On our third Thursday at Annieville we spent the first whole day with our assigned classroom. I was very pleased to be in the grade 7 class for the whole school day. It allowed me to start to get to know the students, class, and teacher better.

The highlight of my day was watching the democratic process come alive in the class. It all started with the idea of the grade 7’s  to have a haunted house for the school. When the teacher informed them that this would mean they would not have a Halloween party this year some of the  students decided they would rather have the part instead.

So, the teacher put it to a vote. Everyone stood up and if you wanted a party instead of the haunted house you sat down. The majority of the students stayed standing. Then something wonderful happened. The students participated in a respectful and thoughtful debate on the topic.

The student who were wanted a party tried to persuade the student who wanted a haunted house to change their vote. Their reasons ranged from “a party will be less work and more fun” to “we aren’t allowed to do anything scary anyways so why bother”. Slowly the tide began to change and about half of the students were sitting.

Then the students who wanted a haunted house were allowed to argue their case. They reasoned that they had a Halloween party every year but a haunted house was special because it was something only grade 7’s could do. They brought up that a party was something only they would enjoy from but a haunted house was something everyone in the school could enjoy. Their reasoning started to change the mind of the students who had sat down.

Some students started to express that if the class voted in the other direction they would be very unhappy. This brought up the chance for the teacher to talk about how we live in a democracy and recent election. She used the example of how it would be silly if those people who wanted Stephen Harper or Tom Muclair to get into office went on rampage or pouted for four years. She explained we have to make the best out of what we have and that we need to respect the democratic process and the will of the majority.

Before the final vote the teacher spoke to the students about the importance of being true to themselves and voting for what they wanted not to just vote for their friends. She told them that their vote does count and it’s important to vote for what they wanted. However, some students did end up changing their vote once they saw the marjority. After listening to Dr. Lieberman at the Bell Centre yesterday I can understand why. I imagine the social shift that is taking place in the brains had a lot to do with that choice.

This process took up about fourty minutes. The teacher never tried to rush the students to get the project at hand. She let the process unfold and everyone’s voice be heard. While I knew that the teachers preference was to have a party and she told the students that a haunted house was outside of her comfort zone she never once tried to influence them. This was amazing to me because it teaches young people that their voices matter and how to partake in the democratic process.

Another unique lesson that came of this debate was the idea of consent. The student wanted to jump out and grab people. The teacher was able to bring up the topic of consent by explaining that we never touch anyone with their permission. She did not use the language of consent but essentially that’s what she was talking about. She framed it as non-violence which I learning is a core value at Annieville.

On our second day at Annieville we rotated through five different classrooms throughout the day. The classes ranged from a 1/2 split through a 5/6 split. I really enjoyed all of my classroom visits. It’s so interesting to see how different teachers organize their classrooms and the different strategies each teacher uses.

On Questions

Each questions asked by the different teachers had a purpose. They were looking for a certain kind of answer.

Questions as a Management Strategy:

• Are you ready to walk into the gym calmly?
• Can you get it together?
• What does the bell mean? Does it mean bad behaviour?
• These questions clearly had one right answer and were being asked to remind the student of appropriate behaviour. I

Recall Questions:

• Can you remember five things to do with adventure stories?
• What do we do with garbage that is not recycling or organics?
• These questions were asked by teachers to check students memories of previously covered material. The students answered the questions with the desired response.

Clarifying Questions:

• What if the person did X?
• Are we supposed to X?
• These questions were often asked by students after instructions had been given and they were still unsure of some details.

Identifying Questions:

• Who knows where New Foundland Is? Can you show me on the map?
  • This was another type of recall question but more specific than the ones above. The question required movement and active participation from the answerer.

Creative Thinking Questions:

• What can we do with garbage when the pile gets too big?
  • The goal of this question was to generate a list of a possible solutions to an overfull landfill. The students came up with a wide range of answers. Some of their answers were predictable, bury it or burn it. Others were quite creative, building a rocket out of recycled materials and shooting the garbage into space. This open ended question allowed the students to generate unique ideas.
• Why would there be a dog on the cover [of this book]?
  • The teacher wanted the students to think creatively and make some predictions about the story. The students did not disappoint. They had all kinds of creative ideas. They made connections to their lives. They used previous knowledge to predict things. They used other picture clues to make guesses. This question generated a lot of creative thinking and discussion. They were true book detectives.

The most question intensive time I observed was the grade four teacher doing a guided reading. She asked many questions before and during the reading. She asked the student to make predictions. She asked about the meaning of certain words. She asked the students how to describe things in the story. She asked students to make connections to real life. She asked the students to extend their thinking about the book by accessing their funds of knowledge about the content. She asked comprehension questions by asking the students to look for clues in the stories. She asked students to identify and classify things in the book.

On our first day, we rotated through the classrooms of the three host teachers at Annieville Elementary. I started in the Grade 3 classroom. The students were working on writing a story about the nests they had built in Science. The students had written the process of creating the nests in Science and now they were to write a narrative about nests. In LLED 353, we have been discussing school genres and it really enhanced my learning to see the concept being enacted  in a classroom.

After recess I moved to the Grade 4/5 classroom. The teacher was using beans and a camera projector to teach decimals. This really excited me. I love using technology and hands on learning together. The students would make the decimals on their sheets along with the teacher and then wrote it as a decimal, fraction, words, and expanded form. The set-up was my ideal Math teaching setup. I really believe that manipulatives are key to helping students understand numbers and being able to work through an example with the whole class through the projectors was exciting.

I spent the afternoon in the Grade 7 classroom. This classroom was amazing. The teachers desk was in middle of the room and the students desks were in two rings around the room. The teacher had also set up a seven comfy reading areas around the room. The students love these and are selected via name drawn out of a jar of popsicle sticks. After silent reading the class moved on to French. This was a bit intimidating for me as the teacher had told me she almost had a double major in French before class. She is very skilled and the lesson was a dynamic one for sure. The students were having a studying session for the test the next day. She spoke almost exclusively in French. She did some pronunciation and translation exercises and then moved on to Bingo. My French skills are marginal at best. The idea of teaching French a bit scary but a challenge I am ready to take on.