Teacher Journals: Michelle

I grew up in a small farming community in central Texas. This past May, I graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in English.

I am currently a student in the Teaching and Curriculum program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I intend to obtain both a master's degree in education and secondary school certification in English. Attending HGSE has given me the opportunity to explore opportunities outside my home state for the first time. Coming from a rural background, my student teaching experience at a high school in Boston is my first encounter with urban schools.

In addition to teaching, I am also interested in understanding race politics in the American public education system, community empowerment, and school leadership.

Select from among Michelle's journal entries:

10.22.2001

Having been a student teacher for nearly two months, I have only just begun to understand the many aspects of the school and its culture. When I first entered the building, I found the architecture itself awesome. The school houses about 2000 students and 100 teachers in a large five-story building. This year, the school was restructured, forming small learning communities that allow teachers to form a network for sharing information about students and lesson planning. They also give teachers the power to collaborate and implement new ideas. Though it is difficult to find time for all 30 teachers to meet together, teachers have small group meetings during their off-periods to share lesson plans and discuss issues from student tardiness to planning a memorial service for the recent tragedy.

Like everywhere else, anxiety around the situation in America exists at the school. When news broke about that tragedy in New York, the students' reactions surprised me. As we watched the details unfold on television, many students were laughing and joking. I don't think they quite understood the severity of the situation yet. I certainly did not know how to deal with it either. Only days later did the seriousness seem to set in.

My mentor teacher and other teachers in our learning community--which is centered on global studies-were obviously concerned about how the students were handling this sudden disaster. In dealing with it, my mentor teacher altered her lesson plans so that the lessons allowed for students to participate and share their feelings about the incident. Since September 11, my mentor teacher's lessons have given students the opportunity to reflect on how to deal with the state of the nation while still maintaining the learning objectives of a literature class.

Working in such a diverse community--two-thirds of the students are either immigrants or children of recent immigrants--I have realized how important it is to address these national issues in the classroom. Many of the teachers with whom I have spoken are concerned about how this tragedy will affect race dynamics in the school. By addressing the issues directly and attempting to dispel misconceptions in the classroom, a teacher might help alleviate some of the tension in the school.

Besides my mentor teacher's classroom, I have spent these past two months shadowing various members of the school community. I spent one day shadowing a student and remembered how much knowledge a high-school student must retain. Taking primarily literature classes in college, I had forgotten that, in addition to remembering how to write a character analysis in English class, a high school student must also know pertinent definitions in biology and remember the formula for density in math.

I spent another day shadowing a school police officer and witnessed how rewarding her job is. She not only maintained order in the school, she was also a friend to many students. How she maintained a presence of authority while also welcoming students who needed someone to talk to was inspiring. I would love to have a similar rapport with my students.

Finally, I spent some mornings shadowing an administrator. I am especially grateful I had the opportunity to see her at work. Oftentimes, a tension seems to exist between the teachers and administrators, but watching her at work helped me realize how difficult and intense it is to work "behind the scenes." The energy of her mornings resembled an episode of "ER." She dealt with the mini-emergencies of assigning substitutes and answering inquiries about issuing textbooks before turning to her on-going duties of organizing new school programs and initiatives and finding teachers to participate.

Even in these two months, I have yet to feel that I understand all the aspects of my school. Its largeness creates a sort of anonymity. I still cannot name all the teachers--not to mention the students--but its size also creates many opportunities for the students. The large student body allows for great diversity and talent in the school. I cannot wait to see these students at their finest whether it's in English class or an athletic event.

11.20.2001

I think that being a student teacher is an interesting position to have in schools. It is difficult to determine your exact role in the school and the classroom. In some ways, you are a guest. You are thrust into a new environment whose culture you have not quite figured out yet. In other ways, you are expected to be an authority figure. I often wonder how the students perceive me. I have been in my mentor teacher's classroom for almost three months. For the most part, I observe. I sit quietly in the front and take notes. Recently, I have taken on a more active role-passing out papers, taking roll, and occasionally participating in class discussions.

Still, I remember an incident in which I was subbing for my mentor teacher while she handled a discipline case outside of class. The students had already been assigned work, so my only job was to take roll, monitor the class, and answer questions. One student made an interesting comment. He turned to his classmates, "Why don't we just get up and leave? There isn't anything she can do about it anyway." Of course, the student just smiled at me. I think he was partly testing me, but I really wondered what I would do if my students simply got up and left. Actually, I have seen it happen a couple of times. Once when I subbed for my mentor teacher, the same student quietly finished the assignment I had handed out, stood up, and left. I chased him out the door and told him to come back and why he thought he could get up and leave and he simply answered, "I finished my work." It was true. I watched while he worked diligently to finish and had no more work to assign. I couldn't simply leave the rest of the class to chase the student down, but it irked me that he could be so disrespectful. A similar incident occurred with my mentor teacher and another student.

