Learning How to Cross Over Bridges: The Reconstruction of a Teachers Vision MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Sarah E. Prokop PID A37503211 November 20,2013

A teacher walks in on her first day of school and students are sitting at their desks in perfectly straight rows, faces eager to learn, and newly sharpened pencils ready to take on the school year. This teacher is confident in her ability to guide the class and knows exactly what to teach because she has planned day-to-day instruction. She can also fall back on what she has learned in her internship, in case anything goes wrong, because she has seen it done before. Realistically, every teacher knows that this is not the case, yet as students of education we have this vision in our head. I imagined this scene over and over again before stepping into my own classroom, responsible for 30 students growth within the span of a school year. I imagined a classroom where I could teach one unit plan and all students would grasp the material because I would be a good teacher. I imagined a classroom where students would get along with one another and I would successfully build relationships with each and every one. And I imagined a classroom that could run itself independently in the absence of myself. This I believed was attainable, and that there was an end point where I could take a step back and say that I have accomplished this picture in my mind. This was my vision. After attending Michigan State University for my undergraduate degree, and being placed in the Urban Cohort, I thought that my vision was going to be more challenging than I expected. I was able to observe teachers facing the difficulties of our profession during my early field experience and somehow still thought that I would be able to change these pitfalls with the relational capacity I would build with my students. I had been told as a child that I would be a perfect teacher and that teaching was my calling, so I was banking on this reinforcement.

Still having this encouragement in the back of my mind, I decided to start my masters program in South Africa through a study abroad program. I had always enjoyed a challenge, and teaching in South Africa for six weeks seemed like a great catapult into the teaching realm. Little did I know that this experience would challenge me, in a professional sense, for the rest of my career. Our first assignment was to read about the educational history in South Africa through a professors experiences in a book titled Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past: Knowledge in the Blood written by Jonathan Jansen. Professor Jansen was the first black dean of education at the historically white University of Pertoria and spoke of the social and political changes post Apartheid. He discussed the struggles among black and white students at the University, and as a black man set out to change white students perspective. In turn, the vision he had for his students actually turned towards changing him, making him aware of his challenges as an educator and as a human. After an emotional story one of this students shared about their experiences with the opposite race Jansen states, At this moment I realize, for the first time, that these children are my children, and I will spend all of my energy to help them make the transition across this difficult bridge (Jansen 93). The bridge he speaks of is one of human difference and struggle. To meet one another in the middle, despite differences, or help others cross a bridge towards understanding themselves as a person thriving in the society in which they live. Our job to encourage students to cross their own personal bridge is a difficult journey, and at this point I realized that education is not just based on teaching curriculum and lesson plans, but it is much more than that.

This realization manifested on the plane to South Africa without stepping foot in the country. Jansen had changed my perspective as a future educator and I was able to apply this newly acquired lens throughout my six-week stay. During this journey we were also asked to read a 90/90/90 study in which 90% of

students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, 90% of the student body is represented by an ethnic minority, and 90% of students are performing at or above grade level. The schools that made this possible focused on collaboration, high student expectations, and establishing school wide communities. Students knew what was expected of them and high standards were at the forefront. These schools did not take no for an answer when it came to student academic achievement, and this mindset was incredible to me. Due to my experience in the Urban Cohort, through observation, I had paired lower income areas to less resources and lower test scores. This study again challenged my ideas as a future educator, seeing the challenges ahead and acquiring knowledge to confront them (Artifact 1). I would need to expect high standards from my students in order for them to be successful individuals but this sounded much easier than it actually was. After spending six weeks teaching in South Africa I had come to understand the culture and educational system only at a surface level. It would be naive to say that I understood the similarities and differences between South Africa and the United States, but this was a comparison I was asked to make. I focused my research on my experiences in the grade one class I was placed in at Silverlea Primary School. My ideal teaching vision was indeed challenged in this classroom. During the short period of time I was there, two students had to leave school and go to the clinic.

