No, Really, I Am an American

So last time we left off in the misadventures in teaching (maybe I should rename this category to such), I was incredibly anxious about my Year 9 Poetry class. It was going to be the last day of class before the half term holiday and really, I can never be sure what kind of class it will be with that group. It’s rarely ever a completely brilliant class (brilliant in the British sense as in “awesome” ).

I got a lot of different advice about what to do with the class. Also, in general, Sally said that all the classes would be hard to manage ‘cuz everyone from the teachers to the students have their minds on the fact that we have a week off coming up. She advised fun activities in all classes, and so for Year 9 I planned a poetry quiz game and I also decided to use my Eminem lesson since it would be more interesting poetry than the other stuff we’ve been studying lately. Another useful managing tool was given to me by the drama teacher; he has a set of power point slides that give the students an idea of their noise level and once it gets to red, that means they have to stay after class.

I pretty much spent my whole free period getting everything prepared for that class.

And I’m happy to report that it really paid off. I mean, I’ve always been prepared for all my lessons…but this time around, the students were actually able to relate to what the text was — it was a song a lot of them knew and the follow up activity was definitely something they could understand since thy were supposed to write a poem about their lives. Even one of my most apathetic students wrote something, and maybe it’s just because I’m biased, but I was pretty impressed by her poem. Seriously. I didn’t know she had it in her given her general attitude in class.

The game went pretty well, too. Admittedly, they weren’t really able to get a lot of the questions right, but the fact that they were excited about it and actually trying meant something. Heck, Tom came into the class ‘cuz he thought something was going wrong and for once I was able to report back to him that in fact the noise level was enthusiasm and not poor behavior.

I was feelin’ pretty damn good after that class. I’m hoping that next half of term will have more days like that.

So the students at my school have their assessments and the like coming up. One of them submitted his essay super early. I was just grading it and within the first four words I knew it was plagiarized. I even found the site he ripped it from.

Some part of me is laughing if anything because I can’t believe he thought I would catch it.

The other part of me is wickedly disappointed. When this student submitted his paper to me a whole two weeks early, I had hope that he had his head in the right place.

Unbelievable. And yet, I’m cynically amused. Seriously. Hamlet had nothing to do with the essay. He didn’t even try to make it look like he’d done it himself. There weren’t even paragraphs!!

Ah the joys of teaching.

So for the past month, every Wednesday has been an all staff meeting after school for various types of training. We’ve had sessions on behaviour management for the last two, one on multiple intelligences, and…actually, I can’t really remember the first one ‘cuz it was my first day of school and I was still jet-lagged.

Today’s was a bit different in that they split us off into different groups, the ones who were on the leadership team, the newly qualified teachers like myself and Shelby, and the ones who weren’t quite in either of the groups who were sent off to a tech training session. Before we split up, though, Mr McCullagh went through the different support systems that he set up. I gotta say, one of my favorite things about this school is the amount of support given to the faculty. What Mr McCullagh did, based on last week’s teaching and learning audit, was put together teams of three people who would be able to try and feed off each other. Essentially, it’s a way to promote cross learning zone (department) interaction and collaboration.

For example, in my group, I am with a veteran teacher who is a no-nonsense type of fellow when dealing with behaviour and “naughty” students and a Maths teacher. Now, here’s the part that’s a damn dirty lie; because of my “creative” lesson that Mr McCullagh and Mrs Rivaldi observed last week, he thinks I’ll be able to help my colleagues with some ideas on how to make their class more interesting. I kinda panicked about that ‘cuz seriously, that lesson was a fluke! I mean, sure, it was a really great lesson that I enjoyed teaching…but I maintain that the only reason it worked was because I have a drama background and I’m able to adapt this kind of stuff easily. People keep giving me more credit than I think I deserve, and I’m not talking incurable crazy! I swear, if Chris O came in and observed one of my lessons, she’d like totally revoke my teaching cert.

So yeah, we were split up into the three different groups, but Shelby and I didn’t have anywhere to go. Apparently, the academy doesn’t have all our information, but you would think they would figure we’re overseas trained teachers…it’s quite obvious when you hear us talk! We ended up tagging along with all the other newly qualified teachers (NQT).

Mr McCullagh encouraged both of us to pick a qualification program to get into, especially if we plan on staying at the academy.

We got to talking with some other NQT’s. The dance teacher said we ought to do the same program as our faculty buddy (the person we go to when we have admin questions) because Selina is Australian qualified and the program she’s in would probably best suit our needs as well.

The more we all started talking about it though, the more I realized I still have no idea what I want to do. Chane asked me if I was thinking of sticking around and I didn’t know what to tell her. At this particular moment in time, I want to. But that could change at any moment yeah?

