New Semester

The new semester starts this Monday, the 28th of October.  I'm on break at the moment and taking a moment to just jot some things down.

At the close of the last semester I was entering grades and looking over past student work and exams ad nauseam.  The process was highly instructive.  Off the top of my head, here's what I learned along with some general truths I've picked up during the previous months (in no particular order).

• There was general improvement the more students were writing.  Writing is a very independent process -successes and failures are dependent upon the individual.  Greater responsibility was likely felt and therefor motivating.
• Every assignment (especially writing) should focus on one aspect of correction.  For example, just spelling or just a very specific grammatical point.
• Projects are great learning tools.  It gives the student something to work on and to be proud of.  Autonomy can leave very little to hide behind.
• Group work has it's place.  From my current perspective though (and grade level),  when it comes to speaking related skills it is not so much a way to learn English.  Typically the activities end up a bit zany and unproductive.  Group work related to writing gets along better since there is much more structure and tends to be easier for me to manage.
• This said, I have not given up.  I've noticed definite weak points in speaking skill related activities, primarily, they just aren't as structured as they need to be.
• I would estimate that 75% of my students pretty much can't read English.  The rest either are very good or just so-so.  To be brief, the school does not have a formal reading program.  Both of these facts hit me around the same point in time and made me realize why learning has been so difficult for so many of them.  If you can't read, you can't help yourself.  If you can't help yourself, learning is very, very, very, very difficult.  
• A reading program for my students (and school) must be implemented every day in a way that does not impede the core curriculum too much.  Balancing the big picture (core curriculum) with one skill (reading) is necessary.  That said, I believe now being able to read (or catching up the ability) is just as, if not, more important than the core curriculum.  Unfortunately, some things are not so simple.
• Point systems make classroom management very easy.  Once refined, things only get easier still.
• I am convinced that a classroom of any size can be managed by one person, it's just a matter of figuring out how.  I think of a military officer barking at several dozen recruits, neatly in line, doing as they're told (yelled).  There's a way, find it.
• Praise and encouragement truly are wonderful motivators.  The difficulty was finding how to make my praise and encouragement actually motivate.  It didn't matter if I meant it.  What mattered was if the student cared that I meant it.  In other words, if a student doesn't like me or respect me, my praise and encouragement is meaningless.
• Conversely, disappointment and apathy are wonderful motivators.  If a student is failing me and therefor themselves, if they like or respect me when I show disinterest in them or disappointment because of a shortcoming they will be motivated to be more.

These last two points should have arrows, bells, whistles, sirens, neon signs, search lights, fireworks, and explosions surrounding them.

That is all.

Points!

Thursdays

Grade 1 P.E. at 1pm.

This thought used to make me want to run and hide but not so much anymore.  Grade 1 P.E. is a classroom full of children I only see once a week and I hardly know any of there names.  English is there second language, second to a language they're still learning.

To invite even more of a challenge, no one is there to help me in the room.  I don't so much want someone to help me run the class but more so to correct me.  From day one I've been in charge of that P.E. class and I've had to figure out things one mistake at a time.  Realizing I've made a mistake in the first place is more elusive than the mistake's resolution.

I started maybe a month ago keeping them and grade 2 indoors during P.E., teaching them about joints and basic anatomy.  My reasoning was, if I can't manage them outside, I should roll things back and work on getting a better handle on their indoor behavior.  It's also a better environment to learn their names...  I reckoned once I have that indoor management figured out maybe I'll be able to manage them outside.  

 As they all sit at tables, knowing names wasn't necessary for the system I started, I'll explain.  There are six tables so I scribble on the board tables one through six and allocate 10 points to each team.  The team starter points prevent them from going negative should they start losing points early on.  I take points off for run of the mill bad behavior and give points for anything from a good answer to being polite or even cleaning up their things quickly. 

The thought to use the system just popped into my head during my first intentionally indoor class with grade 1.  I silently put the tables on the board and gave them their points all while they were going ape shit over god only knows what.  Some noticed what I was doing and quizzically stared.  When I finished writing I turned around and stood still, watching to see who was watching me and who was bouncing off the wall.

