Managing Your Classroom!

As a student teacher, I am constantly learning new ways to be a professional educator. This past week in our classrooms, we learned three methods to controlling a classroom and establishing behavior. As a teacher, maintaining a well-behaved and orderly class is the first step to providing great instruction. If the flow of pedagogy is constantly interrupted by a student's cell phone going off, an off topic discussion, or any classroom disruption, try out some of these methods.

Assertive Discipline

I grew up in a Catholic High School. The instructors commonly had a rubber ruler on hand or a yard stick just in case one of us started talking out of line or falling asleep. It wasn't uncommon to hear "the man" coming down on the desk of a dozing student, one because the old nuns were pretty good at making that wooden ruler snap and two because everyone was scared silent. The Assertive Discipline method requires that an educator clearly define expectations and standards to the students and act in a direct way when those standards are not being met. There is a clear procedure to the consequences of breaking the rules such as the "three strikes" rule or what I call the "levels of hell" i.e. light consequences for the first few infractions and gradually increasing. Teachers might also use logical consequences, or rather punishment suited to the crime.

The FAIR Approach

In stark contrast to the above method, the FAIR approach recognizes the individual student and suggests to educators that they take a more personal method to dealing with disruptive behavior. Maybe the student has a learning disability? Perhaps the student has family or bully problems. Whatever the case, in order for teachers to properly diagnose and address the problem they must first (1) understand the Function or cause of the behavior. (2) Make Accommodations. (3) Interact and show the students are valued. (4) Respond to students who improve behavior. This approach puts the students first.

Self-managed Communities

If the Assertive Discipline method is akin to that of a dictatorship or monarchy where it is the one's rules whom all abide to, then the Self-Managed Communities is the opposite. This method puts the responsibility of handling the class almost entirely to the discretion of the students. An educator will begin by explaining ground rules for the class and expectations for a regular class meeting. At these class meetings, it is up to the students to evaluate the classroom behavior status and come up with solutions to any conflicts that arise, whether it be changing or enforcing rules that they themselves create. The teacher takes a backseat, intervening only when necessary and being more of a facilitator than a dictator. This method would be more like a Democractic Republic, where the teacher is the overseeing government, but the students the individual states.

I am not confident at this point over whether or not I can manage a classroom. However, it helps knowing that I have a few more tools under my belt in case the situation arises.

Staff Development Day #1: Teaching Teachers How To Teach

         There were a few days besides holidays that I looked forward to when I went to school. One was assembly days because we would get shorter class periods and an hour of sitting in the bleachers watching student council do something odd or (once I got my drivers license) just an open hour after school. Another day was a snow day...something I haven't had since I moved out here from Jersey to Vegas. The final day was Staff Development Days - the days when kids had off but teachers still had to go to work for some reason.

          Now I am a teacher, and from around the block I hear that staff development days were the dreaded days for the staff at any school. "They pay people to come in and teach us how to teach," say some begrudged educators. As part of my student-teacher experience, I decided to drop in for these staff development days, a two day experience, and what I saw was...well....

         Alright, day one pretty much sucked. I could only bear it for three hours out of the eight. First, teachers from around the area were herded into the school and then separated by subject area into separate "pens". I joined the English "sheep" in the theater, and there I witnessed some sort of crude irony unfold before my eyes. Here were teachers, infamous for putting students to sleep with boring lectures about seemingly interesting content, falling asleep themselves to another  very pronounced teacher. I hardly remember what was discussed, or rather what I heard (there was not much interaction though the presenter promised it), but I did walk away with a few things, mostly thoughts about the experience:

1.       Teachers are people just like the students

In more ways than one I thought teachers were from a different world when I was growing up. However, I realized that while sitting in that room trying to keep myself awake and watching other teachers doing the same these teachers were students once and they knew the pains of being bored. As teachers we try to engage in our students and become an exciting but educational part of their lives. The effort gets tiring, especially after several years.

2.       Teachers are employees, not superheroes (or mutants)

Just another way of saying takeaway #1 above, but I realize that so much work gets done behind closed school doors. Good teachers are constantly trying to up their game. They weren't born teachers, but rather they work hard at what they do by planning and attending staff development days.

