Author: douglas pham

June 29, 2018

As I wrap up my last morning here at my homestay’s place, I find myself thinking of the question, “What will I remember from this?”

The generosity of the family I am staying with. The children who run up to give hugs. The child who called me his favourite teacher even though I have only been in his class a handful of times. The principal who eagerly shared his passion and joy for hiking and nature. The multiplicity that is the teaching staff.  The proximity to nature and the connectedness that Princeton teachers have with the community. The girl gave me a farewell letter. The girl who follows me and likes to pretend to be my shadow. The teacher who invited me over for dinner and forgot that it was her wedding anniversary. The teacher who shared with me the benefits of being on time with deadlines. The son who packed me a lunch. The father who cooks wonderful dinners. The reflections that I have made. The cheeky little girl who goes through a lot with her family. The trouble makers who are genuinely curious and thoughtful children.

I will not forget the great responsibility and blessing that I have in being part of children’s growth.

June 28, 2018

On this last day of school, I tried to focus on a thought, an idea, a striking revelation; it was a difficult endeavour because of the rapturous energy that was going through the school. Yet, in a moment of calmness and directness, a child comes to me during P.E., where they are all doing different activities, and hands me a ball and a scooper (jai alai if you are familiar with the proper term). He waits for me to play with him.

How does a child ask for help?

This child brings things to you and acts when he needs something and uses words very sparingly. Even in the class situation he does likewise: he is quiet (though he likes to run away and gets off topic as do most grade 1s), and he asks only when he wants something. During centres, I observed another child sit quietly on the carpet next to a student; he held a pack of large playing cards in his hands and sat there waiting. He wanted to play cards, but he did not ask. Did he know how to ask? I remember prompting him, did you want to play cards? He gave me a positive response, and I encouraged him to ask the student beside him to play cards with him… They did not end up playing cards.

It is important that students learn to speak their needs and wants. It is a task that is surprisingly difficult because it requires that students identify what they are going through, and what external factor it is that they need from those around them in order to grow/learn/be content/sleep/eat/play. To further complicate the situation, how you ask can sometimes cause people to shy away from you. As a grade 1 student, they are still learning how to ask others to play with them. Funnily enough, I have never liked the idea of a play-date, but upon reflecting, it makes sense as a beginning to understanding how the social dynamics of setting up an appointed time works.

As I prepare my material for my incoming grade 7 students, I hope for one primary thing: that they further deepen their own process of making sense of the things around them: “What do I want/need?” “What makes me joyful?” “What makes me angry?” I think these are vitally important questions that are always significant. Watching the little children at John Allison Elementary during these last 3 weeks has been an amazing blessing. What the kids are doing is trying to make sense of the world, in a way that is slightly different, but not fully removed, from the way that adults try to make sense of the world. The children’s world is the school and family contexts… Ours, us big people, we just have a bigger sense of what the world is. Ultimately we are just trying to make sense of everything and further engage the world as best we can.

June 27, 2018

Today is the day before the last day of school and I am once again with the grade 3s. I was eager to join them on their field trip to the grade 4-7 elementary school, however before we could go on the field trip, there was a morning that needed to be lived through… The main teacher decided that we would begin the morning with our read aloud of The One and Only Ivan, quite a good book in my opinion except for the fact that there is blatant anthropomorphization. Other than that philosophical qualm, I love reading to students… But when is it too much?