As I watched the tables I started to take off points for bad behavior without saying a word.  Soon classmates of the naughty students started to hound them into being quiet.  When I started rewarding points they all became a little bit easier to manage.  In all, the system at this point didn't give me complete control over them.  I believed, despite them being grade 1 bozos, I could achieve this.

What's a bit funny is that the points originally got them no prize, they just LOVE points.  POINTS! Now the winning table gets paperclips.  YES! (Really).  Another reward I give at the end of class is scrap paper.  These are square sixths of junk paper I cut up and keep in my grade 4 room for quizzes and other forms of assessment.  My 4th graders like to snatch pieces for doodling and other fun stuff.  I now use it as a reward for grade 1 and it motivates them to toe the line a bit.

Then I started to use a three strikes system.  If the whole class is too rowdy and not willing to quiet down and listen when I ask them to be they get one strike.  Three strikes and we don't get to outside to play.

In my experience, while the point system has helped immensely it is analogous to a screen window with holes just a little too large, allowing a few nasty things to slip in.  Point system success is dependent upon two factors: length of the 'game' and age of the students.  My point system in grade 4 lasts a full week and it is quiet effective even though students must wait a full week to reap the rewards earned from their points.  Grade 1's and 2's points are earned over an hours time.

Figuring out grades 1, 2 and 4 is ever on ongoing process.  Working out solutions to grade 1 and 2 anarchy has taught me or revealed that I need to implement more immediate rewards in grade 4.  The current reward off in the distance at the end of the week is too intangible. 

Finally Starting to Get It

              So I've been teaching for a few months now and I've learned just as much as my students.  Before coming to Thailand I read some books about how to be an effective teacher and classroom manager.  They did help but not as much as I thought they would.  Why?  I had zero experience.  Until I got my hands real dirty I couldn't really appreciate or understand how to use everything I learned.

                I implemented much of what I learned right off the bat, but for reasons unknown things just weren't working.  The students were rowdier than I would have liked (a little crazy is good), their effort was at times flat and beneath their potential, their focus was sub-par, their willingness to be engaged in the classroom wasn't what I wanted, and they just weren't progressing as fast as I expected.  Take note, my expectations were founded on nothing as I had no experience.  Even so, it doesn't take a degree to see an underlying issue was lack of motivation and interest.  Bare in mind I tell myself that student problems are my fault, not theirs.

                I've been very vocal about these problems in my room with other teachers and I think some teachers may have thought my classroom was a dismal hole of ignorance.   In reality, my problems weren't awful, I just had much higher hopes for things and couldn't find solutions to my problems.  Plus I wouldn't shut up.

               For discipline, lines only worked up to a point.  Lunchtime detention was the same.  I had made some very beginner mistakes along the way.  The biggest was not fully realizing that when certain punishments reach a peak of effectiveness long before the desired level of effectiveness, that means to switch gears.  Time was hurtling past me and I hadn't a clue how long things weren't working for.

                Ha...

                After Rob observed another of my classes he provided me with a very useful critique.  The funny thing is, the class he watched wasn't exactly a typical class.  It was an especially lousy class that was laden with notes and a crappy objective.  So it did showcase (very well) the weak points my methods had -all the better.  Here's what Rob had to say after my observation.

1. Be louder, speak more clearly, and simplify my language.   I'd been told this already but wasn't consistently doing it.
2. Slow down my speaking.
3. Write bigger.
4. Work on my relationship with my students outside of the classroom.  Want them to want to go out of their way to try to please me with their behavior and ability in the classroom.  If they like me as a person, they'll do this.
5. Eliminate my negativity.  I hated this one, it just kind of hurt to think I came across as a jerk.  Then it hurt even more when I realized I was a jerk.  I didn't realize the words I chose came across as subtlety, or not so subtlety, negative at times.  I felt they were neutral but could see how they could be misconstrued by a student.   An example, "Some of us are still having difficulty with XYZ so we're taking notes today.  This way you'll have it to [refer] to."  Undertones, "Some of you somehow still don't understand what I've been trying to teach you so we have to take all this time and write it in our books."  What I should have said was...nothing.  What I should have done in this case is in the next bullet.  But regarding negativity, just filter it out.
6. Cut it out with the lengthy notes.  You can bet money they won't use them Rob said, so I have to tailor my teaching in such a way that notes are not necessary.  That said, some notes will help and some student's will actually use them.  Don't abandon them, but far from rely on them.

