by Kathryn Williams - Taft High School
POW: Several times this week students got taken out of my class for misbehaving somewhere else. It is really frustrating because it happens to students who are well behaved, but unmotivated in my class; students who need to be there to be learning the material. I had students taken out for in-school suspension without any prior warning twice this week. I would have liked to have been able to prepare work for the course that they could have worked on while they were there, but without any notice I did not have materials ready for the students. Another time this week a student was pulled out of my classroom to talk to the dean about an incident from the day before when he was caught texting in another teacher’s classroom.
This makes me so angry. I cannot believe how common it is to take students out of a classroom that they should be in and are not misbehaving in, to punish them for something they have done in another setting. Apparently things like this are very common at the school. I was talking to some of the other mathematics teachers who said that they are hardly ever notified when students are going to be at in-school suspension, which is unbelievable to me. I cannot believe that they would hold them in a separate room in the school for an entire day without attempting to have something for them to work on that will allow them to be caught up in the classes that they are missing when they return. Students are so much more likely to misbehave when they are confused by what is going on and feeling stupid than when they are caught up with the rest of the class.
WOW: This week we were supposed to be doing a lot of research for our neighborhood research project in which we investigate the way that the neighborhood and community work together. We were supposed to interview one administrator and someone else from the neighborhood. We were having a little bit of trouble with our administrator interview because the assistant principal we were going to interview was always busy when we were both available, so we sought out one of the other two. We ended up getting our interview with one of the others, and it was a really great experience. Neither Monica or I had met him before, but he was very kind and helpful and knew a lot about the history of the school and the neighborhood. At the end of the interview he told us that if we needed anything else throughout our time at Taft to be sure let him know and he would be willing to help us. It was really nice to get another contact within the school. I have added some pictures from our neighborhood project. The first is the front of our school, and the second is of the park close-by.
Hi! I am in Professor Post's class and he asked us to look at your blog. I'm glad he did! You have alot to say. I understand where you're coming from on the attendance point. In my aiding placement, the social workers are continually pulling students out, so I never know how many students I will be teaching on any given day, and students get pulled out midlesson. I am teaching social studies though, so it is alot easier for them to catch up. I hope you can keep the students from falling too far behind even when they are pulled out. Keep up the good work! It sounds like you are doing a good job and I really enjoyed reading your blog. Sincerely, Audrey Noonan
ReplyDeleteHi Kathryn. I am from Prof. Pete Post’s class at Trinity. I really enjoyed reading your blog! It’s nice to hear what teaching is actually like, not just reading about it in texts books. It seems like students being pulled out of the classroom is a really big issue these days. Whether it is for therapy sessions, trips to the office, or other services, it seems rare that all of the students are present for the entire lesson. Like you said, this can be very frustrating, and I’m sure every teacher in the world would agree with you! I am experiencing this in the classroom I am aiding at in my placement. Some students are being pulled out for extra reading help. Even though they are working on reading, they don’t always accomplish all the work that they students in the regular classroom do. That means that the teacher is the one who then has to catch that student up with the rest of the class. In times like these you just have to remember why you chose teaching in the first place. We want to be teachers because we want to help students learn. We want to fill them with knowledge and skills that they can apply to their lives. If I am ever in this situation, and I’m sure I will be one day, I will have to remember that all my extra work will be worth it. Just remember in your situation that all that extra work you are putting into the students who are being pulled out is worth it. Stay strong and push through it! Thank you for sharing! Kristen Faber
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