There were moments during the read aloud where I awaited some interjection from the teacher to move on/continue with a different activity; I kept reading… and reading….. and reading……. until I found that it was difficult to engage and read to my students when some of them were becoming very “shifty”, just waiting to release pent up energy. At the end of the read aloud, when we finally transitioned to talking about the field trip, there was obvious relief. Mind you, I engaged the students in as many ways as I could, prompting their thinking with questions, rereading significant sections, using gestures, making eye contact, and asking for opinions time to time, but they were quite reluctant or aloof in sharing their ideas; perhaps that was because sharing their ideas during reading time was something unfamiliar to them. Nevertheless, by the end of the read aloud, we had gone through 60 pages. Sixty pages. That’s a significant amount of time spent sitting and listening. I mean, sure I am an engaging reader in my humble opinion, but that is a long time to stay still…

What I wonder is: To what extent will we compromise behaviour for desires and to what extent will we compromise desires for behaviour? It was quite clear to me that the students needed to move or engage in more active-activities, but on another note, the teacher with me had run into some difficulties regarding a few final reading assessments and report card business amongst other stressors in her life, thus she was using the reading time to do some catching up.

I wonder what I will do when I am in that situation. I hope that I would adequately implement my reporting structures and marks such that I would not need to cram my reports in during the last week or two. I feel very blessed to be able to see both ends of the spectrum: one teacher finished all of his report cards a week early, whereas the other is just about to finish hers. Live and learn.

June 26, 2018

Competition… Compete… Compētere. The etymology of this words an intriguing one: Compētere literally means searching with/together, or asking for with/together. One is literally searching for or striving for the same goal, namely that of excellence and achievement.

I noticed that one of the grade 3 girls was particularly competitive when it came down to her work/academics; more often than not, it was a matter of who finished unscrambling words first, or who finished the assigned colouring sheets before the other person. Where does competition fit in the new curriculum? In light of inclusivity and diversity, the notion of competition and “winning/losing” seems to have gone out the window and has transitioned to giving out participation ribbons. The benefits of this is a reduced sense of anxiety and pressure to be the best in relation to others, but I worry about what it means to really be victorious in any sort of sport, or even in the business world: only one company can vie for a job or project… Can there be multiple first places? I am not fundamentally against participation rewards, or recognition, but no company recognizes the work of a employee who has recently joined them, there is not award for being married for a day, nor is there such a thing as a “day one jubilee”. Time, effort, dedication, work, and results are things that would garner recognition.

In my opinion, it seems that there is a confusion or a lack of distinction between recognizing the fact that people even consider putting in effort at all for anything versus the quality of it. Thus, in any activity, performance, or faculty oriented objective, what is it that we are trying to promote and recognize? I daresay that, in those cases, the focus is not on the fact that we are individuals with inherent dignity, honour, and due respect. The focus is on what we can do well.

Today I taught a science lesson surrounding the nervous system where the students had to engage in a ruler-drop activity. Their challenge was to grab the ruler as quickly as possible while someone held it above their hand while the palm was oriented side to side, making it such that the 0 cm mark was on par with the top of their hand. The majority of the students became fixated on competing and beating each other, as opposed to focusing on doing their best. In the end, we had a few students who managed to “instantaneously” catch the ruler before it even dropped at the 0 cm mark. Not possible, in my humble opinion.

Ultimately, I think there needs to be a clear understanding in the pedagogical field, especially with this new curriculum based on human persons and core competencies, between recognizing students for being individual humans befit for dignity and honour, and recognizing work and excellence. Neither should be compromised for the other.

June 25, 2018

As I returned to the grade 3s today, I looked around meanwhile students poured in and we began the day. When attendance took place on the carpet, some students were rolling and fidgeting, I thought to my self, “Wow, these kids can not sit still.” How much of a challenge for students is difficulty in focusing; how difficult is it to be a student in a classroom of 15+ children when you have ADD/ADHD? The sounds, shapes, sights, stimulation, thoughts, and movement…. How difficult is it to process all of that?

I was dropping off my girlfriend home as her brother was washing his car; I greeted him, and we had a brief chat. He was diagnosed with ADHD when he was younger, so school was a struggle for him. What was fascinating to me was his description and experience of time. He does not have a sense of time that is oriented around a clock, be it 12-hour or 24-hour. He processes time in reference to what he does. For example, he happened to have had a full day of activity, and it felt like he has been through 2-3 days. The notion of “having an hour” versus “five hours” or “too much/too little” time is dependent on what exactly has been done. Furthermore, “what has been done” is most likely dependent and correlated with what he is interested in. In many ways, he learns and engages with things best as a kinaesthetic learner.

