Behavior Managements and Strategies
One of the greatest struggles that I faced in the beginning of the semester was having the students not knowing to appreciate, respect, and simply enjoy being around each other. At times it seemed like that they did not like each other at all, always tattling, getting on each others’ nerves, and worst of all, never listening to each other during class discussions. With this, my master teacher and I tried out different strategies to promote a close-knit, family-like environment in our classroom.
•Community Circle: Almost every morning, our class gathered in the back of the classroom where everyone takes a turn sharing their thoughts, opinions and experiences with our daily topic. The golden rule in having a community circle was to build a better sense of community in the classroom, where we mutually respect each other while they are speaking with attentive listening. Everyone was expected to participate actively, given one time to pass if they were not ready. We reviewed these rules at the beginning of every community circle, and although it was extremely draining at first to constantly remind the students about keeping these agreements, at the end we all grew to love and respect our class and everyone/everything that is in it. Towards the end, community circles in the morning were extremely awarding moments for all of us, where we were able to share something new about ourselves with everyone while playing games and simply enjoying each other’s company.
•Tribes: My master teacher first demonstrated the tribe system that our school uses, where the students are grouped together to work cooperatively as a tribe. Each member of the tribe was given roles such as tribe leader, hunter, storyteller, timekeeper, and scribe, and with these roles rotating every two weeks, it gave all the students a chance to be in the position of a responsible tribe member. Tribes were a great success in teaching the students responsibility and the importance of having to work together. Eventually we had to break some tribes up due to talking problems, but it was a great start in bringing our students together.
•Incentives: In the beginning of the year, my master teacher and I used a behavior chart system where the students flipped cards every time they misbehaved, and while it seemed to work at first, the attitude of the students never really changed from flipping cards. Not only that, but it seemed pretty embarrassing to go to the front of the classroom to flip cards and let the whole class know that you got in trouble, so we did away with the whole system and instead started to give out incentives for every little good thing that they did. Our major one was the ticket system where student earned raffle tickets for good behavior, attitude, grades & etc, and we celebrated each Friday with a raffle drawing. Tickets always, always got my students motivated and focused, but as it was quite hard to earn tickets, I noticed some students just gave up trying while others were earning up to ten tickets a week. This is when we came up with the stickers incentive chart, where the students are able to earn stickers (easier to earn than tickets) every time the teachers feel that they deserve a sticker. The anticipation and excitement of earning more and more stickers got my students definitely engaged, focused, and motivated more and more each day.
•Teaching Responsibility: As my students are in fifth grade, I truly wanted my students to feel responsible for their actions. Starting with a classroom contract that we all signed, there was direct consequence for times when they did misbehave, and I found having 1:1 “adult” conversations with students that cause trouble to be a valuable experience where the students and I both got to know each other at a deeper level, I understanding more about the reasons why they acted in such ways where the students were learning more and more about the expectations I have of them as responsible fifth graders. I remember always loving to imagine that I were a grown-up when I was in fifth grade, and I think my fifth graders also enjoyed having “grown-up” conversations with a real grown-up.
•Community Circle: Almost every morning, our class gathered in the back of the classroom where everyone takes a turn sharing their thoughts, opinions and experiences with our daily topic. The golden rule in having a community circle was to build a better sense of community in the classroom, where we mutually respect each other while they are speaking with attentive listening. Everyone was expected to participate actively, given one time to pass if they were not ready. We reviewed these rules at the beginning of every community circle, and although it was extremely draining at first to constantly remind the students about keeping these agreements, at the end we all grew to love and respect our class and everyone/everything that is in it. Towards the end, community circles in the morning were extremely awarding moments for all of us, where we were able to share something new about ourselves with everyone while playing games and simply enjoying each other’s company.