One student threw a pencil at another student stabbing them in the head; another student broke a glass jar in their hand and needed to go to the hospital for stitches. Students were continuously using violence to solve interpersonal issues, and teachers continued to use corporal punishment, even though it was frowned upon. This was not the teaching vision I signed up for. Sadly, I came to realize that some schools in the United States are not much different. Students utilize violence to solve issues because that is what they have experienced. We still have gang violence in the United Stated even if it is not as prevalent as in South Africa. My ideals of teaching to the whole child and focusing on emotional intelligence as opposed to just curricular standards were being reinforced even more so. As Jansen mentioned, I needed to make my students my children (Artifact 2). The next readjustment to my vision was my yearlong internship at Vandenburg Elementary School in Southfield, MI. I thought that I was ready to take on my own classroom after this internship, but after just recently reading an article for a teacher education masters class, I came to understand that this form of teacher preparation was only a glimpse into the teaching world. As Feisman-Nemser refer to student teaching, Moving children through the daily schedule is of course, part of the teachers responsibility but a real teacher also has to decide what the schedule will be, how children should be grouped, and what assignments to put on the board (Feisman-Nemser p.175). I also challenge that a real teacher needs to teach to students emotional development and individual struggles coinciding with academics. This I truly took to heart after stepping into my first classroom.

Upon receiving my teaching certificate, I was hired to teach third grade in a brand new National Heritage Academy whose bricks were being laid as I was asked to join this new team of teachers. The school was built within a summer and we launched our opening with a butterfly emersion ceremony. Little did I know that I too would take flight like the butterflies I watched surround our school building, slowly opening my wings and learning to fly for the first time. I went into the school year, like Jansen, thinking that I would change my students, but in turn, learned that they would change and challenge me. The vision still danced in my head that everything would go just right on the first day of school. I had planned every minute and kept repeating to myself that this would be nothing like my South African adventure. Again, I was wrong. The school year was a challenge and my management was more than lacking. I struggled on a day-to-day basis with students. The relational capacity between students was less than ideal and I was beginning to turn into an authoritarian teacher I despised. The encouragement I received as a child, of being the perfect teacher, was quickly starting to fade. I remember working every weekend, staying at work until 9:00 on countless nights, and coming home absolutely exhausted, seeking solitude and wanting nothing more than a couple extra hours of sleep. Was this the reality of my career and was my vision completely and utterly just an imaginary unattainable goal? After voicing my first year management concerns to my dean, she suggested reading Teaching with Love and Logic written by Jim Fay and David Funk. This book has a huge impact on the teaching world and I was exposed to some of the principles, but I had never put them into practice. This was truly another piece of literature that has
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changed my life as an educator. I reflected back to my philosophy of teaching to the whole child and remembered that I needed to make these children my children as opposed to ruling over them. When I learned that Jim Fay would be in town for a workshop I took this on as a professional development experience. I had always viewed Teaching with Love and Logic as a practice, but I had never thought about the psychology behind the practice until Jim Fay made this very clear to me during his seminar. He told a story that is familiar to many, as either parent or educators. As the adult become more angry or frustrated the child will mirror this behavior or vice versa. This is due to mirror neurons in the brain responsible for these emotions, in order to compete with the opposing person. Flashback. I envisioned all of the mistakes I made as a first year teacher speaking in an authoritarian tone, making open threats, and mirroring my own students tantrums, yet I was supposed to be the adult. As my sister sat next to me seeking parenting advice, we both nodded in agreement with Jim, and silently vowed to work towards changing ourselves as authoritarian figures, moving towards authoritative teaching and parenting. I needed to lovingly hand problems back to students, and this was a bridge I needed to cross as a professional, meeting my students in the middle. After taking a break from the MATC program for two years I was ready to continue my education and it was simple to decide what to focus on. Reflecting on my past journey I had realized that educational psychology was my passion. Understanding students on a deeper level and Teaching with Love and Logic became my focus. The

