small, 20 feet by 20 feet. None of the classrooms had electricity. If we needed more light, we opened the shudders. The walls were concrete blocks and the roof was a metal sheet. With the temperature reaching as high as 43o C (110o F) during the summer, it was extremely hot in those small over crowded classrooms.

On the first day, I was overwhelmed by the size of the class and the intense heat of the classroom. I sat amongst the students and observed as Sampat Sir, my counterpart, taught the class. Within two minutes, I found myself drenched in my own sweat. As I listened intently to Sampat Sir’s lecture, trying to catch as much of the language as I could, I noticed the blackboard was so wet that Sampat Sir couldn’t write on it. At first, I thought someone had washed the board, but throughout the class it never dried. I finally realized the blackboard was soaked from the perspiration and humidity of the classroom.

Krishna Kumar Sir (this is my corporal punishment story)
Nepalese often use certain English words that they don’t fully understand or know how to use correctly. For example, my friend Krishna Kumar Sir liked Brittany Spears and the Backstreet Boys. He described their music as melodious and harmonious when all he really meant to say was that their music is good.

Krishna Kumar Sir also carried a cane with him everywhere he went. He suffered from polio as a child and the cane served as a walking aid, but it also served as a stick to beat children. His style of discipline left Mohammad Sagir Sir, the head sir of the school, very displeased.

One day Mohammad Sagir Sir and I were eating at his house as we did everyday after school. We usually had rice and vegetables with lentil soup. Sometimes his wife would make rice pudding, curried goat, or pakora as a special treat. We would sit on a mat on the floor in his bedroom, eating with our hands and immersing ourselves in conversation. On this particular day, he asked me to start teaching English, “Lee Sir, would you like to teach seventh class English? Krishna Kumar Sir’s methods are outdated and I am not satisfied.”

This was still near the beginning of my stay in Nepal, and I was very hesitant to take another class because lesson planning for my two science classes took all my time after school. I agreed to observe Krishna Kumar Sir’s class for one day but would not commit immediately.
The next day, I sat in the back corner of the room and observed Krishna Kumar Sir’s class. It was very chaotic. Students were playing, chit chatting, and throwing objects across the room. In the midst of the chaos, Krishna Kumar Sir was conducting a spelling bee. He went down the aisle and told the students to stand up with both hands out and palms up. He would tell them an English word, and if they spelled it wrong he whacked both of their hands with his cane. Occasionally, he would come to the back of the room and yell at the rowdy kids. At one point he came and swung his cane at Mahesh’s head. Mahesh, a student in the class, was quick enough to duck, laugh it off and get back to his seat.

At the end of class, Krishna Kumar Sir approached me and asked for a critique of his teaching. I told him he should stop beating the kids because it wasn’t working. With an erudite tone, he responded, “Yes Lee Sir, but the students, they are quite numerous and they can be rather disorderly, so we must beat them ruthlessly and sometimes mercilessly.”
With anyone else I think I would become a bit angered but I knew he didn’t really mean ruthlessly or mercilessly. I even had to hold in a laugh. Anyways, I began teaching seventh grade English the very next day.
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These are just some of my experiences in Nepal that I wanted to share and remember before I started teaching in Jackson. If you have any questions for me about my experience in Nepal, please feel free to ask. It always makes me feel good to talk about Nepal. Thank you and I wish everyone the best at their schools.

Sunflower Freedom Project

2005-07-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

Most of today’s sessions were pretty helpful. It was useful to watch Lalee’s Kin, a movie showing an example of poverty in the Delta. And although it was an extreme case, it was still good to see some of the issues that families in poverty face.

Then Reggie Brown, former Superintendent of Tallahatchie County, talked to us about how various things work in school administration. He gave us some good advice and I enjoyed hearing him speak.

Next came the blues session. I thought this session should have been optional. Some of it was very interesting but I just felt like I have a lot of things to think about and do before the school year starts and learning about the blues is in no way essential to my success as a teacher this year.