•Tribes: My master teacher first demonstrated the tribe system that our school uses, where the students are grouped together to work cooperatively as a tribe. Each member of the tribe was given roles such as tribe leader, hunter, storyteller, timekeeper, and scribe, and with these roles rotating every two weeks, it gave all the students a chance to be in the position of a responsible tribe member. Tribes were a great success in teaching the students responsibility and the importance of having to work together. Eventually we had to break some tribes up due to talking problems, but it was a great start in bringing our students together.
•Incentives: In the beginning of the year, my master teacher and I used a behavior chart system where the students flipped cards every time they misbehaved, and while it seemed to work at first, the attitude of the students never really changed from flipping cards. Not only that, but it seemed pretty embarrassing to go to the front of the classroom to flip cards and let the whole class know that you got in trouble, so we did away with the whole system and instead started to give out incentives for every little good thing that they did. Our major one was the ticket system where student earned raffle tickets for good behavior, attitude, grades & etc, and we celebrated each Friday with a raffle drawing. Tickets always, always got my students motivated and focused, but as it was quite hard to earn tickets, I noticed some students just gave up trying while others were earning up to ten tickets a week. This is when we came up with the stickers incentive chart, where the students are able to earn stickers (easier to earn than tickets) every time the teachers feel that they deserve a sticker. The anticipation and excitement of earning more and more stickers got my students definitely engaged, focused, and motivated more and more each day.
•Teaching Responsibility: As my students are in fifth grade, I truly wanted my students to feel responsible for their actions. Starting with a classroom contract that we all signed, there was direct consequence for times when they did misbehave, and I found having 1:1 “adult” conversations with students that cause trouble to be a valuable experience where the students and I both got to know each other at a deeper level, I understanding more about the reasons why they acted in such ways where the students were learning more and more about the expectations I have of them as responsible fifth graders. I remember always loving to imagine that I were a grown-up when I was in fifth grade, and I think my fifth graders also enjoyed having “grown-up” conversations with a real grown-up.
Technology in the Classroom
As most of my close friends know, I’m not a tech-savvy person as most of my peers are. Computer is a definite necessity in my life, but I didn’t have much experience using the computer as any other method than emailing and word processing, but being a teacher in a tiny, remote island out in the Pacific, I definitely felt the need to use as much technology as I can in the classroom to get my students connected to the rest of the world.
•Mini-Lessons: Some of the mini-lessons that I used in the class involved using different presentations on the computer to provide a better understanding / idea of the topic to the students. Anything on the screen always got my students hooked! There were definite times that I wished we had access to more computers so my students could interact with the computer on a 1:1 basis to solve problems and play review games, but I guess this all has to wait a bit longer for our school system.
•Review Games: Everyone’s favorite – Jeopardy! Although we only used the Power Point Jeopardy once, my students seemed to love the interaction that they were having with the computer and each other as they were reviewing for a test.
•Short Films / Videos: World history, US history, scientific research, non-tropical plants and animals…all seemed so far away from us, almost unreal, when my students and I were reading it out of the textbook. Yet, with the help of short films and videos (mostly from the CRC – Yay! CRC!) of concepts that are rather hard for us to grasp and understand, I was able to bring in different parts of the world and different parts of history into our classroom. My students were immediately hooked! I also made a video clip of my students celebrating Students’ Day with poems that they created (video on the right side of the blog), and this definitely was a fun, interactive way to celebrate all the hard work my students had put into school.
•Mini-Lessons: Some of the mini-lessons that I used in the class involved using different presentations on the computer to provide a better understanding / idea of the topic to the students. Anything on the screen always got my students hooked! There were definite times that I wished we had access to more computers so my students could interact with the computer on a 1:1 basis to solve problems and play review games, but I guess this all has to wait a bit longer for our school system.
•Review Games: Everyone’s favorite – Jeopardy! Although we only used the Power Point Jeopardy once, my students seemed to love the interaction that they were having with the computer and each other as they were reviewing for a test.