                To be honest, after this meeting I felt like shit.  This meeting followed a week of me going a bit nuts with the discipline after the students really were just getting lazy and doing stupid things (changing an answer on a test after I gave it back).

                One thing Rob mentioned during our meeting was that he thought I might soon "lose" the students if I didn't win them over -get them to like Adam.  That's what made me feel like shit -the fear that the little buggers didn't want me around.  Christ, rejected by children?

I felt I was on the cusp of failure.  Failing doesn't sit well with me.   I can live with myself if I think I've done my best but still 'lose' at something.  I guess it has to do with showcasing my potential to myself and others and I felt that my capability to be a teacher was very far from it's potential.  I and others weren't seeing what I'm capable of when I really want something and have the means to attain it.  Lacking resources was seriously holding me back.

The awful feeling I had after that meeting was attributable to the fear of losing my students but there was a temper tantrum bubbling in my head I was trying to sort out.  Writing this helped me sort out just exactly why I felt that way that afternoon.  I was experiencing good old cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is that feeling you get when your beliefs are challenged by conflicting information.  That shitty feeling is reduced one of two ways.  Our beliefs are readjusted or we lie to ourselves.  Case in point...

______________________________________________________________

My belief: I am a good teacher considering my lack of experience.

Conflicting information: Sure you're new to this game, but from a purely objective standpoint  you're not truly a good teacher.

New belief:  I am not a good teacher

_______________________________________________________________

            Ouch.

     

            After beating myself up relentlessly I scraped my sorry ass off the floor and cut myself some slack.  My heart was in the right place, I just needed some help -and I got some.  So here's what I did.

1. I now clarify my learning objectives in my lesson plans and tell my students what they'll be learning that class and the day ahead too.
2. I slow down my speech considerably.
3. I enunciate my words.
4. I carefully repeat what I say.
5. I changed my 'think time' from think time to calculated silence.  I count in my head to ensure I don't jip anyone.  Some students can think in English but some cant.  These students need extra time to translate what I say into Thai, call upon their English vocabulary, form a sentence, and then speak.   
6. I monitor my language with care and cut out language ESLers need not hear.
7. I filter out my negativity.
8. I manage my class time carefully.  I had always segmented my classes but now always make sure things are managed much better.  I start with the warmer.  The warmer is usually review of older material turned into a game.  Good god they love games.  Then you go into learning objective one and bang it out effectively followed by a brief assessment of their learning.  Each learning objective is allotted approximately 20 minutes of time.  Then we take a brain break and do something or talk about something strange or silly.  After our break we come back and move onto the class's second learning objective and follow up with brief assessment.  Then I wrap up the class by talking about the day ahead.  This time management really helped us all.
9. My notes are super simple and as to the point as humanly possible.
10. I shower them with praise.  I just have gotten better with this, really cranked it up and mean it more than ever.  Knowing which students need how much and in what form is also a useful tool.
11. I seek opportunities to help my students get to know me as a person.  Breaking down the wall between student and teacher a bit helps them feel more comfortable asking for help.  They aren't asking Teacher for help, they're asking Adam.

                The meeting I had with Rob was on Friday, the class he observed was the day before.  I made these changes immediately and implemented them the following Tuesday, we had Monday off.  I had a fun weekend too so that motivated me even more to reinvent things, to invite my students into a killer class on Tuesday.

                After my first class 'back,' a student came up to me and asked me why I was so happy.  I laughed and said, "I don't know Immi, I think you're actually the happier one." 

