Kindergarten is Not for the Faint of Heart

This week I began my field experience in Ms. White’s kindergarten class. Having never worked with kindergarteners before, this was a new experience for me. Ms. White is an extremely pleasant and friendly lady who upon first meeting informed me that she was sorry if her voice went out or she seemed tired but she was just coming off of having spent 14 straight hours at school the previous day because of parent-teacher conferences. To me she seemed perfectly alert and energetic. After teaching for nearly 30 years, I think it is safe to say she’s a professional in every sense of the word. She walked me through how the class is structured and showed me the assignments they’d been working on this week. Each week she has a list of words that they work with and each day of the week has a homework assignment that is the same on that given day each week but pertains to the new set of words. She explained that she found home support increased when the parents were sent home this list of words and assignments for each day of the week because they knew what to expect. Ms. White also mentioned the new challenges presented by the recent introduction of common core to the kindergarten curriculum. To pass kindergarten, children are now expected to have a reading level of 4 and be able to count to 100, for example. This didn’t not sound very daunting until Ms. White mentioned that many of the children enter kindergarten unable to even write their own names or hold up the correct number of fingers on their hands to tell you how old they are. She showed me an assignment at one point from a student who she mentioned would most likely be repeating the grade. To graduate from kindergarten was something I had taken for granted and it was startling to realize that for some kids, getting held back in kindergarten is a reality.

The first noticeable difference between this classroom and the third grade classroom I had previously been in was the ambient noise. There is a constant babble and coo of little voices, quietly talking to themselves or others, providing the room with a dynamic soundtrack of its occupants. Silences are few and far between. Most students are at least in or near their seats, a feat for which the amount of time and patience it took to accomplish I can only imagine. In this class, I began working with the students from the beginning. When I initially told Ms. White that in the previous third grade class I had simply observed in the beginning, she chuckled and said that the kindergarteners wouldn’t let me get away with that.

One of the first students I worked with was April. She was having trouble with the assignment they were doing with numbers. There were multiple numbers listed from 1 to 100 and for each, the students were to write below what 10 more than that number was. This was done by using their number charts which had the numbers from 1 to 100 in a 10 by 10 grid so that all they really had to do was find the number on this chart and see which number was below it (for example 47 was below 37). When asked to read a number, April was fine with single digits but she repeatedly read the numbers in the wrong order for numbers with multiple digits. She would read 35 as 53 or 14 as 41. This was something she was only doing with these numbers however, and it did not seem to apply to her writing. For each number I would remind her of the correct order to read the numbers in and modeled with other numbers and each time she would make the same mistake. Often she would look away or lose interest or another eager child nearby would shout out the correct answer, which she would simply repeat. While working with April, I was reminded of Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and the concept of the gradual release of responsibility. Though the principle of modeling something for a student, followed by guided practice, leading to the student being able to execute the task without help sounds clear in theory, I found myself wondering at what point you as a teacher can be sure that you have sufficiently modeled a concept to a student in a meaningful way and what point you are not allowing them to grow by continuing to offer them help. If a student seems to be struggling, is it because of something else you are enabling by continuing to help them, or do they really need further assistance? These are questions I hope to better be able to answer through further experience. In the mean time, with kindergarteners, I am just learning how to teach them effectively in between asking them to put down their skirts, to not chew the pencils, and to stop licking each other. To quote what little Andrew said as he showed me the corrections he’d made to his sentences before putting them into the bin where they turn in assignments, “We keep trying, cuz we never give up! Never ever give up!”

My Third Week of Field Experience!

This past week was my final week in Ms. Smith’s third grade class. Since I hadn’t gotten a chance to yet, I decided to go in for the whole school day on Thursday to get a better sense of what a day felt like for this class.

February is Black History Month so for Social Studies the class had been reading a passage each day about an historical figure in the black community. Today’s passage was about George Washington Carver and also served as reading comprehension practice for FCAT. After the morning show was over, not all the students were focused on their work, so Ms. Smith pointed out Timmy saying, “I like the way Timmy is working, I’m going to give him some tickets. I haven’t had to talk to him once.” The tickets she gave him were for the Florida State Fair since the whole school had the next day off for Fair Day. When she gave them to him she patted him on the back and said, “We’re going to have a great day, huh?” Later Ms. Smith had to ask Katie not to talk anymore or she would have to move her pin. The behavior system is to “stay on target” and students move their pins from green in the center to yellow to red on the outside if they misbehave. That afternoon, Teresa had to move her pin for having things out on her desk when she wasn’t supposed to.

