Field Blog 2: Shaker Heights High School

Because I attended an all girls catholic high school I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the Shaker Heights High School visit. I was excited to be going into a high school to observe math classes. Because the past few weeks we have been talking about different qualities that can help to make a teacher great, I decided to look at the teachers I observed and see which of these qualities they possessed. The first class I went into was an advanced class and I really enjoyed the teacher. She was enthusiastic and seemed to care about her students. I also noticed that she was very patient with the students and class as a whole. I was most impressed with her organization. She had note sheets for the students that they filled out during the lesson and it seemed to really help them make sure they got the information they needed. The next teacher I observed also impressed me. He was a younger teacher who seemed to really care about his students. It seemed like he really wanted them to succeed. At times the class got a little chatty but he managed to stay patient and quickly get them back on topic. The way he taught was more discussion based. Instead of just lecturing he would ask the class questions about the problem they were doing. The school as a whole was very diverse and the teachers/staff that I talked to were all very welcoming. Overall I really enjoyed our visit to Shaker and it makes me excited to keep observing teachers.

Blog 8 Building Bridges

Over the past few weeks we have discussed what it means to be a great teacher and what qualities some of the best teachers have. The most significant thing I have learned from this is that there isn't one specific thing teachers can do to be great. It is a combination of things that make teachers great. Some of these include being enthusiastic and passionate about your job, caring for your students, self-criticism, patience, learning from experience, and building bridges. More specifically building bridges is an important part to connect with students. While many students may find learning certain topics to be useless, it is important to show them how they can use what they are learning in the real world.  In chapter four, Ayers discusses the topic of building bridges in the classroom. Bridging what students are learning during a lesson to how it can benefit them can be hard. Ayers highlights that an important part of building bridges is balance and team work. He  also points out that it is important to also make learning fun for students.

As a math major and someone who wants to teach high school math I am aware of the fact that many students wont use much math other than basic math that they learned in the earlier years of their education. Therefore I would want to teach something that the majority of students could use in real life but also included math. Something that I think all students can benefit from, especially high school students getting ready for college, is budgeting. Using the bridge building concept that Ayers discusses, I would show students how a basic budgeting sheet can benefit them. Not only would they be able to see that budgeting can help them keep track of their money, they would also see how it could help them save money. Students would be using the math they are learning in class as a tool to help them with financial planning.

While bridge building is important to keep students engaged there are also many other aspects in planning. (1) In order for the teaching to be beneficial I would need to make sure that I am enthusiastic about the lesson (DiGiulio). If I wasn’t excited about the lesson, how could my students be excited to learn? (2) Ayers suggests that finding allies is important. Before the lesson, it could be a good idea to perhaps talk to other teachers or people to get ideas from them about budgeting and teaching about it. (3) An important idea discussed by Freire is that while teachers are teaching their students, they also need to be learning from them as well. I think that it is important that "both are simultaneously teachers and students" (104). (4) Ohanian suggests that "seeking new understanding" (124) is important and that we need to be aware of the constant changes that are happening in the classroom and in education. Doing research of my topic before teaching it is important because things are always changing and what I once could have thought was true could now be different.

Blog PostIt

When reading the Paulo Freire reading I had lots of thoughts. He had lots of things to say and I found his ideas very interesting. The part that stood out to me most was when he said that there needs to be a "solution of the teacher student contradiction" and that the solution doesn’t come from the banking idea of education. I placed a post it note at this point in the reading because I partially disagree with Freire. I think both the banking approach and problem posing approach to education have their advantages and disadvantages. After reading this chapter of his book, I personally believe that a combination of both methods is the best way to approach teaching. When he said that he thought the solution to that problem couldn’t be found in the banking idea, I thought that it was very closed minded. While yes the banking idea may seem harsh and oppressive, it has some positive aspects of it. I found him shutting down the banking approach completely to be very interesting. I think I feel this way because the majority of my high school career was spent in an environment that included both banking and problem posing aspects of learning. The classrooms I spent time in and enjoyed most included a discussion based lecture. The discussion component was more of a problem posing idea and the lecture component was banking. Another though that crossed my mind when reading this was that I think in order to find the best way to teach to a class and to certain students, the teachers need to ask the students how they learn best. The students also need to be straightforward with teachers if the way they are teaching isn't beneficial to them. While there is not one solution to the best  teaching method, I think there are a lot of ways those in the field of education can improve it.

Blog 5

The Rofes reading was very interesting and his thoughts on liberal and radical ways of addressing homophobia and those who were LGBT were very different. When Rofes described his childhood he said it was neither good nor bad. (Rofes 4). He also said "despite the constrictions place on children…children are always to a grater or lesser extent active agents in participating in the production of their own childhoods and adolescences" (Rofes 5). He followed this up by saying that while many of us don’t ask for the circumstances which we live in, many of us do not fully accept them (Rofes 5). I agree with him that we play a role in "shaping our own consciousness" (Rofes 5), however he puts it in a much harsher way. To me Rofes seems very unsympathetic and act as if life sucks but we just need to deal with it. While yes this is true, I don’t think he goes about presenting it in a beneficial way. He also mentions that while many people say those who are gay are born gay, he himself doesn’t belief that and he personally chose to be gay and to like males. In the schools that I have visited and attended growing up, LGBT was a topic addressed in many different ways. At an elementary level, it wasn’t even a topic of discussion. At the middle school I attended it was more evident and some people were open to the idea of there being gay students. Middle school kids also made fun of those who were gay. The high school I attended took what I consider to be a very liberal approach. We had openly gay students, staff, and teachers. It was a topic that was talked about a lot and everyone was very accepting of LGBT people. Those who weren't accepting of it, I thought shared their beliefs and why they believed them in a very respectful way. In the future I hope that more schools and students can be accepting of LGBT and try to be less homophobic. While we are all entitled to our own opinions, LGBT is a very common topic throughout schools now and I think it is best to be open minded rather than closed minded when the topic comes up.

Field Post 1: Mayfield Middle School

Going into the Mayfield Middle School trip I was very hesitant because I was not interested in being a middle school teacher. I was still excited to be going into the school with the mindset of a future teacher as opposed to a student. When we first got to the school it had a good first impression. I enjoyed talking to the administrators and learning more about what they do. They all seemed very passionate about their jobs and it sparked an interest of potentially looking into being an administrator in the future after teaching for a period of time. The first classroom I went into was a 7th grade social studies class. It was a standard classroom with desks and the walls were decorated. The thing I took away from this class room was that they didn't seem to be having much fun. They were learning and taking notes, but they seemed uninterested. The next room I went into was also a 7th grade social studies class, but it was very different from the first. This one was much louder and very out of control in my opinion. The last classroom I went into was an advanced 7th grade math class. This one seemed to be a great combination of fun, but also productive. The students were learning but didn't seem bored or uninterested. At the end of the visit I think my opinion of middle school teaching changed. Before the visit I didn't want to teach middle school at all, however now I am definitely more open to it. Overall the visit was good and I enjoyed it very much.