                Since making these changes, teaching has become much, much easier/fun/effective/adjective  and it shows in the students.  My stress levels are down and life itself has gotten a little easier.  I'm still learning but things are clicking.  Now I look forward with the following thoughts.
                 I'd like to have total control over rowdiness.  I think this can be achieved by implementing an effective Preferred Activity Time system.  Also I need to help advanced students keep on advancing and struggling students to get the help they need in the classroom at the same time.  Another challenge is finding the median between teacher responsibility of student learning and a student's own responsibility for their learning.

A great way to learn about effect teaching is to observe effective teachers, ineffective teachers, and to have others watch you and critique.  I will do more of this.  I'm setting the goal to observe one co-worker a week and see what I can glean from it and invite others into my room.

To Infinity and Beyond

Teaching must be one of the most fascinating things I've ever done and I had no idea it could be so.

You have a room, students, books, content, and time.  Then there's the space outside of you and yours, the rest of the school building, the other grades, the other teachers, and the time you spend between your classes.

My Students

Some of these students like to talk a lot, some will only open there mouths to breath.

Some are a bit behind on the material, some can and do fly ahead.

Some want to be there, some don't.

Some are bored, some are interested.

Some pay attention to instruction, others pay attention to the distractions in their head.

Some are diligent and need not be watched, others need you all the time.

Some fake they know what's going on, others ask when they don't know what's going on

Some have lots of energy, some have ZzZzZz written across their forehead.

Now each student student varies in these qualities personally, and then the qualities they possess vary day to day due to who knows what (phase of the moon?).

Up at the front of the room, or back, or the side, or the middle there's me trying so damn hard to manage instruction, the students, and my own pulse.

The more I struggle the more I learn and the more I like teaching.  The days are full of funny, interesting, or inquisitive moments brought to me by my students or the people I work with.  I've never had a job where I like seeing the people I work with and my 'customers' (students)

How I Learn

As a novice, I'm learning through trial and error, peer observation, and peer collaboration.  Formal training would be so nice right now, ha!  Rob observed and critiqued one of my classes which was a bundle of help and then he taught one my classes.  That was a riot.  He has loads of teaching experience and a formal education so the class he taught was an eventful learning experience for me.

Over the coming weeks I see my classroom management skills developing faster than my instruction skills.  Instruction skill involves both running instruction and how I plan my lessons to be taught.  All the while I'll be aggregating the materials, activities, classroom wisdom vital to teaching.

Long Term

As I say, I have a general direction in mind but the route I take to get there changes day to day and where exactly 'there' is shifts around a bit.  Right now, the general notion of becoming a teacher sounds pretty pleasing.  But what kind and where?  Would I be an English teacher or prototypical primary school teacher?  In the US or outside? 

No idea.

Short Term 

Ahh the shitty interview question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Honestly, I have so many realistic, fantastic options that such a prediction is impossible.  Factor in random events and the future is truly nebulous.  Tell me a year ago I'd be teaching in Thailand in a place called Chiang Rai and I'd laugh and tell you you're crystal ball or time machine needed to be calibrated.

Ha!

"It's Trance"

I've been playing Cycles Radio and Group Therapy for my students in the morning and they love it.  Both play the type of electronic music I like, they're 2 hour podcasts.  What's funny is I don't think any of them have ever heard music like it at all.  They keep asking me "what song is this?" The best answer I can give them is "It's trance."

When your work day starts off with you listening to music you love with your students who love it so much they beg you to put it on, you know somethings going right in your life. =)

The Solar System and Minecraft

This upcoming Friday is a fieldtrip for my class to a science expo.  So the past 3 Fridays something has robbed me of the one and only geography class I have per week.  Also on Friday is one of the three science classes the students' have.  I had high hopes this week for our lessons on the solar system but seeing as I'll have them only once, the material will be interrupted and disjointed.  Therefor I've got to rearrange things. (They have science three times a week, twice with me and once with their Thai teacher)

Minecraft.

Say the word and they raise their hands, close their eyes, sway back and forth, sing hymnals, and tears streak down their faces with eyes pinched tightly shut like the loony congregation of Jimmy Swaggart's mega churches.