In pedagogical circumstances, how difficult is it to differentiate and assist such students in their learning? I asked my teacher what kind of designations he had in the class, and there was only one; I was expecting at least 2-3. We talked about the nature of differentiation and he concluded that it was impossible in terms of logistical execution and resources: fascinating. I am hesitant to agree with him. The favours are definitely not “for” any class that lacks an EA, note that this does not even consider how adaptations and differentiation would look. Ultimately, the burden of support falls to the teacher, and the teacher needs to discern and decided upon what are the most adequate approaches to meeting students’ needs.

As I begin this last week of my Community Field Experience, I slowly realize more and more how much effort and work teaching really is. Yet, what an honour and joy it is to be able to talk with students through their learning. Despite the difficulties that I anticipate, I do realize that, like this grade 3 class’ teacher, I can possibly, finish my report cards a week in advance if I am diligent with my reporting system. It is amusing to watch him listen to the other staff members frantically scramble to finish up report cards while he has already finished his. (He has not told any of them that he has them done already.)

June 22, 2018

I laid on the grass, as I supervised my kindergarteners who were on a day field trip with the rest of the school: the group (of males and a female) under my care ran back and forth between their castles, two large rocks, and created an elaborate imaginative game of knights, kings, and seals with their swords, which were the “slap on wristbands” that we had provided for dividing groups.

What gave me a profound fascination and shudder was the fact that I was once amongst these children. I remember a time long past when I was kindergartener and I also had participated in these kind of games. Instead of knights, kings, and what not… we played power rangers, with our magical powers, running back and forth from various bases, which were the opposite fences on the concrete parking lot that was our playground. (I even had an imaginary pet dinosaur back in the day…)I find it hard now to imaginatively immerse myself in such a situation: I do not do well in “pretending” to do something. I need to actually do it in order to learn and grow. Furthermore,  even the notion of pretending that my colleagues are grade 1 students and teaching to them is on the verge of being abhorring to me. Yet, once upon a time, I was so acquainted with an imaginative style of playing. What happened to me?

Frankly, I think it is the my developmental process and joy of finding philosophy in my early teenage years and my emotional disconnection from my family during my elementary years. Nevertheless, I very much think of myself as a creative person, though I function much more freely and joyfully within clearly defined parameters… otherwise, I just set my own.

On another note, as I was observing this group of boys play their game, one of our kindergarten girls was also sitting upon the rock amongst them and she wanted to join them: they would not let her. Why? Was it because she was female? Was it because there was not much commonality amongst them and her? Was it because she could at times be imposing and, I daresay, somewhat socially awkward? What is the challenge in making a friend?

The child came to me, and she expressed her concerns. I thus told the boys to let her join. She ran with them for a bit…. but they excluded her again. In my mind, I began to think: If they do not want to include her in this imaginary game that they invented, should she not simply walk away and find her friends? When I was in Kindergarten, I did not have this issue; I would have been one of the boys, and I would have participated in their imaginary game…. Yet, would I have been disheartened were they to shun me? I do not know, yet I do not think so… For years, I have been accustomed to managing my own, and I would happily step away from a group that was not interested in having me participate in their activities or anything as such. I know what I want and who I am; their desires and conceptions of me is not a major concern. When that girl came to me the second time, I invited her to sit beside me, and I asked her, “Katie, who is a friend of yours in the class?” She began listing a few of the other girls. I encouraged her to spend time with her friends. Why? Because these are the people that have demonstrated that they accept her, and are willing to be with her. Should this not be the case? What is one to do when they are rejected by a group, yet they want to be part of the group?… I personally think that, if a group were to have a mentality of rejection towards me, I would not be desirous of joining them (Mind you I come from a position of transiency, wherein I have never felt fully invested in many communities, with the exception of two previous contexts in my life that have ended and changed).