bricks and foundation first needed to be laid and I was ready to build up from the groundwork. As my school began to transition to Common Core State Standards expectations for student learning were increasing. I agreed with these standards and remembered not to take no for an answer. All students were expected to learn at high levels, yet interestingly enough as I started back into the MATC program I did not have the confidence in myself as I did in my students. My first class was a teaching with technology course. It involved educational psychology and paired this with enhancing teaching through technology. My first assignment was a podcast and I immediately emailed my professor asking if I was in the right section. I have no experience with podcasts how would I complete this assignment successfully? The professor assured me that I was in the right section and communicated that they could make accommodations, but I was then embarrassed with my thought process. If I was expecting my students to learn at high levels, why then was I unable to take a risk and learn something new. So I dove in head first into podcasting and learned that I was more capable then I thought (Artifact 3). How then was I going to instill this into my students? This course challenged me to try new teaching techniques and pre assessment formats. It also helped me understand how students acquire knowledge through the cognitive apprentice approach and the social construction of knowledge. I was able to slowly pull myself away from teaching and put more of the mind power onto my students. Through a home building project my students were able to complete a performance based task, after minor scaffolding, and learned to seek out one another to
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help construct their own knowledge. This was the most powerful learning I had seen take place in my classroom (Artifact 4). In this moment I was able to step back and take in the whole picture. My vision was beginning to become a reality. In year two of my teaching my students were able to build relationships with each other and trust each other enough to work together towards a common goal. They were facilitating their own learning and at a third grade level I began to acknowledge that this was me not taking no for an answer to assure that all of my students would learn at high levels While taking this psychology course I was also taking a management course. Although I had began to teach with Love and Logic, I understood that management would be something teachers will always strive to improve on based on the students they are teaching. It was a wonderful, humbling experience to compare research-based practices with the practices I had established in my classroom. Although I thought that after year two my classroom was running smoothly, I acknowledged that I as a teacher I would continue seek out improvements year to year. Year one was survival, year two I was able to teach with Love and Logic and year three, after taking this course, I decided that I would want to focus on the relationships my students establish with one another. Already I have noticed a difference in my classroom this year as we work towards a whole class reward system and role-playing how to positively interact with others (Artifact 5). Feeling better about the emotional character and psychology behind my practice and my students, I was ready to grow in a different aspect of my practice. During a teacher education course we were challenged to research a problem of practice. Thinking
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back to all of the problems I had encountered in the past, my problems seemed different now. I was a calmer teacher who taught in an authoritative way. I was successfully able to build relationship with my students and encourage them to meet each other on the bridge of their differences, in order to build a classroom community. My next problem of practice stemmed from acknowledging each student as a different entity and differentiating my instruction to meet the needs of my students. Yes I had been told that differentiation was crucial, and yes I thought that I was differentiating in the classroom. But again, I was challenged in my practice and proven wrong. Our school utilizes the Northwest Evaluation Association Measure of Academic test, which is an adaptive test pinpointing students academic level. My students have always had a wide range of academic performance and I knew that challenging each child to succeed at their level was the next step in my practice. As a third grade English Language Arts and Math teacher I decided to first focus on my Math instruction. The problem I focused on was, How do teachers organize math workshop to increase students MAP scores while incorporating Common Core curriculum? After performing many teacher interviews, collecting a great deal of data, and reading related literature I completely reconstructed math workshop in my classroom to bridge these two entities (Artifact 6). Since completing this designers portfolio, I have brought this workshop model to my team, and we have successfully implemented this structure in our classrooms. We will test students again in the winter, collect and compare data, and readjust if necessary. It was valuable to take time to reflect on a problem of practice, in order to reconstruct my
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practice as a professional, and now I am able to see this played out in my classroom. Students are being challenged at his or her individual academic level, and I am able to meet the needs of all of my learners moving them towards success. Throughout this journey my vision of teaching has been reconstructed countless times. I have analyzed myself as an educator and through the MATC program come to realize that my picture perfect vision of teaching is not the end result. Nothing can be perfect. I am not as a person nor are my students. Everyone has their own bridge to cross or bridges they are challenged to meet others in-between. I have acknowledges that in order to become a successful educator I am expected to grow with my students, not just grow my students. They will teach me just as much as I will teach them as I continue to challenge myself as an educator. My philosophy hasnt changed throughout this process it has just been justified and solidified; I still believe that is it my job as an educator to teach to the whole child. I can see the connection between classroom community, student-teacher relationships, differentiation, and constantly trying to reconstruct my individual problems of practice. My vision will continue to be redefined throughout the years. I will continue to never take no for an answer and to remind myself that these are my children, helping my students cross over their own individual bridges as I continue to cross over mine.

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Works Cited Fay, J., & Funk, D. (1995). Teaching with Love and Logic: Taking Control of the Classroom. Golden, CO: The Love and Logic Institute.

Feiman-Nemser, S. (1985). Pitfalls in Experience in Teacher Preparation. Teachers College Record, 87(1), 53-85.

Jansen, J. D. (2009). Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past: Knowledge in the Blood. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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