During the beginning of the day, Ms. Smith had students coming up to her desk at various points to recite their multiplication tables. The whole third grade had an ongoing math activity whereby, as students felt they had learned a new level of multiplication (referred to as their 0s, 1s, 2s, 3s, and so on for each number), they could recite it to their teacher who would then move their name up on a board that was out in the pod shared by all the third grade classrooms. Each level they moved up corresponded to a bowl and spoon, then scoops of ice cream, and then eventually toppings. These levels were more than just a theme for the board however, as at the end there was to be an ice cream party at which students would get to eat the actual amount of ice cream and toppings they had moved up to on the board. I looked at the board and wondered what that day was going to be like for the students who still hadn’t moved past the empty bowl and spoon level.

After lunch, the class did guided reading in groups. Ms. Smith worked with one group at a time while the others sat together working in their groups. The activity was to read a short story that was broken up into chapters and then make an inference chart summarizing what happened. In the group Ms. Smith worked with first, the kids were having trouble summarizing. When asked what happened in each chapter, their tendency was to repeat back as many of the details as they could remember without a real sense of which ones were most important to the meaning of the story. Ms. Smith asked them to reread and answer again. Meanwhile in Timmy’s group, problems soon arose when it became apparent he was not participating in the activity. Sarah, Jennifer, and Bella tried to help him to no avail and soon gave up, returning to making their inference charts without him. When asked why he was not doing his inference chart, Timmy replied, “It’s impossible!” When asked if he wanted some help he responded, “I don’t take help.” When one of the girls in his group offered to show him what she had done so far he looked down and said, “I don’t copy either!” He had covered every angle possible to ensure he did not have to do the activity, including insisting he didn’t know how to spell the word “clue” which was the first thing they had to write down on their charts. When I pretended I had not read the story and asked him quietly if he could quickly help me out and explain to me what happened in the story so I could help the others in his group, he was suddenly able to remember perfectly what seconds before he had been insisting he had already forgotten. He verbally summarized to me perfectly what had happened in each chapter and what the overall meaning of the story was in a way that was much more coherent, accurate, and insightful than what many of his classmates who were actually doing the assignment were writing in their charts. He didn’t need help; he had just decided he wasn’t going to do the activity. Later in the day he also wrote extensively for another assignment that was more creative, so it was not a matter of inability to express his thoughts through writing either. In my educational psychology class I recently read about the idea of teachers offering multiple forms of evaluation by which students can demonstrate their understanding of the material. This situation seemed like one in which that might be applicable.

At the end of the day, Ms. Smith gave her class a chapter test on equivalent fractions that was not for an official grade, but instead to check how much the students understood so far. I stayed after class to grade them. Out of 23 questions, the student who did the best missed 5 and the worst missed 18. Most of the class missed almost half the questions.

My Second Week of Field Experience!

For the purposes of this blog, all names of teachers and students have been changed and pseudonyms will be used for the sake of anonymity.

 