3.       This is how you get your students to not remember anything

Lectures suck. Seriously. Your lecture better be fantastic if you are going to do one.

Overall, I'm probably being a bit harsh. It was a Monday and I didn't get to see my students. Additionally I was just irked because I was maybe expecting something more out of the staff development day because I was a fresh face. I can understand if most teachers who have been doing this for years might seem put-off by the idea of additional training, but even I was a bit taken aback by the seemingly lack of energy not just from the audience but from the presenter.

Of course, this was just day one. I'm happy to say that day two was much MUCH better.

Thanksgiving Reflection: (removed).

This blog post has been moved to my emotional dumpster personal blog (tumblr)

I apologize for breaking character with this blog. Hence, I have moved it to a more appropriate setting - my personal tumblr. The content was certainly related to my education experiences. However, it was not a creative or thoughtful post nor was it designed to be of any use or insight into the educational field. From here on out, I will attempt to focus my posts to be related to education, educational news, and my personal journey through education. I once again apologize and hope I have not left a sour image with my readers.

~Ryan

Happy Veteran's Day: The Pen and The Sword

Some say that "the pen is mightier than the sword". This is an old saying that states that the ability of thinking and writing have a much more profound influence on people than violence. Many times I do agree with this statement, and I hold by it as a teacher. However, perhaps in a different light one should consider the weight of the sword.

I might be stretching my argument here but, when our nation was founded, it did take the pen to unite the minds and hearts of a people who would then become Americans. What started as an idea became a movement and eventually into action. However, it definitely took more than a bunch of smart policy makers armed with pen and paper to defend the ideas they had. It required the sword to stand by those words of freedom and defend them against any who would take those ideas away.

Today we honor our veterans, soldiers who have fought and sacrificed for many rights and privileges that we might take for granted. For example, I recently participated in the mid-term elections, voicing my opinion on some hot topics of governance in Nevada, in particular about the proposed Margin Tax. Of course, the right to vote is the first thought we Americans probably think of when we consider everything our soldiers have fought for.

I've always wanted to serve our country, but I could never wield the sword. I can't fight on the front-lines like many of our bravest do. However, what I can do is serve at home, as a teacher, and help our youth learn to use the pen. It was what our veterans fought for - the freedom to have an education and a chance to use what many claim is stronger than the sword. Today, we remember that without the sword, the pen wouldn't have a fighting chance. Thank you to all our veterans and soldiers still fighting today.


If you would like to have an activity for your students to help support our troops, I suggest having them write a letter. Soldiers away from home deserve not just a bit of home, but also our gratitude. My class was studying Arthurian legends, and the topic of chivalry would always come up. When I asked them who in our modern day are chivalrous knights, many responded with soldiers. Take the time to find a local or national organization who will help you send your messages of love to our soldiers on the field. I recommend www.amillionthanks.org as a way to send your letters.

A potential teacher’s math homework

"Yes...yes I do." 

http://zenpencils.com/comic/124-taylor-mali-what-teachers-make/

Here’s a math word problem to consider:

“ A teacher makes x amount of money. If rent is $600 a month, car payment and maintenance $250 a month, food and gas $500 a month, student loan payments $300 a month, phone bill $150 a month, cable and internet $100 a month, and insurances $400 a month, how much would a teacher need to make to put away a solid $8,000 a year for miscellaneous expenses and savings?”

Answer: $35,000

As a potential English teacher, please don’t hate on the hastily created word problem and budget. I’m not great at math nor am I great at budgeting my life yet (but it certainly got me seriously thinking about my expenses)

As a new teacher, that figure above is about what I’ll make for my first few years of teaching. I’m not at that point in my life where that number actually makes sense so I have to break this down into the value I’m most accustomed to: dollars/hour.

(The following calculations get confusing so bear with me on my rationale here)

A typical person earning this wage works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year. That means 40 hours times 52 weeks or 2080 work hours. If during that year this person earns $35,000 for 2080 work hours, that equates to $16.82 per hour.

(40 x 52 = 2080)

($35,000/2080 = 16.82)

To be fair, teachers work about 180 school days a year. Readjusting our calculations, this means teachers make about $24.30 an hour, albeit the pay is spread to cover the entire year (woo, paid summers off?).

