Communication:  I think I have never learned…better stated…forced to learn more about communication in my life than I have this semester in my classes, specifically this one.  It is so vital to having a pleasant classroom experience to have an open line with not only the instructor but with classmates.  With classmates:  it is estimated that a person retains only 10% of what they hear while in any given class.  Chances are, you’ve missed something.  Keeping that communication alive with other students helps lessen the chances that you have forgotten an important piece of information.  With the instructor:  Holy moley.  In the past I have been intimidated to be upfront with my instructor, but Frances, I have really learned to value that with you.  No other teacher ever notices (or at least they don’t tell me that they notice) when my mood shifts or tells me when they are trying to read each of our expressions.  This has caused a few “mishaps” in our relationship, but I feel that I respect you and value your opinion so much more for the ability we have to tell each other exactly what we think and yet joke around and talk about books and movies and the passion and intensity of all that is education the next.  So yeah, in a nutshell…communication is good. J  Another thing that pressed hugely on me with the Children’s Lit course is the communication with the students.  We had a very interesting and sometimes challenging group at Tibbetts.  That is, until we got to know them better and changed the way that we approached our lit circle as a whole.  It was interesting trying to find ways to communicate effectively with a group of very shy middle schoolers!

Research:  Literature circles.  What are they and how are they supposed to be run?  This came up quite frequently at the beginning of our time with our Tibbetts students.  One of the people in my group had a very different idea than the rest of us on how to conduct a lit circle, and so my group had to make sure that we were on top of the latest research into lit groups in order to back our point on the subject.  It was also interesting how the book Night really was like doing research into WWII for our students.  They really hadn’t studied the subject before, so it was neat helping them learn more about what happened during the time of the book.

Technology:  I’m becoming less fond of and more dependant on technology as time goes on.  Part of me wants to completely throw it out the window – wants to go back to when life revolved around enhancing life in its most basic forms – carving wood – writing on paper - using pencils – the feel of books – the excitement of toys and manipulatives – the smell of the outdoors.  Alas, life is moving in another direction and I need to learn to use technology to the best of it’s abilities, and keep a firm balance on real life (not excluding the fact that technology is some kids’ “real life”.)

Collaboration:  Wooooooowwwwwww……you know full well this semester with my lit circle group has really challenged a few of our ways of collaborating effectively with group members.  No matter what, we have to keep in mind that those that we are working with are competent individuals and we need to learn a way to compromise without losing our integrity as instructors – which some of us did, and some of us didn’t.  I just need to remember that sometimes working with certain people is like fireworks and ends up being a beautiful thing….and working with others is like using Black Cats….they are illegal for a reason!

Five Dimensions of Learning

Confidence and Independence:  Kids have no confidence in themselves.  I know that this is a bold and harsh statement, but I’ve notices with working in my classes this semester at Apache, Animas, and Tibbets in such a major and sad way.  Kids are not believing that their work is ever good enough, or they set themselves up with low expectations so that their efforts are not slammed down and it absolutely breaks my heart.  All of these five dimensions of learning flow together, but they begin somewhere – they begin at home on one level and at school on another…and I have honestly seen kindergarten teachers criticizing their students with words and actions that resemble a football coaches.  We are not football coaches.  We are moms and dads and firefighters and nurses and motivational speakers and comedians and…well you get the point.  We are here to build them up.  Not tear them down.  And when we use our abilities to build children up, they become confident and independent and they really can reach the utmost of their abilities.  Our Tibbetts students were prime examples.  In Junior High kids are so self-conscious and we really need to work twice as hard at that level to make sure that kids know that they are competent and smart and that they should not be afraid of themselves,  their classmates, or school!

Knowledge Content:  I’m going to turn this into a statement because it really is something that it hitting me hard.  Knowledge content should not overshadow our instincts as teachers to teach our kids what they need to know…not for the test…but for life.  Yes it is important to know book knowledge – everyone knows that you need that in order to get a good job and be successful (in the mental sense – we are more mentally healthy when we are constantly learning than just stagnant), but we need to realize that our kids come first.  Not our textbooks.  The more life experiences we can give our kids, the more they will be curious to know what it’s about and how it works.  It was a bit hard with Tibbetts in that reading Night was foreign to them since they really didn’t know anything about WWII going into the circle.  One person in our group decided that they needed to give them a history lesson every week, and the others of us believed that if we could connect them with the emotion and the events of the book with their real life, then in the end, they would learn more about the subject…which ended up happening.  They told us at the end of the time with them that they really didn’t like hearing history lessons, but when they could connect different parts of the book to what was happening in their lives, they were able to learn more about the subject.

Skills and Strategies:  There are so many skills and strategies I don’t even know where to begin.  You know first hand the trouble we were going through and the heads that were butting during the practicum time at Tibbetts.  That was a prime example of different skills and strategies and trying to get the kids to learn in different ways.  In the end, it went well because the kids began to trust us more as instructors, but we were constantly trying new and different ways of connecting to our students so that they could take the most out of our time together.

Use of prior and emerging experience:  This was hard to do with our Tibbetts group, because as I mentioned before, they hadn’t studied WWII.  It made it really interesting for our group of leaders though because we had to learn how to connect different scenes that weren’t specific to WWII with things that were happening in their lives.  There is always something they can connect to, even if it is a very small piece of information – but you have to start somewhere!

Reflectiveness:  I’ve noticed a really weird thing.  I thought it was a totally novel and great experience to have kids journal about everything.  Reflect and grow when they are learning…but they are just tired of it!  I’m not sure how or why it has crossed them.  I wonder if it may be that reflecting means a lot of times that we have to deal with hard things about life and ourselves and our society doesn’t value that.  I get caught up in resisting reflection for that very reason.  It’s hard to reflect.  It’s hard to come into direct contact with ourselves.  We need to teach our kids that it is ok for things not to be picture perfect.  That is where the growing happens.  That is where we find ourselves in spite of ourselves.