•Short Films / Videos: World history, US history, scientific research, non-tropical plants and animals…all seemed so far away from us, almost unreal, when my students and I were reading it out of the textbook. Yet, with the help of short films and videos (mostly from the CRC – Yay! CRC!) of concepts that are rather hard for us to grasp and understand, I was able to bring in different parts of the world and different parts of history into our classroom. My students were immediately hooked! I also made a video clip of my students celebrating Students’ Day with poems that they created (video on the right side of the blog), and this definitely was a fun, interactive way to celebrate all the hard work my students had put into school.
Assessment
•Reflective Writings: I’m a strong advocate of writing. I’ve always been able to find my true voice and focus on my thoughts through writing, and hoping to share this special experience with my students, I tried to incorporate as much reflective writing as I can in assessing my students. There were students (ESL, SPED) that needed modification and extra assistance for such assessments, but generally I found this form of assessment to be extremely effective in finding out how much my students to connect things they’ve learned in class to real life and their actual thoughts / feelings.
•Quizzes / Tests: Traditional quizzes and tests can be quite redundant in a classroom and easily lose its true value, but in order to prevent this from happening, I designed and created most of the quizzes and tests given to my students in class, basing the questions on what I believe is the best, fair way to assess my students. For example, knowing that my students are strong in recreating historical facts into fiction, I used such questions in place of other critical thinking questions commonly used in tests. Quizzes were also designed to assess the basic understanding of students, in preparation of the test that will involve all that have been covered in the quizzes.
•Presentations: Presentations, especially group presentations, have been proved to be the best way to assess my students’ learning while also expanding their creativity skills. Working in groups was a successful way to build better community in the classroom, and it also improved my students’ speaking skills. I always love grading presentations as well, as I get super excited to find out about what the students came up with!
•Projects: Projects were always like a celebration in our classroom. I was hesitant at first to assign projects thinking that it will take away valuable class time, but well-designed projects that involved all the skills learned in class were always a fun way to have a closure of an unit. The best part in projects is that we get to display it in the classroom once we are done, adding color and character to our classroom.
•Rubrics: At times, I found grading to be difficult in ways that I couldn’t be 100% fair and unbiased, but with rubrics, I felt that I could give the fairest grades, the true grades that they students earned in their work. It was quite hard grading my ESL and SPED students based on the same rubrics as the rest of the class, so I made adjustments to the original rubric to be used fairly with these students.
•Peer Review / Grading: Peer review and grading was a form of assessment that I did not choose to use until the last minute, but I feel that I should’ve used it a lot more in the classroom. I always worried about students’ reactions to each other’s grades, but when I gave specific directions to either write words of praise or encouragement on the papers they graded, my students showed great enthusiasm in rewarding and praising each other for their hard work. I also docked points off for those students that mis-graded the other person’s paper, as I also emphasized the importance of having to take care of the other person’s paper as if it were their own.
•Quizzes / Tests: Traditional quizzes and tests can be quite redundant in a classroom and easily lose its true value, but in order to prevent this from happening, I designed and created most of the quizzes and tests given to my students in class, basing the questions on what I believe is the best, fair way to assess my students. For example, knowing that my students are strong in recreating historical facts into fiction, I used such questions in place of other critical thinking questions commonly used in tests. Quizzes were also designed to assess the basic understanding of students, in preparation of the test that will involve all that have been covered in the quizzes.
•Presentations: Presentations, especially group presentations, have been proved to be the best way to assess my students’ learning while also expanding their creativity skills. Working in groups was a successful way to build better community in the classroom, and it also improved my students’ speaking skills. I always love grading presentations as well, as I get super excited to find out about what the students came up with!
•Projects: Projects were always like a celebration in our classroom. I was hesitant at first to assign projects thinking that it will take away valuable class time, but well-designed projects that involved all the skills learned in class were always a fun way to have a closure of an unit. The best part in projects is that we get to display it in the classroom once we are done, adding color and character to our classroom.
•Rubrics: At times, I found grading to be difficult in ways that I couldn’t be 100% fair and unbiased, but with rubrics, I felt that I could give the fairest grades, the true grades that they students earned in their work. It was quite hard grading my ESL and SPED students based on the same rubrics as the rest of the class, so I made adjustments to the original rubric to be used fairly with these students.