Since the school has no organized detention system, teachers must implement their individual forms of discipline. Some actually issue personal detentions, but the common criticism is that students seldom show up. My mentor teacher chooses to call parents. Watching how students behave the night after she calls is fascinating. There is humorous banter and yet a strange tension between my mentor teacher's and the student's interactions. Improvement in behavior doesn't actually happen until a few days have passed.

I am also fascinated by how it seems the most disruptive students in my mentor teacher's class are also some of the brightest. Though I have observed several students with these characteristics, one student in particular caught my attention. When I first watched him in the classroom, he seemed to be a class leader. He was gregarious and always spoke in class; however, his grades oscillated between As and Fs. He did not seem consistent in his performance. I decided to shadow him one day. Between classes, I would chat with his teachers. Almost all of them told me that he was obviously an intelligent student, that he used to be "wild," and he would do well if he only focused. Though it seems cliché, I sometimes wonder if he is bored.

One realization I have come to since I began student teaching is that teachers only see a small aspect of their students in the classroom. They are complex individuals and how they perform or behave in your classroom is only a small portion of who they are. This past week, our class went on a field trip of Boston and its neighborhoods. In addition to the usual tourist spots, we toured the students' neighborhoods. As we passed through Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, students would stand up with such excitement to tell us all about their neighborhoods. They'd show us the streets on which they lived, and the various famous landmarks in their neighborhood. They had a sense of ownership and pride in the tour. And being a non-native of Boston, they educated me both about Boston and about themselves. I loved it.

12.21.2001

The past two months at my school have been spent mostly observing. Being a quiet member of the classroom has allowed me to focus my attention on certain details that might have escaped me if I had been teaching. I have been able to look closely at how my mentor teacher handles authority in the classroom, fosters an environment that welcomes every student's voice, and crafts and executes her lessons. Only recently have I begun to teach my own lessons, and new questions have arisen.

I have become obsessed with classroom management. I think my insecurity with being an authority figure in the classroom is related to the fact that I am still very young. Only having graduated college this past May, I am still straddling the line between adolescence and adulthood. With youth, I think, comes resistance to authority. Only months before did I feel as if my professors and other adults in my life were nagging me, and now, I find myself in an authority position.

During my first days teaching, I was met with passive resistance from some students. One girl, in particular, was more interested in looking at her yearbook than participating in the group activity. Being a non-confrontational person, I managed to muster up enough courage to ask her to give me her yearbook until the end of class. She swore that she would not bring it out again, but I had repeatedly asked her to put it away throughout the class period. My first impulse was to let it go, but I was afraid that I would seem like a pushover in my first days of teaching so I held my ground. Afterwards, my advisor informed me that I had apologized about six times during my conversation with the girl.

The following days after this incident, the girl became increasingly hostile to me. She would talk back to me and finally would not even acknowledge me only speaking to my mentor teacher and refused to take an exam I was giving. I was frustrated, but my mentor teacher told me the girl was simply testing me and I needed to send a clear message that she could not get away with that kind of behavior. She suggested that the following day, I take her into the hall and speak to her about respect.

Experienced teachers to whom I have spoken have said that teaching became less stressful when they learned to be themselves in the classroom. I am finding difficulty melding my two personas: Michelle the Person and Michelle the Teacher. Michelle the Person has a take-it-or-leave-it personality, and though I have not quite figured out who Michelle the Teacher is, I imagine that she should be nurturing. For instance, when this student sassed me and refused to take the test or when my students do not do the homework assignments, Michelle the Person would accept it, move on, and grade accordingly. I think to myself, "Fine, you hold your fate in your own hands. If you choose not to do the work, you suffer the consequences." But I do not react that way in the classroom because I feel that I should be nurturing. I do not know my students' educational histories. I want to be fair. I do not want to turn them off to school. I want to give them every opportunity to grow as students. I find myself nagging and nagging students to get their assignments in and it is not in my nature to nag.