I know what you’re thinking. Just join a program and if I end up coming home, then what’s the harm. Well, I can tell you right now it will bother me. It sounds borderline jack assy, but I don’t want to waste my time and stress out about whether or not I’ve gathered all the evidence — qualification in England seems FAR more complicated than it does in America. Seriously, I’m already freaked out about stuffs as it is, I don’t want to unnecessarily add onto it.

Anyway, it appears I have some more stuff to think about.

I ought to start looking into creative Maths ideas…

So last Thursday, I was feeling pretty down about the fact that I had to have my observation redone. It turned out to be better this way because the lesson that was observed was a drama activity.

When last I saw my Year 11 students, we were slowly and steadily making our way through the chapters of Face by Benjamin Zephiniah. If you didn’t know anything about my students, you might not be impressed with them. But to hear some of the volunteering to read is amazing, especially from three of the lads who, I’m told, in the past wouldn’t even bother raising their hands.

One of the lads, “Laurence” suggested reading the next chapter as a script. I told him we could do it, forgetting the fact that I was going to be observed the next time we met as a class. Usually, when you’re about to have an observation, people play it nice and safe. I’d already made a commitment to my students about doing it up as a drama activity, so I went ahead and did it anyway. It’s funny ‘cuz my learning zone leader (department chair) (LZL) said it was really ambitious of me to try this. It wasn’t a matter of being ambitious at all; it was a matter of doing right by my students.

I went ahead and adapted Chapter 4. My LZL knew what I was up to and she helped me structure the lesson to the general standards the observation people would be referring to. In all seriousness, it probably wouldn’t have gone so well if I hadn’t had help.

I was all nervous about it this morning. Then I saw Michael; usually he is only in Monday through Wednesday, but because he isn’t going to be around towards the end of the month, he was making up days now. He said he’d be in my class to help out. At first, I thought it was kind of odd, but later I would discover that it was actually beneficial. Not like I don’t like him being there, in fact, I wish he was there more often for some of my classes; it was more the fact that when I think of observations, I think of ‘em as being a thing done with just me if that makes any sense.

So anyway, I set up the room in such a way that we would have a “stage” area. Just as I’d feared when I received the message that I would be re-observed for the same class, only five students showed up. I knew a few of them would be gone because of college (like work study) and that three of ‘em were in in-school detention, but still…five of seventeen? (Not to be confused with Seven-of-Nine.)

We got through the “boring” stuff all right. One of the first things we did was read the chapter in prose form in order to help us understand the difference between prose and script format, as well as give us an idea of what the blocking might be. There were some other mini-activities we did before tackling the script.

Now here’s where things get a bit amusing; two of the students who were absent from class showed up just as we were allocating parts. It’s amusing because for some reason, their time tables have them in a free period during our class for Week 2, but they came anyway because they knew we would be doing the script the second half of class. They said they were there to “help out”. I was just happy to have seven students!

Not long after their arrival, the observers came in. I kinda ignored ‘em ‘cuz I was too busy helping the students in the blocking process. I really didn’t care that they were there, in fact, to me they were kinda in the way. I was more focused on trying to get “Scott” to dance (he was brave enough to take on the main character, but didn’t really think about the part where Martin has to show off his dance moves). To make things even more…interesting, Scott and Laurence were supposed to have a dance off. This made me nervous only because the first day of class, the two of them almost came to blows. I know what you’re thinking — why cast them opposite each other then? Honestly, I didn’t want to maneuver it in such a way that would raise their suspicion. I mean, Laurence volunteered to be Other Dancer ‘cuz he knew how to break dance, and getting Scott to volunteer to be Martin was yet another amazing thing ‘cuz he’s usually reluctant to participate.

I had absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact, they seemed to get along great in the scene. I was really proud of them.

Michael played the part of the Drug Pusher, which is fine by me, but I thought it a little strange. Again, I would discover that it was actually a good thing.

We had to go through it a few times ‘cuz for one thing, it isn’t a drama class and for another, their attention span is about as focused as mine is when I’m not playing the part of a teacher.

In the end, I didn’t care if I got a low mark for the observation because the students really enjoyed the activity. In fact, one of them said to me afterward that he thought he had a better idea of the chapter after having done that. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious, but when I had my feedback with Mr McCullagh, he said he saw the same boy in a different class completely disengaged from the lesson. Hence, I’ve come to take “Mikhail”’s comment a little more seriously.

After the class, Shelby and Miss Williams said they heard good things about the lesson. I brushed it off ‘cuz I think they got their impressions from Michael, and Michael is probably one of the most positive and encouraging people I know. Again, later, I would discover that Miss Williams heard more information from Mr McCullagh and still she told me it went well. Mr McCullagh stopped by to give me unofficial feedback and said he thought it was a good lesson.

I dared to be hopeful it didn’t suck.