•Peer Review / Grading: Peer review and grading was a form of assessment that I did not choose to use until the last minute, but I feel that I should’ve used it a lot more in the classroom. I always worried about students’ reactions to each other’s grades, but when I gave specific directions to either write words of praise or encouragement on the papers they graded, my students showed great enthusiasm in rewarding and praising each other for their hard work. I also docked points off for those students that mis-graded the other person’s paper, as I also emphasized the importance of having to take care of the other person’s paper as if it were their own.
Relevance to Student Learning
If you were to ask how important relevance to student learning is, I’d say super-duper important for teachers to always keep in mind about the relevance in the materials taught and shared in the classroom to the cultural and educational background of the students. Using textbooks that were created not specifically for us, everyday I had to give it more effort to prepare relevant materials for our class, while carrying across the same concepts and facts as any other teacher in the mainland US would.
•Geography – In teaching geography, the hardest challenge that I faced with my students was to have them understand the concepts of the different 50 states. It does seem quite odd that a fifth grader would not know the fact that United States is divided into 50 states rather than each state being a different country, but for a fifth grader out here in the islands, it was understandable that the students could read maps of islands yet not of the 50 states. Not knowing this at first, I was quite frustrated at the fact that I had to teach and re-teach something that seemed so “simple” to me, but I did soon realize the importance of having to see things from my students’ perspective.
•Math – I had a lot of students that struggles with the basics of mathematics, multiplication and division. I was frustrated at this a bit as well, but I soon managed to divide the class up into different levels and provide the help and support that each groups needed. I tried to keep the class at the same pace, where my lower performing students would be required to do only half of the amount of work that my advanced students were asked to do. This proved to be an effective way as it did not totally left behind the lower performing students.
•Culture – As much of a cultural melting pot our islands are, our class was an extremely diverse class as well. There were some cultural clashes in the beginning of the school year, and as soon as I saw that there was tension in between different cultures, I tried to incorporate the importance of appreciating and respecting each other’s differences in every subject. It was very rewarding to see my students bloom into loving and respecting each other’s cultures as they would love and respect their own cultures.
•Social Issues – There were many times in the classroom when social issues that were easily found in our local community were brought up during class. Early pregnancies, drug use, betel nut, smoking, driving, and underage drinking were some of the hottest topics of discussions we’ve had, and although I was hesitant at first to discuss such issues with my “young” students, I soon realized the importance of having a responsible adult explain to my extremely curious, pre-teen students about the causes, effects, and consequences of these actions. I always encouraged my students to not be influenced by other people, and that they should make clear, thoughtful decisions based on their beliefs of themselves. My students were extremely engaged in such discussions, and I sure hope it will help them become responsible adults in the future!
•Geography – In teaching geography, the hardest challenge that I faced with my students was to have them understand the concepts of the different 50 states. It does seem quite odd that a fifth grader would not know the fact that United States is divided into 50 states rather than each state being a different country, but for a fifth grader out here in the islands, it was understandable that the students could read maps of islands yet not of the 50 states. Not knowing this at first, I was quite frustrated at the fact that I had to teach and re-teach something that seemed so “simple” to me, but I did soon realize the importance of having to see things from my students’ perspective.
•Math – I had a lot of students that struggles with the basics of mathematics, multiplication and division. I was frustrated at this a bit as well, but I soon managed to divide the class up into different levels and provide the help and support that each groups needed. I tried to keep the class at the same pace, where my lower performing students would be required to do only half of the amount of work that my advanced students were asked to do. This proved to be an effective way as it did not totally left behind the lower performing students.
•Culture – As much of a cultural melting pot our islands are, our class was an extremely diverse class as well. There were some cultural clashes in the beginning of the school year, and as soon as I saw that there was tension in between different cultures, I tried to incorporate the importance of appreciating and respecting each other’s differences in every subject. It was very rewarding to see my students bloom into loving and respecting each other’s cultures as they would love and respect their own cultures.
