This is the third week I went in for an observation. So far I have been observing how students interact with each other and with teachers. I haven’t had a chance to observe lessons – students are constantly working on math and phonics worksheets. This puzzles me a little because I’m not too sure how these students are learning new concepts.

Math

I noticed how students are using different methods in solving math questions. Some use their fingers, some use their rule measures, and some use tiny building blocks.
I also realized some students haven’t really grasped the concept of a number line. For example, a girl raised her hand to ask for some help with a question she was having trouble with. The question asked her to write down a number that comes after 86. She had the hardest time understanding what the question was asking her, and even after I tried to explain using 1-100 number line in their booklet, she could not quite understand. It puzzled me as to why she was having such a difficult time understanding this simple concept. Number line concepts are so ingrained in me now that I never really thought about the way it works. Thus, trying to teach this concept to her was a challenge for me.

Phonics

Unlike math, phonics can’t be solved using different methods. It’s either you know it or you don’t. There are many students with low phonemic awareness. For example, these students often confuse ‘b’ and ‘d’ and ‘p’ and ‘q’. For these students, they are not quite ready to learn blend sounds such as ‘sh’ and ‘ch’. During guided reading, these students tend to guess the words by referring to the pictures rather than actually reading them. On the other hand, there are students who are reading chapter books and have absolutely no problem reading. Managing lessons that are suitable for these varying levels are extremely difficult.

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Question: I’m wondering how effective worksheets are for students who hasn’t quite developed the basic building blocks of math (number concepts) and reading (phonemic awareness).

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Today was the first observation day. I was placed in Grade 2 classroom at an inner city school. The class has 24 students and are predominantly East Indian background. We have a resource teacher helping two students with IEP.

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Observation:

• students
  • very friendly and sociable
  • no division between boys and girls
  • great diversity between academic levels (we have three math/reading levels)
    • math: some students were learning to count up to 100 and some students were learning how to add/subtract numbers up to 15
    • reading: some students were learning phonics and some students were reading chapter books
    • writing: we have various levels – Advanced students are taken to different classroom for enhanced learning. Beginner to intermediate students are divided into different guided reading group (4-5 students per group).
• classroom
  • very spacious
  • not too many commercial materials such as bulletin board borders and posters
  • students’ art works, classroom rules (handwritten), alphabets, math/reading/writing groups are posted on the wall
  • seating arrangement: alternating rows of single desk and two desks
  • carpet at the front of the classroom – students sit here during morning calendar activity, mindfulness (post-recess meditation time), and when copying down agendas.
  • guided reading center in the back of the classroom

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I have only attended private schools in Japan and thus the environment I observed today was very different and new. Varying academic levels between each students was one of the most surprising thing I saw today. I am wondering how my teacher is managing such diversity within a classroom and how she is catering lessons suited for individuals.

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Japanese is quite different from English and so are the ways we learn to read/write.

Japanese has 3 different sets of characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are set of 48 phonetic characters (CV). They both are exact variations of each other, but katakana is only used for foreign languages and names. They look different too – hiragana is a much smoother script whereas katakana is a much rigid, angular script. For example, the sound “ka” is written “か” in hiragana and “カ” in katakana.
Third set is kanji, which is the most complicated style of writing in Japanese. They are thousands of Chinese characters, each with multiple ways of reading and meaning. Kanjis are tricky because the way it can be read alters depending on how it is used in writing. For example, ‘a person’ can be written as “人” in kanji. This character represents the word “person” and is read as ‘hito’. Now if we were to say three people, we would write “three (三) person (人)” in Kanji, which looks like this: “三人” This is read as ‘san-nin.’ As you can see, “人” is now read ‘nin’ rather than ‘hito’ because it is combined with another kanji. There are other ways “人” can be read: hito, nin, bito, jin, ri, etc. Because we have so many kanjis in our language, we do not learn every existing kanjis during our schooling. Trying to remember everything is almost an impossible task.

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Japanese sentences are mixture of all these three sets of characters. Here are some examples:

My name is Yuka Zaiki. My pet dog’s name is Cocoa.
私の名前は財木裕香です。私のペットの犬の名前はココアです。

**Underlined are kanjis and bolded/italicized are the katakanas. Rest are hiraganas.

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In Japan, children start learning hiragana first. By the end of kindergarden, most students are able to read and write hiragana and maybe even katakana. We write over and over to practice remembering these characters. By the end of Gr.1 first term, all students are able to read hiragana and katakana; kanji learning starts in term 2. In order to remember kanji, we write over and over again, and take multiple kanji tests. That is exactly how I learned to read and write Japanese too. It is purely memorization. Overtime it becomes easier and easier and you will start to remember more complex kanjis too.

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If you are interested, here is a chart of hiragana, katakana, and some kanji.

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This is going to be my first blog post as a teacher candidate and I think writing about my current feelings regarding all my experiences so far in this program will be a good place to start.

There are still many unknowns. It’s somewhat similar to the “dark tunnel” example I came across in one of our course readings (a chapter from Spirals of Inquiry). Right now, I am in a dark tunnel.

Day by day we are given additional knowledge about teaching, children’s psychology and development, social justice and curriculum. And I see these new knowledge as puzzle pieces that have been given to me. Clearly, I have not collected all of the pieces yet, and I still have a long way till I collect all the pieces. To my understanding, this part is just an easy task. The most difficult, important, challenging, and perhaps the most scary part of it all, is the assembling of these collected pieces.

With such bad visibility in the dark tunnel, knowing these upcoming challenges makes me feel somewhat anxious. However, this anxiety is not a negative one but rather a positive one. It’s almost similar to the feeling of opening up presents, or even that amazing thrill I get while riding a roller coaster. It’s scary, but very exciting.

There are many questions I have wondered during my past experiences working with children but never found an answer to or had the means to investigate. I see these puzzle pieces I have collected and will be collecting from now on as a key to unlocking many doors – be it the door to the questions I have asked myself before, or the doors to upcoming questions, or even a new door that could lead me to a new kind of curiosity.

I may be surrounded by numerous unknowns right now. But one thing I know, I am extremely excited and eager to find out where my tunnel leads me.

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