8 weeks down... where does the time go?

8 weeks down... 28 to go... it amazes me how quickly the school year flies by. It seems like just yesterday I was opening the door to room 366 for the first time getting ready to embark and an adventure I had been tirelessly preparing for all summer. As I reflect back and consider how things went my first year, I realize that I wouldn't be there I am today without the mistakes I made before. That being said, I assumed my second year would be drastically easier, and in some aspects I was correct, in others, not so much. 

Dr. K has talked to us about the importance of culture and connecting with our communities and really involving parents to be a part of that. These are things that although I thought I was doing as I reflect on my fist 8 weeks I realize I could be doing a much better job. Connecting with parents is more than just sending home a nightly email with the homework update, or calling to discuss either positive or negative behavior, it is truly getting to know the child, who they are, where they come from, what is important to them and why is it important to them. Without building a strong classroom culture, you aren't setting anyone up for ultimate success. Culture is everything. If I am able to relate to my students and bring their culture and things that are meaningful to them into the classroom then everything else will fall into place. A strong classroom culture allows us to relate and understand one another as well as see things from different perspectives that may help explain why something is the way it is. Having a strong culture leads to understanding the students and what really engages them or means something to them. There is nothing better than an engaged student during a lesson. Engagement helps with behavior problems, critical thinking, inquiry, involvement, connections, everything that I as a teacher wan for my students. And all that needs to happen to get us there is a strong classroom culture.

I realize that our good times are ones where students are engaged and feel valued as a student in the classroom. They are days that students are able to see themselves as a part of the group and not just another name on the roster. They are able to make sense of what is going on in the room around them because they have an understanding of what the students in the room around them are like. They are making connections with science experiments that go way further than filling in vocabulary words on a worksheet.

I knew that the first year would be one of the hardest things I have ever done. And I was right. I also had high hopes that the second year would be much easier in the sense of I to some extent knew what to expect. I am lucky enough to be teaching the same grade and same subjects with the same co-teacher so all of the hard work and keeping track last year has paid off to some extent. I think what I realize more than anything is that I am able to take what I learned from last year, both in regards to academics and behavior, and apply it this year in an even more strategic way. Last year was all about trying to stay afloat, and not that this year isn’t either, but at least this year I am able to start with what I learned from last year and work from there, I do not have to start from scratch. I am also able to take the wonderful techniques I learned during Dr. Jarrett’s class in regards to inquiry and really apply them in science. My students didn’t learn science last year, they learned key vocabulary words and hypothetical situations. This year my students have already had the opportunity to decompose bananas in the classroom, create ecosystems for animals they discover on the playground while exploring THEIR world, create and link the conceptual ideas around food chains and food webs to their diet and create new humans with animal like adaptations and discuss how their lives would change. They have been able to think critically, use their world around them to make meaningful connections and continue to inquire new ideas that arise as they think through what is currently happening around them. They are being scientists!

 I have learned a lot from all of my classes throughout grad school but our numbers and operations class with Dr. Smith has brought so many things to the forefront for me in regards to mathematics. One of my goals for this year for my students was to make sure they were able to see the connections between the real world and what we do inside our classroom every day. The way  she has helped me look at mathematics and realize that every math problem is simply a story for a student to discover has been amazing. Through the use of real world examples, story problems and a classroom culture built around their interests I have been able to celebrate in the success of strong math lessons this year. Ones that are not students repeating the same type of standard algorithm over and over again but instead ones that they can take outside the classroom and directly apply to their knowledge of the real world. This has been a huge success and celebration throughout the past 8 weeks. 

Throughout the next 28 weeks I am going to continue to work on culture in the classroom. A strong classroom culture does not appear overnight, and it takes consistency from the teacher to help nurture a strong classroom culture. I can be honest in saying that consistency is not always my strong point when it comes to starting or trying new things. I realize though as I look back over my highs and lows that my highs are because culture was evident and my students knew it. On the other hand, my lows were because our classroom culture was weak and I was being inconsistent with my nurturing of things. By keeping on top of our classroom culture and by continuing to nurture it through the next 28 weeks I am confident that everything else will fall into place. I am lucky to have such wonderful, excited, amazing, intelligent students who trust me to help them achieve the goals they have set their mind to, now it is my turn to show them how it is possible.