•Social Issues – There were many times in the classroom when social issues that were easily found in our local community were brought up during class. Early pregnancies, drug use, betel nut, smoking, driving, and underage drinking were some of the hottest topics of discussions we’ve had, and although I was hesitant at first to discuss such issues with my “young” students, I soon realized the importance of having a responsible adult explain to my extremely curious, pre-teen students about the causes, effects, and consequences of these actions. I always encouraged my students to not be influenced by other people, and that they should make clear, thoughtful decisions based on their beliefs of themselves. My students were extremely engaged in such discussions, and I sure hope it will help them become responsible adults in the future!
Professional Growth
The PDs that we had to attend in the beginning of the school year didn’t help me much, but the weekly staff meetings and in-service training held with the rest of the school staff was all in all a great learning experience. It does take up extra time after school, but I soon realized that participating even in the after school activities is part of being trained to be exactly like a real teacher. Here are some new things I learned through these experiences:
•Child Study Team (CST) – I’ve been noticing uniqueness in some of my students and had wondered what I should do to address their differences. My master teacher did provide me with some information, but it was the CST in-service that really explained the whole process in more depth. It was also interesting to find out what difficulties other teachers were facing at, and I really enjoyed watching the school, the administrators, and the teachers put their heads together to figure out better ways to support our students.
•Accreditation – With accreditation having been the hottest topic in all schools last school year, it was really neat to be able to be a part of all the excitement and anticipation as our school celebrated for its accreditation yet also faced new challenges of meeting the future expectations of WASC. One thing that impressed me the most is how the staff was able to pull together everything in sync to make this happen.
•Deaf and Hard of Hearing Guest Speaker – It was really neat having a professional guest speaker come in from the States to share with the teachers everything about DHH students, and the services that we can provide to such students as a school. Extremely useful and advanced technologies were introduced, and although we are far from getting such equipments in, it was very interesting to find out about all the possibilities that my students my have.
•Child Study Team (CST) – I’ve been noticing uniqueness in some of my students and had wondered what I should do to address their differences. My master teacher did provide me with some information, but it was the CST in-service that really explained the whole process in more depth. It was also interesting to find out what difficulties other teachers were facing at, and I really enjoyed watching the school, the administrators, and the teachers put their heads together to figure out better ways to support our students.
•Accreditation – With accreditation having been the hottest topic in all schools last school year, it was really neat to be able to be a part of all the excitement and anticipation as our school celebrated for its accreditation yet also faced new challenges of meeting the future expectations of WASC. One thing that impressed me the most is how the staff was able to pull together everything in sync to make this happen.
•Deaf and Hard of Hearing Guest Speaker – It was really neat having a professional guest speaker come in from the States to share with the teachers everything about DHH students, and the services that we can provide to such students as a school. Extremely useful and advanced technologies were introduced, and although we are far from getting such equipments in, it was very interesting to find out about all the possibilities that my students my have.
Diversity in Lessons, Managements, Curriculums
I still remember being in the multicultural class at NMC, where we spent most of the time eating and celebrating different cultures of our island. I indeed had a lot of fun and learned a quite a few important things about merging diversity in a single classroom, but what I did not realize was the depth and variety that not just each culture, but each child brings into the classroom. It’s rather quite simple to deal with many different cultures as long as we respect each other’s cultures and learn to love any kinds of differences we may have, but the diversity that I had to deal with in facing all the distinctive characteristics, personalities, abilities, and background that each child created in the classroom was quite a challenge. This definitely was one of the toughest challenges I had to face, yet after all the hard work, I can proudly say that the different colors of our classroom is what makes us so unique and special in our own way. I love my students so much! I’d love to share some of my experiences:
•One of the greatest diversity challenges was having to work with my two autistic students. One student being a high-functioning student and the other student with at a first grade level, it was really hard at first to meet their high demanding, individual needs while not losing focus on the rest of the class. During regular class work time, I always sat one on one with the two students to ensure they were on task and had a complete understanding of the assignment. At times I had to make adjustments for them to be able to complete the assignments. I’d say that yes, it did take me longer to be closer to these students, but I can truly say that each moment that I spend with them meant so much. What I’m really grateful is that both of my students tried extra hard the more and more I tried to help them, and with each work that was completed by the students with so much effort, we shared so many proud and happy moments together.
