I don't want to be the Debbie-Downer, and I'm so excited for those of you who have posted about wonderful and positive observation experiences, but I also feel like we need to look at the flip side of the coin.
My observation was a positive experience in the end but there were moments within it where I definitely had the "why am I doing this moments?" And even though it ended up being something I walked a way from with a smile, I definitely have new worries that I never even would have considered pre-observation.
That is what is great about this program. We have time to come back to UVic, reflect, and talk it all out; we get to share the good, bad and ugly and learn from each other.
So what are some things (little or big) that you guys are now worried/concerned/nervous about?
I bet between all of us and Chris we can figure a lot of them out!!
One thing I noticed a lot in my subject area (science) was the size of the curriculum and the pressures of provincial exams. The teachers I talked to commented on how they kept adding things to the curriculum in science classes, even in grade 9 and 10. Even though grade 12 provincials are now optional, the teachers said that they still felt that they had to teach to it for those students who chose to take them. The addition of a grade 10 provincial seemed to result in teachers spending most of grade 10 preparing students for that exam. It seemed to me that teachers were struggling to fit in all the necessary material to prepare their students for standardized exams and to fulfill the IRPs. It seemed that much of the time was made up through removing labs and hands-on learning almost entirely from the grade 12 classes and severely cutting it back in the grade 10 classes (and to a lesser extent grade 9 and 11 as well). It worries me that I may have to teach to an exam rather than to truly prepare my students for university and to critically engage in science.
ReplyDeleteDid other people in the science's observe this trend as well?
I was in the same school as Cameron, and I agree that teachers seemed very pressured by the size of the curriculum. I noticed that in trying to get through the material, important concepts were often presented in a rushed way that did not allow all students to stay on board. This reflected in test marks and overall grades. A unit test in grade 11 biology was makred during our two week observation, and 12 out of 24 students failed, and many more were in the 50-60% range! Also, the majority of students in grade 9 science had grades of INCOMPLETE. I was shocked by these marks, and could only speculate that it was due to the large amounts of material being presented to quickly for students to grasp!
ReplyDeleteThe ever-present concern that was placed before me was the burden of teaching full-time English. Every English teacher that I spoke to, and a few teachers from other disciplines, told me that I had two options: teach full-time English, or have a life. This was later qualified by adding that I could teach full-time English WELL or have a life. But unless I want to be a bad teacher or invent a new subject area for myself, I’m going to face a career heaped with constant marking. Supposedly English teachers have the most devastating marking out of all the disciplines, with essays and writing assignments taking unproportionate amounts of effort. A lot of teachers try to use faster holistic marking styles or do a lot of completion marks (is there writing on the page? A+), but I’m still pretty worried about how overwhelming it’s all going to be.
ReplyDeleteHi, My concern is also marking student’s assignments. Hopefully, marking science assignments should be much easier than English.
ReplyDeleteI’m thrilled that I got the opportunity to help deliver, and mark a literacy evaluation for grade 9 students. It was great to help with questions students had on the exam, as I was always able to give them clues into what the directions meant, and it made me feel like a real teacher. The exam took a full 80 minutes, and the answers were long (for grade 9) paragraph answers, and it was written by at least 100 students. The teacher, and EAs asked me if I would also help the next day in order to speed up the marking. Did anyone else get a chance to mark anything? After helping mark, I realized I was 5 times slower than everyone else, and it felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head! It was exciting to mark things for the first time, but I think once I’m a teacher I might try the old “everyone-hands-their-assignment-to-the-person-behind-them”, and the students learn from going over the material, and mark them as a bonus. Did anyone else see this technique in school? I did not see it at Parkland, but when I was in high school we did it all the time. Of course there are many subjects (including the literacy evaluation I just marked) that you could not do this, but does anyone think it’s a useful tool in some situations? I don’t want to spend all my evenings marking.
What i found most discouraging was the politics involved with teaching in this particular distric and province.
ReplyDeleteHalf a decade as a sub, infighting between different groups of teachers and between teachers and admin, the archaic teamster-esque union we have, and of course as discussed above, an ever growing curriculum that seems to be leaving kids in the dust.
In the face of all that stuff, a kid who refuses to turn off his blackberry seems a little insignifigant, you know?
In response to Moss and Crystal's comments, I did do some marking for my mentor teacher, and I am a little torn over what kind of marking style to adopt. I saw some teachers letting peers mark their quizzes (not unit tests though), and I also saw teachers that do all of the marking themselves. I personally prefer marking the papers myself so that I can get a good idea of what concepts I need to revisit with the class when several students fail to grasp the same concept. Also, I like to write many comments and corrections on the tests that the students can use when studying for later exams, but it takes a lot of time, and many students don't read the comments. Even seemingly easy science marking can take forever though, and I think a system of tradeoffs between the constructive comments you can give, and the time it takes to mark the assignments.
ReplyDeleteAs with Haley, I also saw a lot of incompletes in the science classes. It amazed me how many students had missing homework, assignments, and tests. It seemed like half the class were getting 90s, and the other half were stuck around the 50% range. I'm a little worried about how to deal with this huge disparity.
Many of you have talked about the problem with wanting to be a good teacher and having a life. However I have more of a problem with the union itself. I understand the need for job security but having teachers who aren't really qualified in their teaching area is a disservice to the students. One of the teachers at the school I went to was teaching something they did not have a background in and were self taught. They were doing a lab and I explained how the lab worked to them because they did not know. In a situation like this the students who want to ask questions that require a deeper understanding then the surface knowledge you get from high school textbooks are not getting the teaching they deserve.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that the rest of you have similar concerns to the ones I was considering when I started this post.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the concerns about marking styles (not sure there is much we english teachers can do about the quantity unfortunately...) I think one of our classes next semester is all about the ins-and-outs of evaluation.
I had some pretty specific concerns as well.
How do we read an IEP?
Do we adopt our mentor teachers classroom management style, or impart our own?
And on a super specific level, the class I will potentially be teaching in is a computer lab where the desks are set up in a horse-shoe shape with an island in the middle... I will definitely be needing some ideas on how to keep their attention on my lesson and off facebook!
Not to be too pessimistic or anything, but I think a lot of our ideals about teaching are going to be severely compromised by the hard facts of reality. The first few years are going to be especially rough--mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, etc. With all that, I think it will often be hard to actually concentrate on teaching. At the school where I observed, I saw a lot of creative teachers, but I also saw a lot of the "let's just get through the day" attitude. I guess a lot depends on your personality.
ReplyDeleteA career in any field is going to be filled with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (great movie btw). Teaching will be no diffrent. Nobody ever said this was going to easy. It will definitely be a life changing experience.
There were numerous conversations in the prep area about "problem kids", kids who are known drug dealers, abusive to others etc. It seemed like the majority of these kids were grouped into courses taught by one teacher "because she can handle it". I was left wondering whether she really could, she hardly ever had time to eat lunch with the rest of the teachers as she was in her room helping students which is great, but I think some of the problems stayed with her at the end of the day when she went home. Is that something that's going to happen to the majority of us? Probably not, but it is a reality and something we may have to deal with. How do you make that distinction between your teaching life and your home life, or do you? Can you?
ReplyDeleteI think any other more minor concerns, like Justine mentioned how to read an IEP, will be addressed when we are back in the schools and actually teaching. Quite frankly I can't wait to get back out there for that reason. We do need the textbook type education background that we're getting in a lot of our courses now, but I think we also really need the hands on to see what will work for students and what won't.