Week 3

Fukuoka, Japan – Shoheijuku Hombu Aikido Dojo

In Aikido a lot of the training is by doing. Sensei demonstrates the technique a few times and then the students practice.  There should be very little talking and the students practice the movement.  Especially with my language barrier, I am forced to become more observant. Observant of body position, body movement and what the teacher is emphasizing.  I can certainly appreciate our ELL students in Canada for what they go through on a daily basis. I will reinforce with my ELL students to try to be more observant and to just try anything, even if it is wrong.  As this is what sensei is teaching us, less talking more doing.

Each year Suganuma sensei has a phrase that represents the teachings for the year. This year he chose “Hobo kore dojo”.  So the entire phrase comes to mean “each moment in life is your school”.

Whether you are in the dojo or outside the dojo, training is always occurring. What that means to me is, that as a student teacher, training occurs not only during practicum but at home, on the bus, walking the dog, etc. Adaptation, modification, scaffolding, Vygotsky’s proximal zone of development, all of these theories and principles apply inside and outside of the classroom.

Everything is connected. Aikido teaching is connected to classroom teaching is connected to CFE practicum reflections is connected to day to day life lessons.  The guiding questions of: What can I learn from this? What is the teacher trying to teach me? Who else can help me learn? can ignite the creative minds and create new pathways of learning and teaching.  One of the reasons why I practice Aikido is that there are many life lessons to bring into everyday life.  One translation of the word Aikido is “The way of Universal harmony” So I am blending the dojo with the classroom connecting them together.

Week 2

Fukuoka, Japan – Shoheijuku Hombu Aikido Dojo

Each year all of the dojos operating under the Head teacher, Suganuma sensei, gather in Fukuoka to perform short demonstrations from their respective instructors and students.  Approximately 1000 aikido practitioners gather from around Japan and around the world.  This year there were delegates from: Canada, China, Germany, Holland including the schools from the Kyushu area.  I did two demonstrations, one as a group demonstration and the second with my teacher.  There was a student who was 87 years old and was very powerful!

During a lesson, one of my teachers mentioned: “there is no wrong way to do aikido“ and what she meant was that even if a student makes a mistake doing a technique it is still not wrong because the student is still learning aikido and will continue to improve by repeating the technique over and over.  So, from the very first attempt to the 100^th attempt, each attempt is not wrong.  I believe in this philosophy for my classroom as it does not impose any self-esteem issues with the students that they are not capable or not good enough if they are making mistakes.  I have told my students during my practicum that I believe that every student is capable of completing the tasks that I am presenting to them. Some will take a short time to learn and others will take a longer time but there is no such thing as a wrong attempt, just continued practice.

Every class I am learning something new and the head instructor has been teaching aikido for 50 years!  He is 76 years old and has provided training 6-7 days a week over those 50 years.  Occasionally he will travel abroad to conduct seminars as he has come to Vancouver once a year for the last 19 years. I imagine he will be travelling less and less over the upcoming years. I am lucky to learn a fraction of his knowledge and insight into teaching.

Week 1

Fukuoka, Japan – Shoheijuku Hombu Aikido Dojo

This week has been primarily orientation with meeting the instructors and reacquainting with the main instructor.

Culturally, Japan is very polite and organized. There seems to be very few foreigners compared to the multicultural Vancouver and the foreigners I did meet lived here and spoke Japanese.  In Canada, the dojo operates using Japanese culture and etiquette.  Bowing, greetings, thanking each other, are similar in Canada and Japan.  Differences in training culturally was the increased formality in Japan.  Hierarchy and position is very important and is regarded as such.  As a patriarchal society, the women practitioners are treated slightly different but are no less capable than the men.

Although the training is very inclusive, there is a built-in hierarchy that is followed and creates separate divisions within the entire group.  Junior students or white belts, senior students or black belts (yudansha), instructors (shihans), senior black belts (not instructors), female students, all train together but are treated differently. It is impolite for junior students to provide instructions to senior students even if it is done incorrectly.  Where you sit is determined by your rank and position, as a foreigner I sat at the very back, closest to the door while the most senior students sat at the front.

I appreciated the formality because it recognizes the work and dedication the senior students, both men and women, have committed to train in aikido.  It is a humble recognition as the practitioners do not show a different color belt between the newest black belt and the highest black belt. Another interesting aspect that could be used in my classroom is senior students providing training mixed with junior students.  Sometimes I have split classes and I will incorporate a strategy to have the senior students teach the juniors.  This will not only provide feedback for the seniors as “assessment as learning” but also give them some leadership experience.