When Katie grows up, she will most likely remember this part of her life: the rejection… but hopefully the friends as well. When the boys grow up, they will most likely remember the imaginative play that they engaged in… but hopefully that it was done with others and that they had been given the opportunity to include…

June 21, 2018

Something that I am always trying to look for is the establishment and creation of responsibility, whether it is from a created task or role, or if it is from a genuine need. For example, if a teacher wanted to create a sense of responsibility in the classroom, students could be assigned floor cleaning duties, which is a created task or role… the custodian will eventually clean and sweep the floors anyway. However, if there is a student that needs to provide himself with hydration through a tube, that is a need.

In the Grade 1 class that I spent most of my day with, there are established roles for the week, routines, and the shape of the day is always a reference point that the students refer to. Furthermore, there are specific ways of putting items away and modes of behaviour that are proper. For those who exhibit unacceptable/unaccepted behaviours, the usual comment is: “Hey, that’s rude!” It is often times amusing to me because sometimes it may be a student who casually puts away markers by gently tossing them into a bin; that’s something I do all the time… it is efficient, and does not harm the markers in anyway. Yet, the behaviour that is desired in a grade 1 classroom is that the markers are literally placed into the container from which they come. The kids notice change and deviancy.

Normal is a powerful tool for establishing routine, because it sets the stage for the formation of desired behaviours and habits. Yet, do we not,  as teachers, seek and strive to nourish a type of “thinking outside of the box”…. creativity? Yesterday I was talking with my host teacher regarding freedom, creativity and structure, and I was reminded of my own belief that freedom works best within a structure or framework. The new curriculum provides freedom, but it does not provide structure. That is the work of the teacher and the classroom environment. I think that the idea of absolute freedom outside of any framework or structure is ludicrous. The necessities of life, such as bodily functions thrive with structure, and likewise habits. Earlier, I mentioned the scenario of a child giving himself hydration through a tube… that happened today.

A child with a plethora of kidney and liver difficulties, was using a syringe and a tube that was connected to, I reckon it was, his intestines. With the assistance of an EA, he filled his syringe with water, connected a rubber pipe to an inlet that was inserted and positioned on his abdomen, and pumped the water into his body. This is a necessary routine: washing his hands, filling the syringe, connecting the tube, turning the locks, and activating the oneway valve/clip on the tube… detaching the tube, making sure the locks are closed, emptying the tube, emptying the syringe, and putting all of those items away.

The power of normal, beckons the question of what is a more effective place of learning? A situation where students are forced to adapt, survive, and be creative due to a total lack of logistical structures; or the growth of adaptation, and creativity within a logistical structure provided by an adult who has, hopefully, gone through the thought processes of what makes a reasonable pattern of routine for developing positive behaviours and habits? I err on the latter.

June 20, 2018

The classroom is always a fascinating place: there are many little people that come from many different kinds of communities and they establish a new community under the guidance of a teacher, who exerts major influence.

I was with another Kindergarten class today, and the question that kept coming to my mind was, “How do children bring each other down and how do they build each other up towards growth?” Our class received a new student (Jerry) some months ago, and it seems like he has still not fully integrated into the community: he does not adhere very well to the social norms in the class and, most of the time, does not follow the general code of conduct. I wonder to what extent is it the newness of his situation and to what extent is he experiencing challenges such as ADD or dissociation. An interesting thing to note is that he has an apparent tendency to copy another student (Bob) who is behaviourally challenged. I believe that part of this is because the child who was being copied received a lot of attention for his negative behaviour, and so the young newcomer perceived that this was the way to get attention and recognition… negative attention is better than no attention.

Both of these students get into trouble quite frequently, but my teacher has told me that Bob has made so much progress in his learning and social skills… but it seems like there has been a  regression due to his interactions with Jerry. Why is it that instead of Bob pulling Jerry up towards success, the both of them are moving towards negative and disruptive behaviour? I think part of it is that Bob is reluctant to journey with Jerry.