Now that seems like a nice sum considering minimum wage is $8.25 and I am currently earning $11.00 at my part time hospitality job on the Strip (visit me at Margaritaville anytime, folks). However, I clocked myself grading essays at about 2 minutes a paper. (Here it  comes! More math!) 

This means…

For a typical class of 30, there are 30 essays to grade. However, I will have about 5 classes so (30 x 5) I will have 150 essays to grade. At 2 minutes an essay, that’s (150 x 2) or 300 minutes of work AFTER CLASS or (300/60) 5 hours of extra work. On the list of things teachers do outside of the 8 hour class day include: lesson prep, grading papers, extracurricular activities, parent-teacher conferences, professional development, etc.

At this point, I’m pretty much burned out of numbers and figuring things out for now. All this began because I was curious about what my friends were making with their post-grad careers. Ranging from IT to Non-Profit organizational work, I wanted to know how the numbers fit in with my teaching career. I’m hoping the above thought process broke it down, but really it all boils down to this comic. I highly suggest reading this while listening to the original poem being recited as it displays some powerful emotions behind the passions of teaching which I hope to address in a future post. 

I think all the numbers are just getting to me. If you have any thoughts on what you or I make, please leave a comment!

Teaching Techniques: Five quick ways to engage

Teaching Techniques: Five quick ways to engage

Within the first week of observation, I picked up on a couple of tips to engage students in the classroom that were different from the traditional model. This is the first of a long series of teaching technique lists I will create based off what I see in the classroom and learn from other sources. I hope that they can be of use to you in your classrooms as well.

1. Attendance question

High school students in Clark County are expected to be awake and alert for learning as early as 7am. In order to engage their minds slightly before actual instruction and get them to speak, my mentor teacher posts an "attendance question" on the board. As students walk in, they read the question and think of an answer. The question is typically simple such as "what is your favorite food" or "what do you want to be when you grow up". The students then give their short answer when called on for roll instead of the typical uninterested "here". This gives the teacher an opportunity to learn about their students while taking role. This can also be a great transition into the lesson if the question pertains to an idea to be brought up later.

2. Polling the class: Individual whiteboards

Want to get immediate feedback while engaging students who need to move and be active? Sometimes asking kids to raise their hands gets chaotic when they vie for attention. It also excludes the quiet and shy students or the ones who need a second to respond. One way you can resolve this issue if you give each student a small whiteboard to use during class. When you ask a question, instead of everyone raising their hands, give them a minute to write their answers on the boards then hold them up. This will give you immediate feedback on all the students, keep them active (because who doesn't like to write on white boards?), and if everyone is looking forward, keep answers anonymous. Think a whiteboard for each student isn't cheap? Check out the prices on Amazon for an affordable investment.

3. The leader of the group

Don't want to get too intricate or spend too much time having kids choose who will do what in a group? Try this. Once students are broken up in groups of 3-5, get everyone's attention and tell them that on the count of three they have to silently point to someone in the group to be a leader. One. Two. Three. All groups should have someone singled out. That person typically is a natural leader or has a quality that the other group members don't mind following. However, to give them the chance to choose instead of just being thrown out there, explain that the chosen leaders have great responsibility, and that one of those responsibilities is the power of delegation. If they are confident that someone else in the group is more qualified to lead, then they can delegate the role of leader to that individual. This stresses the importance of the position and gives the groups some flexibility. This should keep group leader selection pretty simple.

4. Class Differentiation

This technique is often tricky because of its controversial nature. Looking at the name itself, you can tell that it could spell trouble if it ends up looking like you are splitting the class unfairly based off of visual biases. However, the true nature of this technique is to split the class up based on skill and ability, interest, etc. I'm not an expert (check out this blog post on "defining differentiated instruction" here) so I will mention only what I saw. My mentor teacher broke the class up into two parts - those who passed the proficiency exam and those who didn't. I was in charge of lecturing the students who passed. The assignments were slightly different but the concept was the same. Non-proficient students received in-depth lecturing on how to structure an essay based off of a sample writing proficiency prompt. Proficient students were given guided practice on writing an essay for a college entrance exam. The rationale behind this was to target the area of need for the students in one lesson.