I partly feel that the students are not necessarily to blame for not doing their homework assignments. Getting students to do homework seems to be a school-wide problem here. At the same time, I want to maintain high standards for my students. Is it fair to fail students for not doing their homework, when I am working against a school culture? Would I be insensitive to my students by failing them? On the other hand, is it a disservice to my students to not hold them accountable for their work and homework responsibilities? How do I find a balance? Maybe I am confusing this idea of nurturing with leniency.

02.20.2002

Teachers have many factors to think about in the classroom. Only until I began taking over full responsibility for my classes have I realized how many decisions I must make in a forty-five minute period. Trying to incorporate theory with practice takes time and I recognize that I have only begun. Every teacher wants to believe that her students are learning, but I sometimes wonder if my students are. Most of them do not read the homework reading assignments and I struggle to find a balance between maintaining standards that allow them to take responsibility for their own learning, and working with the culture of the school where students are not accustomed to doing homework. It frightens me to know that most of my students are failing my class. As one of my fellow student teachers pointed out, our students come into our classrooms with an educational history that we should strive to understand. I am afraid that I have not sufficiently helped them reach the work ethic I expect in my class.

At the beginning, I had daily reading quizzes, but I realized that this took up a large portion of time in such a short class period. My initial intention was to stress the importance of reading for homework. But then I realized that the quizzes only required students to know the specific details from the book. What I really wanted was for them to be able to think and make meaning of what they read. I began to require students write summaries and reading reflections for class instead. My mentor teacher pointed out to me, however, that details are equally important. Those types of questions are found on standardized tests like the MCAS. Neither exercise has persuaded my students to do the readings.

I worry. The classes I teach are college prep English classes for eleventh graders. I am afraid that they will not develop the skills they need to succeed in college. If they do not do the reading for my class, how will they be able to keep up with the rigorous workload in college? How do they learn to understand subtext and literary devices, and ponder broader questions about life when we do not have the readings as a springboard for discussion? Ideally, great and interesting lessons would pique students' interests and they would want to do the work, but I do not think I have quite mastered the art of creating the great and interesting lesson.

As for the climate in the classroom, I recognize how impersonal I am in the classroom. Being so close in age to my students, I think I have chosen to be impersonal. Without a certain rapport in the classroom, I have become this teacher that my students try to avoid making eye contact with in the hall. This past week, the school sponsored a student vs. faculty basketball game. I was amazed at how it affected the school climate as a whole. The general feeling was one of camaraderie. Students and teachers were more casual--in a respectful way--with one another. The power relationship between teacher and student became less visible. It was as if the dynamic of the basketball game seeped out into the halls and into the classrooms. Like the basketball game, the school became an arena for all the players to work with one another for a common goal.

On the personal level, I think that playing in the game allowed my students to see me more as a human being and less like the evil English teacher. On the following day, the atmosphere in the classroom was more relaxed. Learning became a community activity within the classroom. Though we still stayed closely to the lesson plan I had prepared, the students seemed somewhat more receptive.

Now that winter break has come and I have had time to reflect on all the happenings in my classroom and my school site, I can see that I have a long way to go. Now I understand the frustration my students must feel sometimes. Like my students, my learning comes with practice and experience. Though I become disheartened and impatient at my own lack of ability as a teacher, I should live by the same philosophy that I expect my students to live by: keep trying and always maintain high expectations.

04.24.2002

The third term has recently ended and I have spent the last three weeks worrying incessantly about my students' grades. In fact, I often wonder if I worry more about their grades than they do. I am finding great difficulty negotiating the ideas of the power and influence a teacher has in his or her classroom and that my students also have agency. I have undoubtedly made some mistakes in my instruction and I feel tremendously responsible for their success and failure in my classroom. After calculating my grades this afternoon, I am very disappointed to realize that more eighty-five percent of my students have failed the term. The numbers are appalling and only indicate a serious problem with my pedagogy and instruction that I must reflect on.

Completing homework has been a constant struggle in my classroom. As the term came to a close, I began to see my students working feverishly to turn in late assignments, but I wonder if learning is really going on and if my grades at the end of the term will reflect the knowledge they have gained throughout the last ten weeks. Most of the homework assignments I have assigned were designed to prepare my students for discussion for the following day. To curb the influx of late work being turned in, I implemented a late policy in which I subtracted points from their homework for every day that they are turned in late. Unfortunately, this has not been a successful initiative. Even up to the day grades closed, students were turning in reading reflections that were assigned during the second week of the term. It has been both burdensome on both me and my students. I am overwhelmed by grading, and more importantly, the work has become meaningless. My students are simply jumping through hoops to complete the tasks rather than benefiting from the initial purpose of the assignment.

