Friday Reflections - Part Three

1. Describe one thing that you learned: While I am sure it was not the main intention to teach us any substantive math today, I DID learn an easy and more efficient way of finding the lowest common denomiator in fractions today, using the "factor tree." This is a concept I never encountered in elementary school (some 40 years ago), and while I know and perform the LCD operation, I honesty can't explain how I do it (mostly in my head). More specifically, it continues to be fascinating and instructive to me to hear the experiences of my fellow student teachers, and I was particularly taken by Kirsten's story about the "voluntarily mute" student she has in her first grade class, and the accomodations that were made in assessing that student's reading skills (accomodations that I thought were both misplaced and inappropriate, in my opinion).

2. What questions do you have and/or what do you still want to know: The issue of the selectively mute child raised a number of questions in my mind, most specifically, how far do we as teachers go to accomodate actions or behaviors that are not necessarily disabilities. If a child is capable of speaking out loud, and "chooses" not to in classroom, why should a teacher apply a different standard or rubric for that one child to accomodate his or her "choice." And does it even end up being a fair assessment?

3. What are you anxious about regarding student teaching/ teaching? Because so much of the school day is spent on what I can only describe as "miscellaneous" matters (e.g., arrivals, dismissals, transitions from lunch and recess, etc.) or "down time" (i.e., self-study or self-directed learning), I am a bit concerned and confused abou how much actual "teaching" I am doing. Some day it seems I am more of a facilitator or supervisor, than an actual teacher.

4. What are you excited about regarding student teaching/ teaching? I am still excited at the notion of teaching and reaching a student, with a concept or an idea that they have never considered or been exposed to, and to having open and free-wheeling discussions about such topics. I thought what my master teacher did in Tuesday's class with regard to President Obama's speech was inspirational (listening to the speech, asking students questions about the speech, interpreting meanings, and discussing) and reminded me again of the reasons why I started down this road in the first place.