What Have I Learned?

On this, the final day of my service learning at Classic City High School, there was a substitute in Mrs. Johns' class. I though it was quite fitting that I would have to work with the students without the help of Mrs. Johns herself. Though there were only five students in class today, I was really glad for the chance to get to sit and talk with some of them. There were no profound moments and no epiphanies about the meaning of life, but there were small moments in which I believe the students actually appreciated my being there. Not because I was helping them with their work or giving them hints as to the next answer, but because I was someone who was still truly invested in them even when their teacher was gone.

This semester in Classic City High School has taught me so many things. There are more than I can count, and I'm sure there are many lessons so subtle I don't recall them in this moment. This environment is nothing I have ever been in before coming from a gifted ELA classroom in a middle school setting. Despite my initial inclination to pull back and stay where I'm comfortable, I believe that this is an experience that has grown and shaped me more than any other I've had thus far. What follows is a list of lessons learned through working with these students.

1. Pick your battles. Students are not always going to work exactly the way that I, as their teacher, envision. Sometimes, getting work done is more important than fighting over how that end goal is achieved. If a student asks you to go to the bathroom in the middle of a lesson, sometimes it is just better to let them go than to disrupt the entire classroom's learning.

2. Understand that what works for one student may not work for another. There were many times when I thought I had cracked the code. I'd finally figured out how to make these students get their work done, and in that moment of pride, I forgot about the nature of students. They are all entirely different. The strategy that got Student A working doesn't always work for Students B, C, and D. Also, what worked for Student A on Wednesday might not work for them again on Friday. Students are not so easily "solved."

3. Students have more to worry about than my assignments. Though the worksheet sitting in front of the students is the most important thing in my mind at the moment, many students have more pressing issues at hand. I will never forget when a student stepped out to take a phone call and came back in to announce that his uncle had passed away from a heart attack. In that moment, I couldn't be just this student's mentor in an educational sense, but had to quickly realize that working on school work and completing assignments would have to take a backseat for a little while. This student needed me to be his friend. I have, in my short educational career, forgotten about the fact that a student's life is not always about my class.

4. Students really do want to please you and they want to have fun. Today, I learned this lesson. Perhaps it was because I was considered their "teacher" for the day, but I could see that the students wanted to talk with me. They wanted to tell me about what they had seen on Instagram that morning and we even watched a view videos together once they finished their work. I could see that they wanted my attention, and we had a lot of fun talking and relaxing. Being a teacher isn't always about having a iron-grip on the students; there is plenty of room for sitting and watching funny videos.

Though this semester featured a few moments of intense frustration and many moments of confusion and hesitation, I truly feel that I am more equipped to walk into my own classroom than I would have been without it. These are students I will not forget because they taught me more than I ever dreamed.

CCHS 04-12

Today was a really great day at CCHS. In Mrs. Johns' class, there were very few students, so it was a great opportunity to get one-on-one time with the students. During class today, they were working on a practice in annotating articles. Mrs. Johns gave each of them a short, simple article to read over and she wrote out five different annotations for them to consider. Mrs. Johns said that her goal is to give her students the skills that they need in order to pick out important information in the articles, and that the best way to do that is through annotation of non-fiction works.

Anna Warnell was also in the class this morning, so there were enough adults in the room to pair up with two students each. I sat with my two students and we read over the article and I tried my best to guide them in the annotating process. This article covered the different parts of a cell, so I had to make sure to use my science knowledge (of which there is little) in order to help them. This was a very good task for the students, and they were able to see immediate progress. This immediate progress was an encouragement to keep going in the task at hand, so most students were able to get a lot done in the 15 minute period Mrs. Johns gave them. After the finished annotating, Mrs. Johns handed out a chart so that the students could identify the vocabulary words throughout the article. Since they had annotated, the students were able to readily pick out the vocabulary words and fill in their definitions.

Though this task was great and useful for me, my favorite part of today's class had nothing to do with the students' assignment. I noticed that one of the students had a solved Rubix Cube with him at his desk. I stopped by his desk and asked him if he knew how to solve it. He answered yes, and he told me that if I wanted to scramble it, he could solve it for me. Of course I wanted to see this skill in action, and given that he was done with his work, it would give him something to do. I quietly scrambled the cube in the back of the classroom, handed it to him, and within a minute, he had solved  it. Honestly, I was shocked. We repeated this a few more times, and soon the class had all noticed what we were doing. Instead of being a distraction for the students, this became an opportunity for this student to show off his skill. On a normal day, this student is very quiet and completes his work before anyone else; he isn't one that always stands out. On this day, however, he shone in the classroom. His classmates couldn't believe that he could solve the cube so quickly and they couldn't understand how on earth he did it in the first place.

This was such a great moment for me as a teacher. Seeing the other students amazed by their peer was so much fun, and I smiled throughout the entire interaction. I could see that the student was so proud of himself and enjoyed the praise from Mrs. Johns, his classmates, and myself. Seeing as though he doesn't usually receive any attention, I was so glad that he was getting the chance to be the "star of the show," even if just for a moment. These interactions are part of the reason that I want to become a teacher. When students feel valued and unique, it improves their performance in the classroom and outside of the classroom, which it the ultimate goal of education.

CCHS 04-07

On Friday, April 7th, I spent time in Mrs. Johns' class. Many of her students were present, so the classroom was quite full. In addition to the increased number of students, there were 4 mentors in the room. Mrs. Johns expressed that this was a great day to have lots of help because her students were going to be working individually on assignments and may need help or encouragement.

Her students were working on activities that incorporated economics into English. While some students were catching up on previous assignments, many of them were working on one of three options that Mrs. Johns had given them: a 27-minute video on economics with a three paragraph response, or a choice between two articles price elasticity, an economic principle.

During this time, I got to work with many different students on many different tasks. The economic feature to these activities stretched my knowledge a little bit, which caused me to think on my feet a little more than usual. The students were unclear on the concept of price elasticity, but with a little help from Google, I was able to direct them. In reading the articles, the students had to fill out two sheets after the read: a summary of the article in which they listed the title, author, tone, etc. and a list of three economics problems that were based on the information that they learned in the article. This day stretched my ability to adapt and work with many different students at one time, and I had to learn to manage many different people in my mind. I would work with one student for about five minutes, another for three minutes, and then I had to take a scan of the room to see who was in need of help or just a little encouragement to get their work done.

This visit also challenged my ability to adapt when the information isn't the most familiar concept for me. Though this will probably not be a problem in my own classroom given that I will be choosing my own assignments and lessons, but it is still a great skill to work on as a future educator. Learning quickly was very important on this day, and I believe that I was able to adjust my expectations relatively quickly. Each time I visit CCHS, I learn something new about teaching and the theme of this visit was certainly flexibility.