After the blues session we watched an MTC movie documenting people’s change through the course of their first year. That was really neat to see the ups and downs of one of the teachers (Ryan) on that video. You could see the excitement before the school year and then one month into it, his face has a totally different expression like something hit him that he just totally wasn’t ready for. I really hope that doesn’t happen to me. I think I’m mentally prepared and I know it’s going to be hard so hopefully the teaching experience won’t hit me as hard as it seemed to hit him. Anyways, after Christmas his face gets the color back into it and Ben tells us he became an excellent teacher. Hearing about him makes me feel not so nervous if I get to a shaky start.

Next came a really nice treat with the students from the Sunflower County Freedom Project. The kids from the project were extremely bright and presented themselves so well! I was really impressed. This program sounds like it is extremely effective and it made me think about my previous job managing a youth program. I think about the kids that were in my program and I wish I could have done so much more for them. It was my first job after the Peace Corps and it was an extremely big responsibility as it was a program federally funded by the US Dept of Education, Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. We received about $140K per year and looking back, I wish I made better use of that money. I wish I took the kids on more field trips to colleges and museums and found opportunities for them to speak and perform in public as the kids in the Freedom Project were doing. I was bogged down with grant writing and finding new funding sources and other administrative work that was all very new to me. It was a struggle for me plan activities for when the kids came to our after school session. In my time there they did one performance and had one field trip to the community center. I apologize to all of them for not providing the proper direction for the program and better activities for them. I was ill prepared to take on so many tasks and in my heart I feel like I did them a disservice. I’m now very anxious to redeem myself and make a real positive difference by doing something I’ve wanted to do since finishing Peace Corps…teach.

Watching Myself Teach on Video...Again

2005-07-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

We got another opportunity to watch ourselves teach on video. This time, however, we weren’t teaching to summer school students; we’re teaching to our peers which actually made me a lot more nervous.

First I’ll comment on the good…I thought I had good command of the class and I actually looked somewhat comfortable. I’m also getting better at speaking clearly and not rushing things through when I’m asked a question. However, my speaking still does need a lot more work.

Now for the things I didn’t like…the first thing I noticed when I put in the tape was how wrinkled my shirt was. It just didn’t look good. I need to be sure to take the time to iron all my shirts every morning. On a side not, the tie does make me look much more like a teacher than before.

The second thin I need to work on is my use of the board. My board is actually very organized in regards to my objectives, warm ups and homework sections. However, when I’m doing problems in front of class, I tend to move all over with no set pattern. It can look very messy and kids would have a hard time reading it. Also, when I move on to a new topic that I want my students to take notes on, I don’t write my new topic on the board, I just start writing examples. I need to title the new topic to not confuse the kids on something that they might already be struggling to learn. One last thing with regards to the board is that sometimes I write really small and don’t realize it while I’m in front of class. During peer teaching I’m only teaching to 4 people in the front of the class. In my real class I’ll have 30 kids and students in the back won’t be able to see.

Finally, when I speak I reach for words that sometimes don’t come. I need to become better at speaking on my feet and not hesitate or stutter.

I think overall, I’ve improved a great deal since the summer began. I feel much more comfortable delivering a lesson. The real test will come when I get my own class. The more that I think about things and have consequences and procedures prepared, the more excited I get about having my own class. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

Reflections on Student Teaching

2005-06-29T20:17:00.000-07:00

I had a really good experience with student teaching this summer. I even wish I could have taught more. There were three of us in that class and we decided that each of us would take turns and teach every third day. The days that I wasn’t teaching, I felt extremely bored during class. I really liked being in front of the class teaching partly because it made the time go by much faster. On the days I couldn’t teach, helping the students one-on-one gave me an opportunity to get to know them and made my days more enjoyable.

Student teaching was an excellent opportunity for me to try different activities and techniques in class. I tried as many things as I could think of. I put the students in groups, and pairs, played games, and tried inductive strategies. Some things went well, some didn’t but I learned from both good and bad.

