AuburnChick's Adventures

Wow!  Another week of certification classes is behind me.  I can scarcely believe it.

Last week was a lot more stressful than the week before, believe it or not.  Though the assignments were not quite as difficult, having the holiday the week before had spoiled me.

Last week, I felt the pressure of balancing my teaching with my own education.

To make sure I had time to complete everything, I did not attend a big soccer game for my high school girls (Chicky’s teammates from last year).  I did get a play-by-play via 60+ text messages from one of the player’s sisters, so I worked on my assignments while periodically throwing out “Crap” and “Woo Hoo” according to how the game was proceeding.

The team won, by the way, and will face a big rivalry on Tuesday night for the Regional Semi-Finals.  I am still debating if I will go.

So, what did I learn about last week?

For my Teaching Profession class, I had to write a small report about one of the social issues facing education.  I selected childhood homelessness and poverty.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

My research was very sad.  I learned a lot, let me tell you.

In my Reading class, I learned about fluency.  I am finding my reading class fascinating!  Perhaps this is because I have always been a great reader, as have my children, and it has sometimes been difficult for me to comprehend how other people struggle.  Now I am beginning to realize that there are many components to reading, and teaching it is a very specialized skill that must take into account every single component.  No wonder reading teachers like my friend, Barb, are so incredible!

I am also realizing how important it is for every teacher, regardless of the subjects they teach, to spend time on reading skills and to watch for possible warning signals that could serve as indications that students might need some help in this area.

For my Instructional Strategies class, I had to create a performance-based assessment and a formative assessment for the unit plan I have been creating (which, by the way, I got great feedback on regarding last week’s 16 student learning outcome assignment).  I decided to use an essay as my performance assessment, and my teacher required that students create multiple-choice formative quizzes.  Although I have created numerous exams this year, I found this assignment a lot more difficult than I anticipated.  Perhaps this was because I was also looking at a rubric, which I am both grateful for and freaked over every time I work on an assignment.

I continue to be amazed at how much I am learning each week.  Quite honestly, after what I’ve been taught in such a short time, I must say that I don’t think non-education, bachelor-degree holding people should be allowed to have their own classrooms of students until they have gone through these classes.  While they (and I include myself in that grouping) might have real-world experience, teaching is so much more than knowing a subject.  There is a lot of “teaching” terminology that you have to understand.  There are also a lot of “teacher” how-to’s that you must practice.  Sure, the work is a huge pain to complete, but the exercises are practical and very necessary to understanding exactly why and how teachers need to do things to help their students be successful.

I also think these classes are good for helping people figure out if this is a profession they want to participate in.  The work load is incredibly heavy…a small taste, as I already know, of the commitment and sacrifice that teaching requires.  I don’t think that most people really understand what being a teacher encompasses.

This program probably comes as a huge shock and a reality check for the naive people who first walk through the program’s doors.

I continue to take things day by day and remain ever grateful for the daily presence of God.  I could not do any of this without His help, for without Him, my brains would be mush.  Heck, they are mush, but He restores me every night and allows me to wake up, refreshed (unless I’ve been up until 12:30am) and ready to face a new day.

Week 4 promises to be interesting.  I’ll share details next week.

If you’re interested in what I wrote for my paper on childhood homelessness, I’ve provided the text below…

When people dream of becoming teachers, they sometimes envision utopic classrooms where students sit in rapt attention eagerly awaiting the lessons about to be imparted upon them.  These imaginary students are dressed impeccably and hail from ideal families.  Reality, however, proves to be a stark contrast from such lofty dreams.  The students who file into today’s classrooms often carry with them the burdens of various social problems – issues that do not have easy solutions.  Childhood poverty and homelessness are two closely-related issues that have left educators scratching their heads as they try to overcome the effects these issues on the children who have been charged to their care.  Children are the innocent victims of poverty and homelessness, having little choice but to deal with circumstances that are completely out of their control. Karen M. Pellino’s article, The Effects of Poverty on Teaching and Learning, provides a comprehensive assessment of the challenges of teaching impoverished children and suggests several pragmatic ways that educators can address the challenges through teaching methodologies and curriculum.

Childhood poverty and homelessness pose several educational challenges including classroom diversity, student achievement gaps, and student motivation.  A diverse classroom is comprised of students from many different cultural, economic, and academic levels.  Children who are poverty-stricken live in the flux of constant change as they are forced to endure frequent moves from one residence to another.  As a result, these children change schools often.  Thus, school attendance is spotty, at best.  Many children do not have permanent homes and, as a result, lack proper paperwork, such as academic records, when they register at new schools.  This complicates educators’ jobs as they desperately attempt to place students in the classes that best meet their needs (3). To combat the effects of classroom diversity, Pellino suggests that teachers create age-appropriate lessons to help children understand the different cultures that surround them (3).  According to Pellino, constructivism is the key to providing children with the skills they need to “become active learners by questioning, hypothesizing and drawing conclusions based on their individual learning experiences” (4).  These are basic but critical skills that will remain with students long after they have changed to other schools.

Another challenging aspect presented by childhood poverty and homelessness is a varying achievement gap between students.  Pellino defines achievement gap as, “The difference in academic performance among children from different classes or groups (ethnic, racial, income)” (4).  Education has always been considered the key to escaping poverty.  People often rise to meet the challenges that are presented to them, and children are no different.  Often, schools will water down material with the misconception that impoverished children cannot handle a rigorous curriculum; however, the opposite is true.  According to Pellino, “Content should be of high quality and be culturally relevant” (5).  Teachers should utilize students’ backgrounds to formulate specialized lesson plans and teaching methodologies.  Only by doing so can achievement gaps be bridged.  Student motivation to learn is a third challenge and is closely related to the achievement gaps discussed previously.  Children of all cultural, economic, and academic realms should be motivated to learn.  Impoverished children have fragile psyches – products of the unstable lives they lead.  These students must be taught why education is important and how education will directly impact their lives.  Teachers face the task of fostering classrooms that build self-esteem and trust.  Additionally, “Educators also need to work to foster resilience in children, focusing on the traits, coping skills, and supports that help children survive in a changing environment” (5).

Utopian classrooms do not exist.  Childhood poverty and homelessness is a social issue that will never disappear.  There will always be the have’s and the have not’s.  Educators face the unique challenge of meeting the needs of all students, regardless of their stations in life.  Traditional teaching methodologies may need to be thrown out the window and replaced with more flexible ones that allow for specialized instruction that more readily molds itself around the unique backgrounds of the children who enter modern classrooms.  It will only be through diligent, focused efforts that children will be able to rise above their difficult circumstances and become confident participants of society.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: certification classes, childhood homelessness, education, teaching |