All you need to know about the game Minecraft is that it's a world where the player makes...the world out of cubes.  The cubes have different textures for different surfaces and 'materials'.  The game has an old school look with new school capabilities.  What's new is the game's ability to have more objects being processed at once.  In plain English because computers are better than they were in the past the game can handle more going on at once.

Here is a link.  I went to youtube and just searched "what is minecraft", I watched a few seconds of the video and it seems to give the gist of things.  So give a click and skip around for a minute to understand what the game is about.

What is Minecraft

If I only have them for science once this week, I got to make the lesson count.

My plan is to give them a lesson on the first four planets, the inner planets.  For each planet they'll fold oragami cubes, we'll need 8 in total for each, and then tape/glue them all together to make one larger cube planet.  They'll be little minecrafters. Except haha, you're learning at the same time.  For each smaller cube we'll list one fact about that planet and create a list of those facts for everyone.

For the next class we'll do the same thing for the outer planets.  I'll then review with them all of the information we've covered thus far for the solar system, bring them to the lab and show them the great Bill Nye video I found about the solar system. 

I'd like to give them a creative project too.  When I was in 5th grade the project we had was to invent an organism that lived on one of the planets and use what we knew about the planet we chose to ensure that the organism could or would inhabit such a landscape.

Awesome.

In the beginning...

...I was a doormat. 

When my students didn't behave as I wished, I let things slide.  Why? Because I couldn't get myself angry with my students.  I just didn't have it in me and I wouldn't want them to dislike their teacher.

But when they continuously come unprepared...

...talk while my back is turned...

...speak Thai after I ask them not too...

...fail to follow directions...

....pretend to understand...

...smile and nod when I haven't asked them a yes or no question...

...and essentially take advantage of my good nature...

SHIT HITS THE FAN

But first...

All week I was baffled why I couldn't get them academically 'going' and why my system of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement was failing so hard.  I chatted with other teachers and no one seemed to have the answer.  All I could determine was that both teacher and student were still in the feeling things out phase and eventually they'd warm up to me.

At the end of my rope, I asked Rob what the heck I had to do.  First he went into more detail about Thai culture and the differences between my own ideas and their own.  The important point was the culture's view of mistakes.  Publicly making a mistake to a Thai feels the same to a Westerner as being the pallbearer at a funeral, dropping the coffin, and then vomiting on the corpse in front of the grieving family.

So I needed to start considering that.

Second, I was being too damn nice.  I rewarded desirable behavior but essentially did not punish undesirable behavior.  (Also for both, the rewards and punishments that did exist weren't strong enough to have a reinforcing effect).

So my students wouldn't get 'going' in part because my system was failing.  The room wasn't as straight laced as it needed to be so things weren't conducive to learning and plain old paying attention.  My system needed reworking and I needed to come down hard on them for not doing what they needed to do.  The room lacked balance.

So I shit canned my old system of warnings that weren't working and bagged everything else.

This morning my student's stepped into a new room.

I pounded the ever loving crap out of the morning routine, making them do it over and over until they got it right.  One classmate out of step?  Do it again.

Speaking Thai when I'm in the room?  BOOM. 50 lines (write "I will not speak Thai in Kru Adams class)

Forgot your book?  BOOM. 25 lines ( write "I will not forget my math/english books)

Speaking while I'm speaking? BOOM. Detention.

I've asked you all to sit in silence while reading, allowing just whispers and the volume rises too high?  AGAIN.  Okay fine, put all your stuff away and we'll all just sit here in silence so you can all learn what it sounds like.

I doled out more lines than a coke addict and now have enough students in detention to start a baseball team.

But it worked. 

They soon stepped in line and things started to get going.  I got through way more lesson material than usual and they were actually much more responsive.  Their responsiveness I chalk up to the room being conducive to learning and forcing them to pay attention!  Awesome!

Things aren't perfect yet and I have much to enhance and fix but the changes today alone will improve the classroom environment as the reinforcing effects take hold.