I was also lucky in that I had a head teacher with excellent classroom management. Many of us didn’t have this luxury and I am very grateful I did as it made the experience much easier. After seeing how she manages the class, I really just wanted to have my own class and employ my management plan. I hope I’m not asking for more than I can handle.

The thing I’d like to bring up about our summer teaching was that our grade depended on one lesson. I don’t think that should be how it is in the future. Basing the entire grade for a class on one lesson is really unfair even when there are “easy” points to be had. I think in the future the lead teachers should have some kind of say in our grade as they see us every day or the informal assessments should count in some way.

Finally, I’d like to mention my students: Brittany, Bobby, Cody, Elizabeth, Jaime, Jessica, Josh, and Steven. They made student teaching very enjoyable and I miss coming in the mornings to teaching them now (although the extra sleep is also nice). I tried to keep a “teacherly” distance from them but in the end it was so hard not to get a little bit attached to them. They were respectful and nice, nothing like what you would think of “summer school” kids. I look forward to teaching in the fall because it was so enjoyable teaching them this summer.

Watching Myself Teach

2005-06-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

It was very interesting watching myself teach on TV. The camera provided me a perspective of my teaching that I never had before. Viewing myself on TV was probably the closest I’ll ever get to sitting on in my own classroom.

First the good. I was prepared and had some good activities for the kids to do. I got them all up in front of the room and involved in the class. I looked professional and even though I looked real young, it was easy to tell that I was the teacher (the tie really helped out). Finally I didn’t have any class management issues. Of course I can’t take all the credit for that. The regular teacher, Ms. Raybon, had excellent class management and the kids were attentive and respectful.

Now the bad. After seeing and listening to myself teach the first thing that I noticed was how bored and sleepy I looked. My voice seemed so unenthusiastic. And it’s not that I’m unenthusiastic or uninterested in what I’m teaching because I am. However my natural demeanor is often calm and unemotional and that can be misunderstood as being apathetic. I hope my students haven’t thought that.

Anyhow, it’s really good to see this because as I’m teaching in front of the class I have no idea how boring I sound. In fact, while I teach I sometimes think what I have to say is quite interesting and I forget how it sounds.

Another thing I notice about myself is that I look rather stiff and mechanical. I’d really like to see myself be a little looser. I think lot of that comes from the detailed lesson plans. I make my plans very thorough and try to follow them step by step and in doing so I look rather rigid. I think this will come with experience. I need to work on it as I feel the more comfortable I look in front of the class, the easier it will be for students to open up and participate and also I think there will be less class management issues if the students perceive don’t see me as ill-at-ease.

Seeing the tape did a lot of good but it also makes me nervous because now I realize the things I need to work on and I don’t think they’ll be easy to fix. I hope everything will develop with time, practice and experience.

Reluctant Disciplinarian

2005-06-16T23:21:00.000-07:00

After reading the Reluctant Disciplinarian I thought it had a lot of good suggestions for the first year teacher. It did have some funny moments but (maybe due to the expectation that it would make me laugh out loud the whole time) it wasn’t as hilarious as I had expected. The one part that I remember being particularly funny was when he was observing a teacher with really good classroom control. Rubenstein asked, “What do you do if they throw paper airplanes?” The teacher responded, “I don’t put up with that nonsense!” Taking notes, Rubenstein jotted down, “Don’t put up with that kind of nonsense.” In that section he talked about how teachers with good classroom management can make it look real easy when it isn’t. I find that to be very true and I’m guarding against thinking like that by trying to make my classroom management plan as thorough as I can make it.

The one thing that will stay in my mind from the book was that the author felt he was unsuccessful his first year because he wasn’t demanding of his students, didn’t have a good classroom management plan, and was too much of a pushover. After his first year he became strict and demanded more from his students. He had much better classroom management his kids thus became much more successful and enjoyed being in his class more than when he was a pushover.