It is interesting how my original Unit plan for drafting had evolved over the last 10 weeks.  What I thought of doing initially remained relatively unchanged but the sequencing had been shuffled and lesson plans revised several times over.  Between fire drills, Arts Incorporated night, early dismissals, and spring break, I was ok to be over prepared and I have to adjust my expectations of how quickly the students learn and adopt.

What worked well was 15 minute lessons with activities in between and lots of repetition.  The students really enjoyed Kahoot quizzes and didn’t seem to tire of doing them.  I will probably adjust how I use them and integrate a lesson at the same time as delivering the quiz.

Overall it was a personal growth learning experience as I developed my own style and voice.

This week I was encouraged to increase my presence and command of the classroom.  This included: raising the volume of my voice, stopping any side discussion, cell-phone use during class, and giving clear instructions.

Apparently I have a high threshold of background noise which allows and approves of students continuing side discussions throughout a lecture.

I realized that even after I yelled at the students that I can still have a healthy relationship. I once taught Grade 3 after school electronics and I had to raise my voice to teach that class as the students had so much energy.  At the time I thought that I was yelling all the time.  Now I believe that the yelling volume is what is required for the students to clearly understand that instructions are being given.  Moderating the tempo and volume should keep them on their toes.

This week was the first week back after Spring Break. The students were recharged and ready to learn.  One of my classes it was suggested by my SA to create a seating plan.  The seating plan separated the students who were distracting each other, students who worked poorly together and provided the front seats for the students that required the most supervision.  At first, the students did not want to change seats, so we had a discussion as to why the seating plan was created.  Once they understood why, they were less resistant albeit no less annoyed.  It worked well and I will definitely incorporate this strategy in the future.  I am hoping that even for the students who struggle, sitting beside those that can help them will benefit all students.

Midway point meeting notes:

How to create modifications for ELL is challenging to draw the line on how much or how few outcomes are required for the student to succeed. Since it was student centered, I had different expectations for each student.  It certainly is challenging trying to not lower the bar too low just based on language.  In my drafting class I used a website which I felt helped a lot as the students could follow the visuals and not rely too heavily on written comprehension.

Adaptations are easy and straight forward since creating material such as word banks, visual aids, or other students to support each other is relatively easy to make.

This week was the last week leading up to Spring Break and I focused on keeping them busy as their focus was more on spring break than on the material.

How to command attention.  Even the words sounds military – when I was in the military it was easy for the instructors to command attention.  The chain of command dictated who was in charge and the punishment could be more physical activity or some verbal punishment. Most of which facetiously came down to fear, ridicule, and humiliation.  So I have a bias against this style of classroom management although sometimes I feel that it would be the only method that would actually work when the students are running amok.

So far the effective methods have been:

1. awkward silence – waiting for complete silence and then waiting for a bit longer before starting
2. booming voice – although this could backfire and give my voice a short span of effectiveness
3. silence and pause before giving any instructions.
4. stopping activity until instructions are followed

At BCIT the guidelines given to us were “however long it takes you to finish a project – multiply that by 4 and that’s how long it will take the students to do” Well this also applies to any quiz development or exams – if it takes my 10 minutes to complete an exam it will take the students 40 minutes.

This week was the last week before all final marks had to be submitted.  Students were given the opportunity to complete assignments, including make-up assignments or make-up quiz/exams.  I gave a few students the opportunity to complete an assignment that I designed to make-up for a failed quiz.  The intent of this new assignment was for the students who do not perform well under duress, ELL students who needed to show their proficiency with more time to complete.

I have come to the realization that I am not a strict disciplinarian.  Which may seem odd as I have spent many years in the military which is very strict and authoritarian.  It seems that there are many students who are not too interested in marks or grades. They are marking time waiting until the year is over.  I am trying to find out what makes them tick – where do their interests lie.  Their interest may not be in Tech Ed, there may not even be an interest in school. But I believe that there is an interest in something.

Week 4 has been completed and I found that 15-20 minute lectures are the most that the students can bear.  It is also the minimum amount of information that you can give in chunks.  Anything longer than 20 minutes and the chunks are too much to digest.

Another area that is interesting to adapt to is how school activities will affect my unit planning.  I will have planned a full 28 lessons and one week will be interrupted with a school presentation and the students will be focused on preparing for that event. Or a fire drill, or lockdown drill, or etc..  So my unit plan becomes in flux and the lessons downstream become modified and somewhat shortened.  Now I plan a shell and keep the content malleable enough to go with the flow of the school schedule.

I have started a website for my drafting class:   https://sites.google.com/view/remountaindrafting/home

It is for students to review lessons that they have missed, labs to complete, resources and any other messages that I have to post.  Eventually, I will add photos of their projects.