5. Flipped Classroom

The typical classroom sees a teacher lecturing on new concepts and ideas, then group work or activities to enforce those ideas. However, studies have shown that students are better off the more face time they have with their instructor. In short, too much time is wasted on lecturing on new information in the class and homework that is typically the time when students work on applying that information is not getting done at home. In this digital information age, students are learning at younger ages how to access the limitless amount of info via technology. The Flipped Classroom proposes that educators take advantage of that mentality and begin posting lectures as homework and doing synthesis and application more in classrooms. This can be done in the form of videos and online lectures to be accessed from the internet outside of class.

I actually picked this up when I attended a workshop hosted by Downtown Las Vegas' Learning Village. I highly suggest looking at Jonathan Bergmann's website to learn more.

I hope that these first few techniques will be useful to you if you are a potential teacher like myself. If not, then maybe it was an interesting peek into what I have been seeing as a student teacher. Please leave a comment below if you like what you see or want me to try any of your techniques in the classroom!

First Day Jitters: My Initial Impressions

Having never been that popular or "cool" in high school, my first day of class as a teacher's intern felt just as awkward now as it did back then...more than eight years ago. I was still the same height, a short 5 foot 4, and still pudgy if not more so. The only things different were my attire (they tell us to dress as if for a job interview every day) and my facial hair (still short considering my Asian heritage). To the naked eye, I was just a fancier dressed high school student.

Entering my designated high school, I masked my anxiety with an air of feigned professionalism. I chose to carry a padfolio instead of a binder or backpack, and I think that helped my image quite a bit. I got my bearings around the campus, introduced myself to the secretary and principal, checked in, and found my mentor teacher. I observed only two classes that day, two mundane classes from the student's perspective but from a potential teacher's perspective, those two classes were quite eventful. Here is my breakdown of what I observed.

My teacher:

She is a slightly older individual but you could never tell with her character and spirit. A seasoned veteran of teaching for 15 years in Texas, she is new to Las Vegas and is in her second year of teaching here. She was the head of AP back then but is now teaching regular English. She is cool and laid back and on the off hours shares the same dirty humor that I enjoy so much. We coincidentally have the same favorite local cafe, so drinks are on me next time. I could tell that I would learn so much from her and am grateful for being paired with such an amazing mentor. She makes me excited to learn and teach in her classroom.

My class:

My mentor teacher's class is also my class. I have to teach this class a minimum of three times this semester. Fortunately, they are all the same level - Regular English. Each class demographically consists of mostly Hispanic, some African American, and one or two Caucasians and Asians scattered throughout the five periods. In one class, there is a good deal of special education students as well. Most of these students have not passed the proficiency, and I noticed that most of them have difficulty in structured writing and learning. In all, I would classify these students as "at-risk". I am interested to see how a veteran teacher works with these students.

My subject:

This senior year of English focuses on British Literature. I just finished my two semesters worth of studying college-level Brit. Lit. so the content is fresh in my mind. I jumped right into their reading of Beowulf and was taken aback at how censored the reading is (Beowulf being quite graphic) considering this is a Senior level class. No matter. I am intrigued as to how this seemingly "outdated" work of writing will engage this class of digital-aged students.

The rules:

So much has changed since I was in high school. Back then, cutting edge technology in terms of mobile devices was the razor flip-phone. Now, I see many students on their smartphones, earbuds in and listening to whatever kids listen to nowadays and chatting away with their peers. I haven't had the chance to observe other classes, but in my mentor teacher's class, this went on relatively unchecked during lecture and activity. Perhaps this is part of the culture now, that instead of opening up a dictionary, students will open dictionary.com. We are teaching to the digital age so this observation was probably to be expected but nonetheless still surprising to me. I will have to see how this affects classroom management.

This is only a bit of what went through my mind on my first day. I will have to keep tabs on all my observations and what I've learned in order to incorporate that into skills and effectiveness as a teacher. It is my hope that by sharing this, I will get some sort of feedback from outside sources (you, the reader) on how I am doing as a teacher-apprentice and what I can do to better myself as an educator.