He also mentioned in the book about different teaching personas and which ones to stay away from. I think he’s really on point with the personas he advises to stay away from. One is the hip teacher who brings him/herself to the level of the student. I substitute taught 3 years ago in Nova before going to Nepal. I had in my head that I wanted to be cool teacher that students could talk and relate to. I wanted to break mold when it came to teachers. I was going to be different in that all the students would actually like me. I high fived them, laughed at their immature jokes, and talked about video games with them. Then they ran all over me. I subbed for my old 6th grade teacher in her then current 6th grade class…a pretty neat experience. The day began out alright as they were still getting a feel for me but by the afternoon they were “eating my lunch.” It was horrible. I had kids throwing papers and crayons across the room, no one listening to me, kids running around everywhere, jumping over each other. I finally had to ask for help from a teacher in the room next to mine. Anyways, I learned my lesson and I never approached coming into the classroom like that again.

Another teacher persona Rubenstein advised to avoid is the martyr. I can really understand this one and how it can be dangerous. All of us in MTC maybe vulnerable to this persona to a certain extent as I think we all have noble reasons for joining MTC. In the book, Armando Alaniz, Rubenstein’s dean of instruction pulls him to the side and says, “Let’s get one thing straight. You’re not here to save these students. You’re here to teach them, and if teaching them happens to save them, then great. But don’t patronize these students or they’ll eat you for lunch.” I totally agree with the dean. In joining the Peace Corps a few years ago I wanted to do something positive and help people. But when I got over there I found out just wanting to help people didn’t help them at all. I realized I had to be a good at something and teach it to them in order to provide any assistance. Just wanting to do good isn’t enough. You have to be professional and good at what you do in order to be fair to the people you intended to help. Otherwise you’d just be providing the students and community with a crappy teacher who has a good heart and although a good heart goes a long way, it’s not helping out the students succeed.

Anyways, I’m going to wrap this up now. I found the book very helpful. I think it helped me go into teaching this fall with a better mindset and more motivation to produce a thorough classroom management plan.

Cold Calling

2005-06-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

In class we were introduced to several questioning strategies that might get more students involved. One involved having kids write down their questions on a note card at the end of class. The cards are collected and questions are addressed at the beginning of the next class. Another technique called for students to write their answers to complex questions on a piece of paper and then conferring with a partner to defend their answers. Today in class I used the “cold calling” technique of calling on students. In class it’s very easy to call on the same students again and again even when you try to let everyone have a turn. I know sometimes I will call on a student who urges me the most to call him or her. In cold calling, the students’ names are put into a container and the teacher randomly chooses names to call on students to answer questions. Cold calling sounded like it might be a very effective tool for me to use in my classes.

My student teaching class is a class of eight 8th graders. I pulled out my cup of names when calling on them to answer questions regarding problems we were doing on the board. I tried it for a few names. It took me some time to pull the names out and look at them and I didn’t like how it broke up my flow. The class was also extremely small and I figured it would just be easier for me to go down the rows giving each student a turn. So ten minutes into class, I set the cup aside and forgot about it for the rest of the day. Class went very smooth.

I still think cold calling is a technique I will use in the fall with my regular classes. My summer student teaching classes are just so small that the technique is just unnecessary and even delays class. This doesn’t mean that I’ve totally given up on this technique. In the fall however, I will have around 25 – 30 students and I think then cold calling will be very effective.

Although the afternoon class is very tough to get motivated to go to and lasts a little longer than I’d like, I am picking up useful skills and methods here and there to use in my classroom. So far student teaching has been very fun as the students have been very easy to work with and I have not have any class management issues. I think that has less to do with me than with summer school teacher who the kids are very afraid of and many don’t like. I’m still practicing as many things as I can and trying to get into good habits because once I get my own class, every little good habit and teaching technique will help.