After speaking with various students in my class, I have come to recognize some mistakes I have made. Near the end of the term, I could almost sense a mutiny coming on in the classroom. The students were visibly stressed about the number of ongoing projects I had assigned throughout the term and the late work they had not finished. When I had assigned this work, I had assumed that the students were having difficulty engaging in the Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and making connections between it and their personal lives. Since I had not received many reading reflections, I assigned a timeline project that would help them understand how the events in the affected the development of the protagonist. In a casual conversation after class, one student pointed out that the biggest criticism of my class was that I assigned too much work. They had six other subjects to attend to, but I often assigned twice as much work as their other teachers. I had not carefully considered my students' other personal and academic responsibilities.

Upon reflecting on the term, I should have clarified my grading scheme so as to help student prioritize the workload. In addition, I wish I had been able to spend more time tutoring students after school. Though I cleared my schedule and put off my own coursework the last two weeks of the term so that students could come for extra help or to make up exams, only a handful kept their appointments. If I had offered more opportunities for my students to meet with me after school, I might have been able to help more my students pass the course.

My greatest concern is the realization that my students' academic standings lie in my hands. Many of my students have expressed fear that they may have to attend summer school. How can I assign failing grades when I have failed in so many aspects of my teaching? These are some of the issues with which I have been wrestling, and I admit that I am sometimes frightened of myself as a teacher. Yet, I know that I am still new to the teaching profession, I hope with the support of my mentor teacher and my advisor, I will be able to cultivate my skills and continually strive to become a better teacher.

05.29.2002

My last days at my site were not as I had imagined. Whether it was because of MCAS, the springtime weather, or my leaving, the students certainly challenged me until the very end. Many of my students were required to take the MCAS this year, so by the time they saw me in the afternoons, they were a bit frisky. Some students simply skipped their afternoon classes. Others laid their head down on their desks, and still, a small group of boys were determined to "teach me how the world works" before I left by throwing candy across the room, yelling, and finally walking out of class. I think, though, that the chaos of my class--as much as I wished that I had been able to keep them focused and engaged--did humble me and remind me that I have a long way to go.

As Friday drew near, fewer and fewer students showed up my class and I finally did something that I never thought I would do. I let go of my lesson plan for the first time. I have noticed about myself as a teacher that I am so driven by my plans. I feel like every minute in the classroom is precious especially when my students are not prone to do their homework and I want to utilize the time, but when I walked into my classroom to see only seven of twenty-five students, I finally submitted and let them play Scrabble and chess, games that my mentor teacher had left in the room from the period before.

It was quite strange, but I saw a side of my students that I rarely saw. They didn't dread seeing me; they were relaxed. I've seen this side of them before, when I've played basketball with them, on field trips, and on the train. I only wish that we could have this relaxed atmosphere when we are focused on literature and writing. I wonder, is there always a tension between teacher and student when we are trying to learn in the class? I know the answer is no, but I still haven't mastered the art of creating a community in my class where my students are genuinely invested in the text--where they are not driven by the grade, but driven simply by their curiosity.

On Friday, the students threw me a surprise party. One girl spoke, saying, "Thank you for helping me learn that I could change from being an F student to a C- student." It was quite moving because I knew that she had worked so hard this term. She had failed the first two terms and I remember her sitting in the back of the room with her friends talking throughout class at the beginning of the year, but over the last weeks, I had seen a tremendous change come over her. She had grown to become a leader in the class. I remember when we were practicing writing a persuasive essay as a class, a student protested, "Why do we have to do this? We already know how. You treat us as if we didn't know how to do this." Before I could respond, this girl turned around, and answered, "Maybe you know how to do this, but some of us don't, so you can either do it or be quiet." She turned around and listened intently, asked insightful questions, and worked on her draft.

I'd like to say that her final draft was flawlessly structured, but it wasn't. I think those kind of endings are for "Dangerous Minds" or "Stand and Deliver"--those sappy teacher movies. What amazed me was her willingness to take responsibility of her own learning and improvement. Isn't that we all wish for our students?

In the end, I think I will need months to reflect on how this program and my experiences at my student teaching site have affected me. As I look back on the year, I realize that I am not a good teacher yet and I probably will not be for some time. I've certainly struggled throughout the year, but I know I will develop into a better teacher if I stay curious and keep working. That's all I can really say.