I am not going to lie. I was the most nervous I have been in a very long time leading up to TOC day. It was the factor of the unknown that was really getting to me. What is the school going to be like? What will the other TC’s S.A. be like? Will the students even listen to me? What if I have no idea how to teach what I’m expected to teach? I am so comfortable in my own class that sometimes I forget all the skills that I have built throughout this 10-week practicum. The anxiety built as the day got closer, however it was comforting talking to my fellow TC’s and realizing that they were feeling the same way. We got our class assignments the afternoon before and as I had suspected all along, I was placed in a grade 6/7 classroom. Ah! What if they trample all over me? A long evening was spent prepping for the other TC to come into our classroom. Which also came with a whole set of learnings. The next day was an earlier start as we wanted to make sure we were there with lots of time to get signed in, familiar with the school, and figure out what our day would look like. Once we got into our classrooms and took a peak at the Shape of the Day, I began to feel a bit more settled in and ready for the exciting day ahead. As I greeted the students at the door and we began with our class meeting, I felt comfortable. There were challenging moments throughout the day, however it was a very positive experience in all. I left feeling more confident about my skills as a teacher and feeling like I can step into almost any classroom as a TOC.
Week Eight
This week saw many challenges regarding student behaviour. One student has been confronting behaviour issues beginning mid-year and escalating throughout this practicum. Last week was a particularly hard week and I was finding my time with my students being eaten up by attempting to calm, please, and figure out this student. It was seeming unfair to the rest of the students because they were quite disruptive outbursts that would basically stop a lesson from continuing. It was helpful having my E.A., being able to take this child for a walk or my S.A. who would pop in every now and then to check on things. However, what I am left wondering is how would I deal with this situation if I didn’t have the support of my E.A., S.A., and child care worker? After discussing these outbursts and challenges with my S.A., she suggested that I talk to the parents about the declining behaviour we are currently seeing in the classroom. There were previous meetings where the parent had seemed open to conversations about their child, yet recently they were closed off. I approached the parent after school one day and voiced my concerns about the behaviour of their child and that it was unfortunately becoming extremely disruptive to the learning of the rest of the classroom. The parent was receptive about this communication which felt like a step in the right direction. It’s a difficult situation to be in, as a teacher, when a child is struggling emotionally in a classroom yet you still have 20-25 other students who depend on you in that moment. We are lucky here at my school because we have so much extra support for students like a counsellor, child care worker, IST, E.A.’s, etc. Yet, those resources are being spread so thin throughout the entire school. How do we make sure all our students’ needs are being tended to in a right and just way?
Week Six
Self-care. It is one of the most vital things I can ever do for myself. At the end of Week 5 I came down with a nasty cough and cold and as much as I “took rest” over the weekend, I still went into Week 6 not feeling 100%. Surrey was lucky enough to have a short week in the classroom as Friday was the Surrey Teacher’s Association Convention and there were workshops running all day at one of the local high schools. I was excited about this day because… professional development! My first workshop was titled Asking the Right Questions. We discussed essential questions, wonder, and student-focused questioning. The second workshop was Teaching with the Heart in Mind, a workshop about Social and Emotional Learning. The presenter opened with something along the lines of “you’re here because you need something for yourself”. I was hooked. We discussed typical SEL lingo like attachment theory, the prefrontal cortex, mindfulness, and the fight-or-flight response. However, what stood out for me the most was the underlying message of self-care. Taking care of ourselves is the most important step to taking care of our students. How in the world could we tend to the needs of 24 tiny humans if we can’t tend to our own needs? I began thinking about how the whole week I had been feeling tired, I had a headache most of the week, coughed whenever I laughed, and had a very very short patience. This workshop was the wake-up call I needed. It also inspired me to infuse for SEL into the classroom in the coming weeks. My last workshop I was attending for the day I had originally chosen for myself. After a day full of professional development, I wanted to go into the weekend feeling refreshed. Laughter Yoga was the last workshop I did and it was incredible. Not only was it just fun to do, I took away so many ideas that I can use for Daily Physical Activity, transitions, Physical Education and Health, and just everyday fun! Heading into Week 7, I am committed to taking care of myself by moving my body every day (for a minimum of 30 minutes), getting enough sleep (between 8-9 hours per night), and eating home-cooked meals 90% of the time.
