Questions, Questions: Part 1

A large portion of one of the classes I am currently taking revolves around our time spent placed in a local high school.  For five hours each week I observe and participate in a classroom with high school Juniors and Seniors.  With respect to everyone's privacy, the name of the school, students, and teachers will be left out.  For an assignment, we had to act as a 'participant observer' to further explore an aspect of the school that interested, confused, or concerned us.  I decided to interview my host teacher and some of our students regarding questions I had about motivation.

The reason I chose the topic of motivation, and how it is fostered, is two-fold.  First, the atmosphere regarding motivation and enthusiasm about schoolwork was very different at this school than anywhere I had personally attended or observed.  To me, many of the students were not passionate about school or interested in their classes.  Having worked and tutored in mostly urban schools prior to this placement, this attitude was not completely new to me.  High School is a difficult time for students for a host of different reasons. Unfortunately, popularity and personal issues often get in the way of education.  That being said, the students at the school I am currently placed at were very different to me.  There seemed to be a greater deal of apathy and disinterest than at other schools.  In an urban setting, there are great amounts of passion, it is just usually not placed towards school.  At my current placement, students didn't seem moved one way or another.  They showed up because they 'had' to and for no other reason.  The second reason I chose this is because, as a teacher, it is the aspect of classroom management that scares me most.  How do I encourage students and convince them how important education is?

To keep my own thoughts organized, I plan on completing this analysis in three parts.  This first entry being my intentions and thought process, the second will be about my discussion with my host teacher, and the third will be about my interview with students.  Hopefully I can shed some light on this complicated issue.

Baby Steps

Teaching GED classes has been simultaneously the most difficult and most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.  I have never understood perseverance and dedication in the way I do now.  I have also never experienced defeat and frustration quite like I have alongside my students.  I fell into this internship completely by accident.  I had wanted to work in a museum, and if it weren't for the kind and wise words of the coordinator (and now friend) that said "I think you would prefer this...." I don't know where I would be.  I am thankful everyday for this falling into my lap.  I am also thankful for the trust that the staff at my internship has put into me to be able to run with some of my ideas. 

One of the things that has been the most challenging while teaching these classes is how to structure the lessons.  I have one hour to cover a single topic from one of five subjects in as much detail as possible.  I also have to make it engaging, interesting, and relevant.  An experienced teacher would probably roll their eyes at my surprise.  Of course these are the things you have to do while planning a lesson, which I now understand so much better.  The trick with my GED classes is that I cannot built on lessons we have done in the past, or carry things over from day to day, because each day and each class contains different students.  This is partly because some students can only come on certain days during the week, and partly because some students come very sporadically.  I attempted a lesson on World War II propaganda the other day that crashed and burned.  I was so excited about what I had prepared, but had overlooked the fact about how much background information we would need to cover to get on the same page.  I'm constantly learning just as much as my students are. 

Books I Love Right Now

My Spring Break reading was "Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together" by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent.  I am, admittedly, a huge sap.  There are certain TV commercials (the new Fancy Feast proposal spot) or quotes (anything about succeeding in the future by Dr. Seuss) that can get me choked up.  That being said, I can only remember a handful of times that  book has actually brought me to tears.

This book is true story about a trio of unlikely friends.  Ron, the author, and his wife begin volunteering at a local homeless shelter.  During one of their first weeks at the shelter, Ron's wife gets the strong and unreasonable feeling that her husband needs to befriends of the unruly clients.  Through several attempts, and many more errors than successes, Denver (the client) begins to warm up to Ron.  I think that the reason this story struck a chord with me is because of my work teaching GED classes.  Many of the students I work with are temporarily homeless or highly at-risk.  Reading a story about someone that I never knew existed, but seeing in him so many of the people that have become very close to me, pulled at my heartstrings.  The struggles and challenges of individuals that find themselves homeless are terrifying and heartbreaking.  It makes me greatly question the system that we live in.  At the same time, I also see the work that I do with my GED students as the beginning of a way out of a terribly vicious cycle.

This story has very deep roots in the religious beliefs of Ron and his wife, and how their faith helped them through some very difficult times and relationships.  At first I was worried that I would be too distracted by this to dive into the story, but it was completely the opposite.  I was shocked at the honesty and transparency that their faith gave them.  Read this now!!

Books I Love Right Now

I just finished reading "One Day" by David Nicholls.  This is a fabulous novel that takes place over the course of about twenty years.  The catch is that each chapter is written on the same day of the year, just different years and at different points in the characters life.  The style was refreshing and unexpected.  It was amazing how close you felt to the characters even after only meeting them during a single day every year.  The story itself was about the life and relationships between two friends, Emma and Dexter, and their heartbreaking back and forth relationship.  Initially I thought it would be just a light and easy read, but it ended up being a really intense, thought-provoking, and tragic story.  This was a very true and real story, which was a welcome change to so many novels targeted at women my age.