The Look of a True Student Teacher

2005-06-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

The other day during student teaching I was just about to get in front of the class to begin my lesson when another student teacher (from another program) commented, “Oh, I thought he was a student.” Let me remind you that I’m currently student teaching at a middle school. Today, before class, as I was writing my objective on the board, a friend of a student in my class looked at me and asked, “That’s your teacher?” I grinned and gave her a look. I need to come up with some quick witty remark to deal with that situation. I really wish I could add some years to my appearance. I can’t even grow a beard or a moustache to make myself look older. I’d give anything to have even just a random thick patch of hair grow on the side of my face. Then, at least people would know I’m past puberty. As it is now I look like a middle school student.

In Reluctant Disciplinarian, the author, Gary Rubenstein, was successful after his first year by losing his “softy” personality and becoming more demanding of his students. With my softy personality, youthful looks and sometimes youthful personality, I really fear students will think they have one of their own as the teacher which could lead to some serious challenges for me. Like Rubenstein, I have a bit of the “softy” personality which I have to work on. I’m not looking forward to a whole year with discipline and classroom management problems. I need to take immediate steps to prevent that situation.

This sounds funny but I think the first thing that goes into the classroom management plan is to wear a tie everyday. I look young, I’m short, and I can’t grow any substantial facial hair (yes, I am of East Asian descent if you haven’t already guessed). Wearing a tie might be the only thing that will distinguish my physical appearance as being that of a teacher. I’ll write more about classroom management plan in the following days as I’m continuing to develop it.

2005-06-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

This is my mean look. I've been practicing.

Interview at Jim Hill HS

2005-06-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I went to visit Jim Hill High School for the first time. The drive down to Jackson took about two and a half hours. I was fairly quite during the drive as my colleagues discussed literature and the history of criticism along with a variety of other topics. It was very interesting and I learned a lot listening but didn’t have very much to contribute.

When we arrived at the school the first thing I noticed was that it was directly across the street from a large cemetery. Mr. Harris, the basketball coach, spotted us in the back parking lot and led us to the front of the school. Inside I was impressed by the numerous trophies and awards in the display case. The school is fairly big. It could certainly use some renovation in various areas but on the whole it was in pretty good shape. There were many eyeball cameras in various hallways and the school also had a healthy supply of computers. There was one in every class room as well as in several in the library and computer labs. The library was well stocked with books although they were pretty old.

I was interviewed by four teacher and administrators. There questions ranged from how I dealt with stress to how I would involve parents in the education system. I never really thought about what questions I might be asked and I struggled with some of them but I think I managed alright. The teachers and administrators were very friendly and accommodating. I feel much better after speaking with them and visiting the school.

After the interviews (Dave and Jake also interviewed) were completed we took a drive around the Jim Hill neighborhood. My only initial impressions of the neighborhood were that it was low in-come, quiet, and had several churches, and two cemeteries.

Beside the fact that there are two cemeteries so close to the school (one that is across the street), Jim Hill High School seems just right. I look forward to being a teacher there and I can’t wait to get started.

The First Day

2005-06-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today was our first day of student teaching. I ended up in a 7th and 8th grade summer school math class. I was nervous coming in, but Mrs. Raybon, the classroom teacher, was extremely nice and accommodating. She let us know that we can teach any subject any time we wanted. We’ve been advised by several professors that we should teach as often as we can in order to prepare ourselves for the upcoming school year, so I will definitely take Mrs. Raybon up on her offer. I’m hoping I can get some type of lesson prepared for tomorrow. I haven’t been able to prepare a lesson plan yet because I’ve ended up being quite busy and not having enough time.

The days are quite full and they go by really fast. I feel as though I need at least 3 more hours in the day to get anything done. After class today, I wanted to do some studying for the math Praxis and some lesson planning. I haven’t been able to much of either. I think I just need to manage my time a little better.

Anyways, back to the student teaching. Today I pretty much tutored for 7th and 8th grade math. I worked with two boys named Cody and Jaime. There were extremely well behaved and polite. I was called sir and they both thanked me for my help. They even asked where I would be teaching in the fall and if any of us in MTC would be coming to their school. I had an extremely positive first day. I’m looking forward to coming everyday and doing my best.