Week Five
One thing that I value very much in my own life is personal development. I love discovering more about myself and the why behind who I am. I almost always have a personal development book on the go and I have written a 10-year vision of what I want my life to look like, along with 1, 5, and 10 year goals I am working towards. This drive to become the best human being I am capable of stems from wanting to learn. I believe this is partly what has drawn me to teaching. It’s not just our students who are learning every day in the classroom, it is also the teacher. Every day we learn more about certain topics, how we view the world, what did and did not work in a lesson, and we also learn a little more about ourselves every day. What I appreciate about the Surrey School District is that they too feel it’s important to be developing the teachers in a professional domain. You could attend a professional development workshop almost daily at the District Education Centre. Essentially this entire year has been one big professional development workshop. On Wednesday, a fellow Teacher Candidate and I attended a workshop on early literacy and story workshops for students and on Thursday we attended a workshop that was presented by our Faculty Advisor on Indigenous Education and Pedagogy. I took a few minutes at both workshops to look around the room at the other individuals who attended. Yes, many were younger and early in their careers, however there were many faces who have put in decades in the classroom. What I love about those individuals is that they have not become complacent in their teaching. They are striving to be current for their students, facilitating the best learning environment they can. As I reflect on this week, I am reminded about one of my five year goals: by September 2021 I am enrolled in a one-year professional development opportunity per year.
Week Four
This week came with a lot more responsibility. Unfortunately, my S.A. picked up a few of the many germs floating around an elementary school classrooms and was out for two of our three days together last week. A TOC was called in for both days and luckily, there was one available to cover our Grade 2 classroom. I was more than happy (and ready!) to step up and take on the responsibility of the classroom since I know the kids and our routines. There is a lot to think about when you are the central teacher in the classroom… Did the fish get fed four times today? When will that important notice go home? What are the plans for next week? Do the fish need a water change? Did the potatoes get watered? And those are just the questions I asked myself (and my S.A. via text), let alone the many questions I get throughout the day from my students! An experience that came out of this was that I had to communicate to parents on my own. I had to have a conversation with a parent regarding an incident that was problematic with a parent. This experience connects well with inquiry topic because I have been interested in and researching about school-home relationships. Luckily, it was with a parent that I had been building a relationship with over the past months of being at my practicum school. The conversation may have gone differently had it not been with a parent that I see every day, twice a day. The incident was dealt with and a solution was reached with the help of the parent, the student and our E.A. It was oddly comforting having this test of responsibility so close to transitioning into the four weeks of full load teaching. Although I still need the support of my School Advisor, I feel like I am ready for this next milestone and challenge in the practicum.
Week Three
Week three came and went before I even knew it. Not only was it a short week with having Good Friday off, but there was so much going on throughout the week that it just flew by. As I drove home on Thursday evening I was thinking of what this week’s theme was. It came to me that with so many interruptions throughout the week it was flexibility. I believe that being flexible as a teacher is one of the most important skills, especially in elementary education. Power outages, rain storms, class photos, and longer-than-expected assemblies are just a few things that went on at our school this week. Some things got shifted to different days, some were adjusted throughout the day and there were some things that just out-right didn’t happen. What’s important in this is that we, as teachers, are organized and calm for our students. Some children do not adapt well to change, our job is to make that transition as easy as possible for them. Teacher’s must always have something up their sleeves to be flexible with schedule changes. I noted this throughout the week, an Easter Egg hunt didn’t go at the time we expected due to rain and my S.A. transitioned seamlessly into working on a “No Excuses” word and a story. My goal in the next couple weeks as I transition into the full-time portion of my practicum is to begin to build a pool of activities that can be used in these situations.
Week Two
It felt like this week’s theme of the week was relationships. Being in the classroom every day and teaching up to 50% of the day has allowed me to build relationships with my students on a deeper level. Yes, I have been working with them since October however, being there and seeing their everyday ebb and flows has allowed me to read them better and know where they are at. As I was helping one student one-on-one while a lesson was going on, I noticed that another student sitting at the table group wasn’t looking quite like themselves. I asked them if they were feeling okay (as the stomach flu has been going around!) and they replied with “O.K.”. I knew, from spending so much time with them now that this was not the case. I probed further with another question and the student broke down in tears. We were able to remedy the problem and this student ended up having a great day by creating strategies through that conversation. I believe that the student-teacher relationship should be one of the most important things in the classroom, knowing your learners is just as important (if not more) than facilitating the actual learning. I am so privileged to have an S.A. that also places a high importance on relationships because I get to see how she interacts with students, remedies problems, and builds trust within the classroom. At the end of week two, I am feeling excited to be back in the classroom and Monday to see my students and hear how their weekend went.
