Sixth Day

The highlight of my day was not one of success, but one that taught me a lesson.  Today I taught Mrs. Theroux’s class on perspective, on my own.  Right after our lunch groups were finished, Mrs. Theroux and I went to a fourth grade class, and I watched carefully as she taught her lesson. As always, she began her class with a friendship tip. “When you’re mad at a friend, try not to involve lots of other people.”  She asked the class for some responses, and the group talked about how involving other friends in a dispute can be a bad solution because it gets other people involved when they were not there from the beginning.  The students talked about how this situation can force children to take sides in an argument, and possibly make a small problem into a bigger one.  Mrs. Theroux then asked the class for some solutions.  The students discussed saying, ‘Please don’t get involved,’ or finding an adult near by, or waiting a day or a few hours for emotions to calm down, or speaking with the person directly and privately.  When Mrs. Theroux’s point was conveyed, she recapped last week’s class about opinions.  She introduced her new activity as one that will connect with last week’s class and the next week’s class.  She briefly explained the activity and that the class would be separated into six different groups.  Before class, Mrs. Theroux and I cut up names of house cats and placed them in a hat.  The students then picked at random and separated in their house cat groups. I then handed out a sheet of paper that asked the fourth grade students to brainstorm and describe how a cat looks and acts.  Two sheets of paper were asked from a cat’s perspective, while two other sheets asked from a dog’s perspective, and the last two sheets were asked from a mouse’s perspective.  The students did not know that each sheet was different, as they brainstormed for adjectives that described cats.  Mrs. Theroux and I walked around the classroom helping each group, and then we called them together.  Each group stood in front of the class and said, “Cats are…” and would list their descriptions as Mrs. Theroux and I wrote their responses on the board.  When each group had shared their perspective with the class, the students found opposite words written on the board next to each other. Mrs. Theroux then told the class about how they each had written from different points of view.  Mrs. Theroux pointed out that if the class were to have a discussion on this topic while representing these three different animal perspectives, the class would be one filled with passion, emotion, and drive.  She then related this response to humans.  Mrs. Theroux talked to the class briefly about how we all come to school with different ideas, opinions, points of view, and experiences.  She highlighted the last class’s opinion poll and that it is okay to come from a different background  and have different ideas, as long as were are respectful about presenting them.  The class seemed to understand Mrs. Theroux’s point, and it ended up being a good class.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Theroux could not go to the next class because she had a meeting in her office at that time.  She sent me alone to go teach the same class again to a second fourth grade class.

 I was all smiles as I walked to the classroom.  This was my first opportunity and first class I would ever teach on my own.  This was the start of my career!  I made my way to the front of the classroom where I took a deep breath.  I explained that Mrs. Theroux was out for the end of the day because she was in a meeting, and that I was going to teach the lesson for the day.  I made it through the friendship tip of the day perfectly, but as I began the class cat activity, the students started getting very rowdy.  Some children were walking around, while others were talking and playing games at their desks. When I walked around to see how the kids were brainstorming, the children were unfocused and had written nothing but tick tack-toe marks and doodles.  Some students pouted and never participated.  When I asked them to get back in their seats so we could begin presenting each group’s ideas, they ignored me and continued to be unresponsive to the task.  Slowly, but surely, I pushed through the class, every five minutes asking them who was paying attention and begging them to stay focused a little while longer.  I barely got my point across to the students before I left the class early.

I could not help but think about all those poor teachers my class used to upset by not paying attention and running around.  It could not have been a more frustrating experience, but I held back from becoming overly upset.  I realize that I am still young and not taken as seriously as the teachers who have been working there for years.  I was not in the position to threaten them with more homework or a bad effort grade like here at Proctor, so it was hard to get these children motivated to learn.  I also kept in mind that this class was right after lunch so the students were all ready energetic and set to run around.

Tomorrow I will talk with Mrs. Theroux about how the class went, and hopefully she will have some suggestions for the next time. I am hoping that instead of never getting this opportunity again, or jumping right back into the same inexperienced position, Mrs. Theroux will be there with me and ease me into learning how to teach a lesson.  Maybe next time I will teach most of the class with Mrs. Theroux by my side for guidance and help.  Also, this way she can point out some errors and give me feedback on how to get the students to focus.

It is one thing to teach a small math group or a guidance lesson to five or six kids, but it is a whole different thing to step in front of a classroom and try to teach a lesson to a classroom full of energetic students.  I realize that this project would take some work and lots of effort, and despite a bad first try, I am willing to give it a second shot.  I am not ready to give up that quickly, and I know that if some of the students respect me now, then, sooner or later, the others will learn to see me as a respectable teacher as well.