My first week of school

I was going to keep this blog very proper and professional but sitting here, trying to think best how to capture the emotions and thoughts that swirled in my head during the week and those that I will soon feel and face, and all I can come up with is -holy shit.

This is a very interesting 'holy shit', however.  It is medley of exasperation, desperation, confusion, delusion, positivity, and negativity. 

I prepared immensely up to my first day yet realized I still hadn't a clue what I was doing.  Why I felt this way is attributable to several variables.  The first is my students aren't native English speakers and I need to determine for myself what they can and cannot understand.  It is challenging to discern what you are doing right and wrong when a minor language barrier exists and determining where it lies with each student is ongoing. 

The second variable is directly related to the first -these kids are smart.  According to other teachers my class is very bright and understands a great deal.  Yet when I explain thing or try to get them to do something, like taking out a notebook, it feels as though I am speaking to students who do not understand a word I'm saying.  I know the opposite is the truth so this is very frustrating and leaves me feeling helpless.

I believe a part of it is attributable to the procedures and ways they are used to.  When I want them to get up and grab a book I'll say "Okay everyone, now it's alright if you get up and grab a book" yet they'll sit there for minutes unless I prompt them one or two more times.  For awhile I believed they just didn't understand me.  But now I'm much more inclined to believe that I am somehow confusing them with the way I choose to do things.  The solution isn't cut and dry, both student and teacher will be learning about the other and what it takes to communicate effectively to the other.

They are also very literal and thus have strange ways of doing things.  When I put notes on the board they ask what they need to write down (everything, dammit) and if it's okay to write down certain things from the board (no, if you draw my picture of planet Earth I'm going to set the desks on fire).  Another problem is how slow they can be to take notes because they are being so careful and literal.  For example, if I freehand draw a chart on the board, they will sit there with rulers and carefully duplicate it.  If a line is off or they just don't like it, they whip out a whiteout, shake it for 7 hours and then paint.  Recognizing an impediment to learning in the classroom I said next week begins my ban on pens.  Confused and concerned, they said in all of their Thai classes they have to use pen.  This was when I then realized that perhaps my ways of doing things was more the problem than their comprehension.  Regardless of what they were writing with, I had to go around and show them it was okay to freehand the chart.  Instead of taking just 2 or 3 minutes to draw this chart, it took 15 or 20.

They would also ask what to do if they could not fit the remainder of the chart on the page and at other times ask what to do if they run out of space while taking notes.  Confused internally but outwardly just peachy I would explain they could continue the chart below or turn the page and continue their notes.

When I was discussing this event with two of the Thai teachers in the teachers lounge they said the students are so careful because the Thai teachers want them to be careful note takers and follow a particular format.  This further cemented that my approach was off.

Another element of this 'holy shit' is my exposure to children and so many of them.  I've been dealing with adults for what feels like my entire life and now I've got a bunch of aliens to figure out.  I must figure out their academic brain, social brain, and much else.

It's all part of an evolving process.

Finally, at the beginning of the week I was in the phase where teacher is all rosy and living in a fantasy.  By the end of the week after my own classroom experiences and speaking with the new and old teachers my authoritarian hand has gradually began to show and the steps necessary to teach and command the room are revealing themselves.

PE

My second grade P.E. class was fun.  I let the children play soccer, kick the can, zombies, with rocks, and on the jungle gym.

My first grade P.E. class was insane.  I learned that 1st graders have the attention span and behavioral tendencies of marbles.  Fifteen minutes late to that PE class, I arrived and children were practically swinging from the chandeliers.  We went outside and I tried to explain to them that we would do blah blah blah and could do blah blah blah (that's what they must've heard). 

After failing to get them to get down from the slide they were running up and down and then off the trampoline I realized what I was doing felt like pleading with grass not to grow.  As ever the master of understanding the complexity of the minds of marbles I went back to my room, grabbed a soccer ball and a dodge ball and threw them both on the field.  The children screamed "yayyyyyyyy" and all chased after them.  Now to get them to exercise I would snatch up the ball and many of them would try to chase me down.  Problem solved.