Week One
After the first week of being in the classroom for my extended 10-week practicum, it seemed like this week’s theme was schedule and structure. Like the students, we as adults also rely on a schedule and structure in our everyday lives. At the beginning of this week I was feeling very hesitant about being in the classroom. I was feeling unsettled in this new role of being in the classroom every day, all-day teaching. It is quite a shift from sitting in a classroom every day, all-day. Halfway through the week I made the analogy for myself that I am a little pre-schooler getting ready to go to kindergarten. I may know my ABC’s and I know how to count to ten, but I am certainly not going to know how to do multiplication. In the grand scheme of my career as a teacher I am that pre-schooler. Being in the classroom since October has helped me know the classroom routines and how my School Advisor (S.A.) deals with certain difficult situations however and I am still learning every day. Using this analogy has helped me throughout the rest of the week because I notice things that I could have done/said/handled better and I am applying those learnings into my next lesson. Something I am working on for myself if seeing the positive in my lessons and the delight that some of the lessons bring to my students. At the end of the week I am feeling more settled into my role in the classroom and the shift in schedule and structure of my life.
Implications and Exploring Links to Practice
My inquiry on barriers and strategies to forming strong home-school relationships has been very useful as an educator because this is a type of relationship I am going to be engaging in for my whole careers. This topic is something that is lasting, the only thing that may shift throughout my career is the language we use as well as the mode of communication, however the actual need for the relationship and communication will be everlasting. Since this relationship will impact my whole careers it was important that I do this research now before I have my own classroom and relationships to develop. The implications of this research can have an impact on other educators as well by sharing knowledge on this topic as well as strategies for difficult relationships.
I am curious, after doing this research and noting observations in my practicum class, as to what actions can I take when parents/guardians are not being responsive or withdraw from the relationship once you have established a relationship with them. My research has primarily been on creating strong home-school relationships, now that I have done my preliminary research on this topic and gathered some valuable strategies, I am left wondering, how are these relationships maintained over time?
The topic of my inquiry can be connected/linked to much of the coursework we have been doing in other courses because it a lot of what we have been learning is forming relationships and knowing your students as well as communicating learning. For example, in our classroom environment class, one important factor of creating an environment that is positive is building relationships with students. This can be extended to building relationships with the student’s home life because their day does not start the moment they walk in the school doors and does not end when they leave out those same doors. Building a relationship with a student’s home can create an even more positive classroom environment because parents/guardians can become engaged and more supportive of their child’s learning. Other coursework this had connections/links to is assessment. Involving a student’s home life is valuable because there is communication occurring about what their child is doing while they are away from home most of the day. A parent/guardian can also be involved in the assessment process. This allows the student and the parent/guardian to see areas of strength, growth, and what they still need to work on.
Going forward into my extended practicum, it is important to “live” this inquiry because this is a time that I can try different techniques in a very safe and supportive space. An idea that could be valuable is keeping a “home journal” that documents the interactions that I have with parents/guardians. Over time it would interesting to see how the interactions change and grow (or if they do at all). Another idea is learning about different family types and having a “family day” in the classroom as a fun way to get the parents/guardians into the classroom and building those types of positive relationships and interactions. I believe that the learning that I have had through this inquiry process will be valuable throughout my career as an educator, not only the content that I have covered but also the process.
Reflection #2
As I have research more in depth into my topic there have been a couple shifts in my thinking. The first is the ultimate benefit of the student. In the first round of my research, I focused more of the barriers and challenges to forming strong home-school relationships as well as a few strategies to do so. While finding articles and resources for the second time, I had a realization that the reason to forming strong home-school relationships is ultimately for the benefit of the student. If it is not student-focused then why are we concerned with forming these types relationships? The research presented by Fuller (2010) of The Benefits of Parent Involvement: What Research Has to Say was a very useful resource because it broke down the benefits of parental involvement into the benefits for the child, the teacher, the parent, the school, and the community. It was a comprehensive meta-analysis, citing eighty-five studies in their collection of data.
Thinking about how I can link my research on my topic into practicum and my further practice in education I think it would beneficial to try out some of the strategies my research has outlined. I have already connected with some of the parents of the students in my class because of field trips, meetings about the students, and friendly conversation at the classroom door. However, to further extend these relationships as well as reach out to parents/guardians I have no met it would be valuable for me to make a phone call home in the first few weeks of my extended practicum. This phone call would be a positive interaction, telling the students home adult that they have a positive impact on the classroom. This way, I can start building a relationship with home in case anything should come up when I am the primary teacher in the classroom. I am lucky in that we have an outside door directly in the classroom so I can chat with parents before and after school while they drop-off/pick-up their child. These simple strategies are great to try out during my extended practicum because I have the support of my School Advisor, Faculty Advisor and administration.