After school, Mr McCullagh came to my classroom to give me my official score. We went through the observation matrix and he asked me how I thought I did on each point and then gave me the official marks. I was actually pretty accurate in my self-evaluation except on two points where I gave myself a lower score than where it actually ended up. Remember how I mentioned having Mike there was actually a beneficial thing? Well, one of the sections on the matrix is about how I use the ALTs in the class. Mr McCullagh said I made great use of Mike; which really threw me off ‘cuz as far as I’m concerned, Mike is more of a colleague than an ALT. (Seriously, I have no idea why it is Mike isn’t a full-time teacher.)

Overall, I got a 2 — which is pretty good for a first-year non-British trained teacher. Of course, I’m not kidding myself into believing it will always be like this because if you want to know the truth, the only reason I scored so well was because it was a small class, it was a drama activity, and I had help from Miss Williams.

Apart from all that, doing the activity made me realize just how much I actually miss drama. I’m hoping that once I get my head above water, I can get involved a bit more with activities. Peter, the other English department cover teacher guy, was actually putting together a flyer for a drama workshop that I might try and help out with. But again, I have to break surface first.

It’s been one of those weeks.

It started out okay ‘cuz of the whole Year 7 trip, but then it seemed to fizzle and die towards the end.

We had teaching and learning audits this week, aka teaching observations. It was so strange for me in that I was less nervous and stressed about this observation than I was for the ones at Nova, and these are actually worth something, as in I could be fired if I don’t pass! Shelby and I both had ours on Thursday, so it gave us a day to recover from the trip.

Wednesday went all right. Oh, except for my Year 9 class. I’m not gonna lie and pretend I have any control over the class because I clearly don’t. They’re a lower ability class and their heads are absolutely not in War Poetry. I gave two detentions to two students who didn’t care that they were getting detentions. I ended up going to the Head Teacher about them and we’re gonna try something different with that class. We’re abandoning War Poetry and we’re gonna try just regular poetry instead. But that class…even Mike said he had some trouble with them.

I was amazed, absolutely AMAZED with my Year 8 class Thursday morning. They usually give me some trouble, but they ALL worked on their stories. Some of them asked me if they could take their books home so they could type them up. I let ‘em but made it very clear that if they came to class without their stories it would be a 0 in the grade books for their homework grade.

My observation class was…interesting. Of the seventeen students I was supposed to have in the class, maybe six of them showed up. I had two ALTs and Sally in the class (I’d mentioned to her that there was usually some conflict in the class between two students — I mean, the first day I met these students I had one of ‘em storm out of the class to keep himself from punching the other guy) so basically there was a teacher for every student. In terms of a lesson, it actually went pretty well. I got to use some YouTube clips and I had them make a school-appropriate Dialect Dictionary which they all seemed to enjoy making, even two of my other troublemaker students.

I had them up until the end, when it was like ten minutes before the bell. Then everyone was about up to their usual tricks. I was okay with it because I got through most of what I needed to and the observation seemed to have gone well.

Little did I know I would later be informed that they would have to re-do my observation because of the class attendance. They said I did fine in terms of planning and teaching, but they needed to see how I did with a larger group of students.

I’m not gonna lie, I was feeling pretty dejected after that. I mean, I really didn’t want to have to go through that all over again. It wasn’t a horrific experience, it was more the thought of having to be under that kind of pressure again. I know there’s still a lot I have to catch up on. It would be cake if I were home and teaching under a curriculum I know forwards and backwards ‘cuz I went through it myself and then studied it again when I was at uni.

Then there was Friday. What a waste. Both of the classes I taught went badly, although, not as badly as Shelby’s where she had a physical fight break out in her class. But still, I’ve never felt so frustrated. I’m at a loss at what to do with my MacBeth group and my Year 7 class should know better.

I actually had a kid cry in my Year 7 class. I felt really badly for him ‘cuz he’s been in some trouble lately and I had to keep him after to talk to him. He thought I was gonna tell him off, but I wasn’t. I really just wanted to make sure he was okay. Sure, he had one of the behavior forms, but I thought he handled himself rather decently in the class that day. I’m not going to pretend he was perfect, but it wasn’t as bad as he thought. He was really good about separating himself from trouble, and he asked to sit up at the front to make sure he kept himself from causing too much disruption. That’s pretty mature for an eleven-year-old.

But because I asked to talk to him after class, he thought he was in heaps of trouble again. I told him that I wasn’t giving him a detention or anything like that. He still lost it and vented about two of the girls in the class and how he thought they were getting away scott-free while he was the one getting trouble and all he did was try and defend himself. I told him I would talk to the girls and that we would work together on keeping him out of more trouble.

He’s in Shelby’s form group, so I went and talked to her about it afterward. She said she’d noticed he seemed a little off that day, too. We agreed that we should keep an eye on him to make sure he was okay and would stay that way.

But yeah, it’s been one of those weeks. I’ve never been so happy to see the weekend.