On Friday last week I was placed in Ms. Smith’s third grade class. I was there from the beginning of the school day (students begin entering the school at 7:30 AM) until their lunchtime (Ms. Smith’s has a 10:40 AM lunch). As the students come in, they are supposed to bring a chair to their desk from the side of the room and begin reading silently to themselves until school officially begins at 8 AM. Ms. Smith’s class has 14 students, smaller than she’s had some years, as she tells me there have been years where she’s had over 30 students in her class. Today, most of the students get there on time before 8 AM. Paul gets into school about 20 minutes late, and then there is only one student still missing. That student is Mary. Ms. Smith later tells me that Mary has missed more than 30 days of school this year already. She talks about the difficulty of teaching a student who is there so infrequently and the difficulties even on the days Mary does come in, as it is sometimes well into the school day when she arrives. Additional frustration comes from the fact that Mary is intelligent and would have no trouble keeping up if it weren’t for the sheer number of days she is missing. At 8 AM the school’s morning show comes on and the children all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the National Anthem. The assistant principal announces messages about top readers in each grade and reminds everyone of Saturday Academy, a new initiative to offer additional help to any students who need it on the weekend. The student morning show hosts talk about school goals and the show ends after playing Rebecca Black’s Friday, which Ms. Smith kindly asks me to mute for her. After the morning show is over, Social Studies begins. Ms. Smith tells the class to turn to two pages in their Social Studies workbooks and complete the activity. She reminds them to read first and tells them she shouldn’t see anybody writing yet. The assignment was to read a passage about living in Canada and then complete a Venn diagram comparing living in Canada to living in Florida. Some students just sat there looking around until Ms. Smith came to their desks to ask them what they’d done so far. While she was at her desk, students would also sometimes slack off and if she noticed this she would ask the student to come to her desk to show her what they had completed. The students’ desks are arranged in groups of four so they sit facing each other. In the group closest to me, Alvin complains for the third time out loud, “It’s so hard!” at which point Sarah pipes in, “No, it’s easy” to which Katie replies, “Everything doesn’t have to be easy.” When Alvin mentions again later how hard it is, Ms. Smith reminds him he hasn’t even read the passage yet. As some students struggle to finish, others are already done. Some move on to help others in their group finish while some students pull back out the books they had been reading before. 15 minutes into the activity and Sam is already nose-deep again in the Goosebumps book he had been reading before class. The activity goes on for about half an hour in total before it is time to line up for Specials (such as P.E., Music, or Art). P.E. is the special on Fridays. Ms. Smith tells the few who still have not completed their Social Studies that they will have to complete it in the “Just Right Reading” time they have before class next time. During Specials, Ms. Smith has half an hour of “Professional Development Time” to do various things, which today means making copies for an assignment the students will be doing later. P.E. is over at 9:10 AM and Ms. Smith goes to pick the students up. The students by this point in the year have perfected the line system. They alternate weeks with jobs for lights and door holder and they know to line up in alphabetical order and stop at the corner of each hall, waiting for Ms. Smith to tell them to proceed. Upon returning to the classroom, it is time for Science. Each student has an ISN (notebook) for science to complete science activities in. Today they go back through what they already read in their textbooks about stars and make a table in their notebook, which Ms. Smith displays on the board. The table has four sections labeled “star, property, telescope, and brightness.” The task is to write these words in the table and draw a representation of each. The students all finish at various times. Timmy is the first to finish, and excitedly describes what he drew to the girl sitting across from him, who is more focused on trying to finish her own work than really listening. Timmy tries to tell Ms. Smith about what he drew, at which point she reminds him that he still hasn’t written down the terms (the first thing they were supposed to do). At around 10 AM they move on to reading the next part of the chapter about stars, again Ms. Smith reminds any student who hasn’t finished the previous activity that they will have to complete it the next day during the free reading time before class. Ms. Smith calls on a student to read a paragraph, after which she asks a question to the class about what was just read. Many students raise their hands and if they are wrong she gives another student the opportunity to answer the question if the previous student is not able to look back at the reading and correct their answer in a reasonable amount of time. This goes on for about 10 minutes before it is time for Reading (Language Arts). Today they are going over the answers to a practice standardized test they recently took. The passage is about manatees and as they go through the test, which Ms. Smith has projected up in the front of the room, each of the students also has their own test and answers in front of them. She reads the passage and at each question at the end asks students what they put and tries to explain why the correct answer is the right one. They don’t have time to finish before lunch, but Ms. Smith cannot go long since delaying lunch is not an option. All of the students in her class get their lunches from the school, but one. Timmy is the only student when her class lines up for lunch with a lunchbox in his hand.

 

This week I went for the same portion of the school day on both Thursday and Friday. Mary was again absent on one of the days, and the day she did come in it was not until after 10 AM. The students were working in their ISNs this week again and on Friday took a quiz on observing stars, which they had half an hour to complete. Ms. Smith wrote down the questions and projected them onto the board in the front of the room. They were as follows:

1. What is a star?/Give an ex.
2. Name 2 properties of a star
3. Explain what is gravity
4. Explain how temperature affects the color of a star.
5. What is the difference between a red star and a blue star?

Timmy asked Ms. Smith several times during the quiz, “What is number one?” or “What is number four?” to which Ms. Smith would respond by reading the question aloud again to the whole class. When she called time at the end of the quiz, Teresa and Katie were the only two not finished. For guided reading, they were working on inference charts. The class is broken up into groups based on reading level with names like “The Cool Readers” or “The Smart Readers.” The activities they do in these groups are similar, but tailored to reading level. There’s a series of booklets with various stories that match up in theme and activities, but for which the content and difficulty are slightly different. These are divided by reading level. This week Ms. Smith also did a running record for three of her students in the lowest reading group. At the beginning of class she had them come up to her desk and read a passage aloud to her while the other students were doing their individual reading. After this they answered some questions about what they had read. Later that day in a meeting Ms. Smith had with the assistant principal about report cards during her professional development time, she discussed how she determined her grades and went through the performance of each student individually. She mentioned what their DRA was and levels varied from 28 up to 38. The meeting went long and at 9:10 AM they asked me if I would pick the kids up from specials and bring them back to the classroom. That day because it was cold and rainy, P.E. was in the computer lab. When I got there, Coach was mediating a conflict between Jennifer and Teresa in which one had hit the other and then not apologized. After a tearful apology, we headed back to the classroom. As a way of keeping the students motivated to behave for me since I knew they would be a bit wary about the absence of their teacher, I asked them if they could do me a favor and teach me about their line system by showing me. They enthusiastically jumped into their roles and we got back to the classroom without a hitch.