•My boys. Wow, were they different from my dream students! Some of my boys were extremely well behaved and extremely motivated to do work, but more than half of my boys were all so different in their own ways, all asking for attention at different levels every single moment in the classroom. It was so overwhelming at first that there were couple days where I just literally shooed everyone away and hid in my teacher’s corner. But soon I was able to realize the different things that each of my boys needed at different moments and times during the day, and instead of expecting them to work like robots at my commands, I gave each of the boys enough flexibility and guidance that would allow them to finish their work with the most effort that they could put in. For example, there were couple boys that really wanted attention all the time, and on days that they did not want to do work in their desks and started to bother everyone around them, I casually invite them over to my desk in the front of the classroom where they are given enough space and full attention to do their work. To tell you the truth, I first started this as sort of a punishment for not following directions, but soon it became one of the greatest ways to motivate my boys. They loved being with me, I loved being with them, and with frequent rounds that I did around the class, my class was able to soon find peace with ourselves.
•PE was yet another great challenge for me. I’m not the PE type of person, so I was very hesitant about my abilities of being able to get my students motivated about PE everyday. There were tons of complaints about this and that, but I really wanted to ensure my students were able to get the physical exercise that they needed on a daily basis. Soon, I developed a plan where during the first half of the PE class, all the students had to join actively in group activities such as jogging and/or stretching, and for the rest of the class, I gave them the option of joining the 2~3 different activities that we had each day, as long as they were enjoying themselves and getting the exercise that they needed. This worked out fantastically with the students, and they soon wanted to take part in different activities each day, promoting group work with different classmates and mastering different skills each day.
•I’m not an artist myself, but I do know that some form of art is extremely important in providing a wide arrange of skills that needs to be mastered by students. Knowing this, I was able to incorporate different mediums of art (drawing, modeling, crafts, etc) in most of my lessons, to the extent where it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge for non-artistic students like myself, yet extremely challenging, fun and motivating for all of my students.
•Flexibility is something that I did not know I did not have until I actually started teaching the whole day. There was so much that I had planned and wanted to complete with my students, but there seemed to be at least two days in a week where something (testing, presentations, school meets, etc) came up last minute and either the whole class or part of the class had to be excused from schoolwork. This was extremely annoying at first, and I couldn’t stand the fact that everything seemed to happen all at the last minute, but I soon learned to be flexible with our daily lessons, where it wasn’t the end of the world to carry on the lessons a day longer. From then on, I was able to design an extra day into all my weekly lessons that gave enough time for me to catch up on things that I could have been behind in for whatever reasons.
•Lastly, I think the greatest diversity I was able to incorporate in the classroom was me. It all started with my students’ curiosities about my different physical characteristics, which then gradually opened opportunities for me to share all my unique experiences as a locally raised Korean girl with the students. Whether it was for Social Studies, Language Arts, Science, or Math, I shared my personal life, experience and stories with the students, allowing them to realize that anything is possible if they believe in themselves. The best part was when my mom came in to our class in celebration of Students’ Day (with Korean food!), and my students were so amazed to see the similarities between my mom and me Although there was a definite language barrier between my students and my mom, it was beautiful being able to see the connection they made from the moment they saw each other, made possible by just sheer appreciation they shared for each other. Through this whole experience and with special thanks to my students that love me just the way I am, I was able to embrace my identity as a Korean-local teacher even more.