Whenever Jerry is copying Bob, he reacts negatively and naggingly exclaims, “Jerry is copying me!” It seems that Bob is not ready to take any sort of leadership role, nor that of companion for another student’s growth. His own context is already a sufficiently large endeavour and anything else is overwhelming. To add to the complexity of the situation, sometimes Bob sees Jerry misbehaving or copying him and he threatens saying, “I’m telling on you!” In fact, he does not always tattles on him. The difficulty with this situation, where a student is integrating is that there are mixed messages, and a culture of “getting away with things” is established. What exactly is permissible and what is not?

I have tried diverting Bob’s attention and reservations about being copied towards positive behaviour as well, but it seems ineffective. “You know Bob, sometimes Jerry would like to copy you because you have done something well”….. “But he’s copying me!” (In my mind, I think, “Yes. Yes he is, child. That’s the point.” It is fascinating how Jerry, who was initially an outsider is trying to integrate himself into this community. I wonder what his previous school was like… I wonder why he entered the school with such a delay.

P.S. My pun identification experiments are still underway and without expecting them from youthful Kindergarteners… A girl asks her audience, while putting on a puppet show, “What do you call a pig that knows karate? A pork chop!” My findings are preliminary and immensely hopeful: the youngest grade at which one may a pun is….. Kindergarten.

June 19, 2018

I spent this day with the Kindergarten students, and it became more apparent that one female child engaged adults with a proficient and higher degree of cheekiness than did the others. Furthermore, there was a moment where two of the boys argued with each other about a trade between them involving toy cars, and my cheeky student stood up, interjected and said, “Guys, there are bigger problems in the world… Like cancer.” After that comment, she sat back down and started working again.

From whence comes cheekiness, or in other terms, sass? I thought about this question for a few hours today and I have come to the conclusion that cheekiness, or sass, is a higher form of social interaction. Why? To effectively use cheekiness/sass you must understand what is being asked or what is happening, and then you must take that data and reformulate it such that it is mildly off-putting for the recipient of your comment, yet still maintains the respect that is due to another human being. The danger of using this is that you walk a fine line between humour and disrespect. My concern regarding this is to what extent is sass social competency and to what extent is it learned behaviour? Is this child simply acting cheeky because of how she has seen interactions at home?

By the end of the day, I recalled some other difficulties in her context: She has an older brother in grade 2 who exhibits many behavioural challenges. Furthermore, in her home-life, many choices and situations are subjected to the whims of her brother because her mother opts to appease him in order to maintain control over his behaviours. I heard that recently, her older brother pulled down her pants and stuffed rocks in it, amongst other things. It was also interesting to hear a comment from my cheeky student herself: A handful of the students were drawing pictures of themselves when they were 1 year-old and what not, and she said that her brother had taken feces and smothered it on her wall when she was younger. I also remember another moment in the class where, when she was not given what she wanted, stated quite blatantly, “I never get what I want.”

Perhaps this cheekiness is actually a coping mechanism that she has developed in order to navigate the situations surrounding, most notably, her brother and, by extension, others who impede or prevent her desires. It is certainly an unfortunate situation that she is in, having an older brother who is more of a tormentor than a sibling who loves her, but I wonder how she will grow from this. It seems that the community of her home-life is highly influencing how she develops as a human being and I wonder how her future social interactions will carry themselves. Will her cheekiness or sass thus become an “I instinctually/automatically act this way,” or will it be an “I choose to act this way.” No one likes a perpetually sassy person, especially when the sass begins to sting and hurt, like a dull knife poking at one’s side until it breaks the skin. It seems like she needs someone to make her become truly aware that she is loved and that her desires can be met. How this will occur? Only God knows that.