•One of the greatest diversity challenges was having to work with my two autistic students. One student being a high-functioning student and the other student with at a first grade level, it was really hard at first to meet their high demanding, individual needs while not losing focus on the rest of the class. During regular class work time, I always sat one on one with the two students to ensure they were on task and had a complete understanding of the assignment. At times I had to make adjustments for them to be able to complete the assignments. I’d say that yes, it did take me longer to be closer to these students, but I can truly say that each moment that I spend with them meant so much. What I’m really grateful is that both of my students tried extra hard the more and more I tried to help them, and with each work that was completed by the students with so much effort, we shared so many proud and happy moments together.
•My boys. Wow, were they different from my dream students! Some of my boys were extremely well behaved and extremely motivated to do work, but more than half of my boys were all so different in their own ways, all asking for attention at different levels every single moment in the classroom. It was so overwhelming at first that there were couple days where I just literally shooed everyone away and hid in my teacher’s corner. But soon I was able to realize the different things that each of my boys needed at different moments and times during the day, and instead of expecting them to work like robots at my commands, I gave each of the boys enough flexibility and guidance that would allow them to finish their work with the most effort that they could put in. For example, there were couple boys that really wanted attention all the time, and on days that they did not want to do work in their desks and started to bother everyone around them, I casually invite them over to my desk in the front of the classroom where they are given enough space and full attention to do their work. To tell you the truth, I first started this as sort of a punishment for not following directions, but soon it became one of the greatest ways to motivate my boys. They loved being with me, I loved being with them, and with frequent rounds that I did around the class, my class was able to soon find peace with ourselves.
•PE was yet another great challenge for me. I’m not the PE type of person, so I was very hesitant about my abilities of being able to get my students motivated about PE everyday. There were tons of complaints about this and that, but I really wanted to ensure my students were able to get the physical exercise that they needed on a daily basis. Soon, I developed a plan where during the first half of the PE class, all the students had to join actively in group activities such as jogging and/or stretching, and for the rest of the class, I gave them the option of joining the 2~3 different activities that we had each day, as long as they were enjoying themselves and getting the exercise that they needed. This worked out fantastically with the students, and they soon wanted to take part in different activities each day, promoting group work with different classmates and mastering different skills each day.
•I’m not an artist myself, but I do know that some form of art is extremely important in providing a wide arrange of skills that needs to be mastered by students. Knowing this, I was able to incorporate different mediums of art (drawing, modeling, crafts, etc) in most of my lessons, to the extent where it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge for non-artistic students like myself, yet extremely challenging, fun and motivating for all of my students.
•Flexibility is something that I did not know I did not have until I actually started teaching the whole day. There was so much that I had planned and wanted to complete with my students, but there seemed to be at least two days in a week where something (testing, presentations, school meets, etc) came up last minute and either the whole class or part of the class had to be excused from schoolwork. This was extremely annoying at first, and I couldn’t stand the fact that everything seemed to happen all at the last minute, but I soon learned to be flexible with our daily lessons, where it wasn’t the end of the world to carry on the lessons a day longer. From then on, I was able to design an extra day into all my weekly lessons that gave enough time for me to catch up on things that I could have been behind in for whatever reasons.
•Lastly, I think the greatest diversity I was able to incorporate in the classroom was me. It all started with my students’ curiosities about my different physical characteristics, which then gradually opened opportunities for me to share all my unique experiences as a locally raised Korean girl with the students. Whether it was for Social Studies, Language Arts, Science, or Math, I shared my personal life, experience and stories with the students, allowing them to realize that anything is possible if they believe in themselves. The best part was when my mom came in to our class in celebration of Students’ Day (with Korean food!), and my students were so amazed to see the similarities between my mom and me Although there was a definite language barrier between my students and my mom, it was beautiful being able to see the connection they made from the moment they saw each other, made possible by just sheer appreciation they shared for each other. Through this whole experience and with special thanks to my students that love me just the way I am, I was able to embrace my identity as a Korean-local teacher even more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