June 18, 2018

What makes a good audience? I have read to students on numerous occasions, and I do think of myself as a competent reader; I read questions as if I were asking a question, and sentences that end in exclamation marks will definitely reflect such. Yet, what of the audience? Is a good audience composed of children sitting on a carpet, cross legged, with eyes forward? Is a good audience a group of children sitting at their desks? Perhaps a good audience is a collective of children that are commenting and reacting to what is being read?

Today, I was with a Grade 2 class, that has a notable amount of challenging behaviours. Two students are on medication for ADHD, two others are diagnosed, two more are undiagnosed but exhibit behavioural challenges, and one child has autism (There are also a handful of students who have learning difficulties). It is definitely a difficult class.

Nevertheless, my attention was particularly focused on our reading and the audience. I noticed that the students were not fully attentive when we began reading a magnificent little book called Bob. The book was about an eleven year old girl, Livy, and her long forgotten zombie-in-a-chicken-suit friend who she left for five years in a closet at her gran’s place. (Fascinating, I know.) The kids were not entirely engaged with the first chapter, and I wondered why this was. My teacher did have a soft voice, but she also allowed the students to sketch the main character as descriptions of Livy were provided through the book. I noticed that not all of the students had made sketches, nor were they doodling. After lunch, there was another reading session and I simply had to get a go at trying to enrapture the students in the book.

For chapter 2, I decided to give the students an option: We could either read chapter two with everyone at their desks doing a sketch of the zombie-in-a-chicken-suit or sit at the carpet. After voting, we went to the desks and I began reading. As per habit, I walked throughout the classroom and amongst the desks as I read (I noticed that this is an effective tool for engaging students who find content too mediocre). The students became enraptured with the story, and many of them did not do a sketch. How did I know they were enraptured?… The desks all face the board, and I noticed that over half the class swivelled their bodies to face me as I paced around at the back of the students. Furthermore, the students with behavioural challenges were not acting out, and there was a palpable focus in the classroom: How much of this was my reading style, and how much of this was the book? (A loaded question of course, because the answer is both…)

By the end of chapter 2, the enraptured students let out a collective “Awww! Can we read the next chapter?” I consulted their teacher, and she agreed to another chapter. Therefore, I told the students, since not many of them had made sketches, “We will sit on the carpet”… In my mind, I had already set up my experiment: I am going to test how sitting in a “comfortable” position, lying down, sitting on a chair in close proximity, or whatever their acceptable position (no feet on chairs), affects an enraptured audience.

The initial set up at the carpet took a few extra minutes because one child who had opted to sit on a chair had moved into the proximity of a child with behavioural challenges. After that was resolved by the removal of the chair, because it was inhibiting learning, the students quickly became absorbed into the story. Eyes and ears were consistently on me, and the students were highly invested in the story. At the end of the chapter, they still hungered for more and it was time to transition to the gym.

Why is the question of what is an audience and an enraptured audience important to me?

This question came to me as I watched one of the children reprimanding another for encroaching upon his activity. In a very deprecating tone that was on the verge of verbal abuse, he scolded a classmate of his for a mediocre intrusion. This he did on multiple occasions and he chimes in with the teacher when she is correcting other students’ behaviours. Mind you, the teacher does correct him for his speaking out during such moments as well. Ironically, he himself exhibits many behavioural challenges and often intrudes into others’ learning. Where did he learn this tone of voice, this attitude towards behaviours that offend or disturb? Parents… teachers… other children… siblings. The community.

This school, all schools, are part of a larger integrating community that is the family unit. For that student, the school may not necessarily be the primary concern in his life: he has his home life, which provides many social influences. It reminds me of another student in the class that was more concerned about his dirt biking, shooting firearms (a .22 and a pellet gun), and upcoming quad race which had a side-by-side as the first place prize. The audience that teachers will have when they are reading, when they are teaching is a highly confusing and diverse one. Nevertheless, it seems that the transition to becoming an enraptured audience that is highly invested in the activity at hand is very possible.

Still… I wonder why the students were enraptured. Was it my reading and style, or was it the book? Probably both.