My husband and I drove five students to the County-City building to vote early today. Actually, only two of them voted. Two forgot or couldn't find their ID cards and one wanted to vote on Election Day. The two that were without IDs had never voted before. I insisted they come along with us anyway, hoping that they would see it wasn't all that scary to vote.
A bit of follow-up on last week's posts: K, the student I was picking up, never called this week. I will send her a note saying we are sorry we have lost her from the program. I am sorry. T, the student I felt was not getting enough done, has passed three predictor tests and has worked much harder this week. She told another staff member that she sees now how little she knew when she started and how much she has learned.
Two students took the GED exam this week and will be waiting for at least a month for their results. Two others are close to being ready to take it.
Three others are weaker students . I have tried having them work as partners or in a small group and this seems to promote accountability. You can't just skip over the hard questions or look at the answers in the back first if you are working with someone else. The students struggle together and I hear them teaching and correcting each other. When they are all stuck, they call on me. One of these young ladies has been rather sullen, but when working with someone else, she seems to be blossoming a bit.
Maybe this is one of those "21st Century Skills" my supervisor and others keep talking about--working as a team. In any case, I think it is more fun and probably promotes learning through more modalities--seeing, hearing, writing, and talking.
We have one new Hispanic student. She has not been in school for maybe four years--since she was 15 years old. Her children speak Spanish only. I have been impressed with her ability to learn quickly--even in just two days of class. I hope she will stick with us--she is a minority in our class where African-Americans are a majority. In fact, she's the only non-African-American.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Teaching graciousness or at least civility
Because I don't want to send the school bus to all corners of our district, I have been giving a student who recently moved a ride in the morning. Her idea was that she would call me if she was coming; I assume she is coming because attendance is required and went to pick her up. She answered the door sleepily and just stood there. I asked if she was coming to class and she said, "No, I didn't call you." I stood there waiting for an excuse or an apology or at least a thank you for trying and I got nothing at all. I walked away, looked back to see if she might still say something and there was nothing.
That night I got a voice mail message saying, "Me and D are coming to school tomorrow." Nothing like, "Can you please pick us up?" I did go to get them and greeted her with a "Hello, K, How are you?" Her response: "Fine." No reciprocal "How are you?"
I did tell her I felt badly that she hadn't said she was sorry we had miscommunicated or thanked me for going out of my way. She did thank me at that point. Then she said she had been at her mom's until 2 a.m. waiting for someone to give her a ride back to her own place. Her mom had no milk for the baby so they had to go home. He was crying with hunger.
Again, I am aware that I need to have a sense of compassion for lives that are lived on the edge for whatever reason. But I also know that someone has to teach this young lady to act graciously and politely or she'll never get ahead--GED or not. So maybe I'll be so bold as to teach her to return a greeting of "How are you" in kind. Or maybe I'll ask one of my colleagues to work on that with her. I may have done enough at this point!
That night I got a voice mail message saying, "Me and D are coming to school tomorrow." Nothing like, "Can you please pick us up?" I did go to get them and greeted her with a "Hello, K, How are you?" Her response: "Fine." No reciprocal "How are you?"
I did tell her I felt badly that she hadn't said she was sorry we had miscommunicated or thanked me for going out of my way. She did thank me at that point. Then she said she had been at her mom's until 2 a.m. waiting for someone to give her a ride back to her own place. Her mom had no milk for the baby so they had to go home. He was crying with hunger.
Again, I am aware that I need to have a sense of compassion for lives that are lived on the edge for whatever reason. But I also know that someone has to teach this young lady to act graciously and politely or she'll never get ahead--GED or not. So maybe I'll be so bold as to teach her to return a greeting of "How are you" in kind. Or maybe I'll ask one of my colleagues to work on that with her. I may have done enough at this point!
Learning inner locus of control
I thought about titling this post "Learned Helplessness" or "Teaching Initiative." It has been a week in which this idea has been a theme. Tuesday was a particularly frustrating day in which students seemed helpless to do anything without my guidance. Maybe my biggest frustration with students is their wasting time--doing nothing, chatting, or now, texting. But from their perspective, doing nothing is waiting for me to tell them what to do. I heard statements like, "I'm waiting for you to help me" or " You didn't give me the answer sheet" or "You never taught me this stuff" or "I don't have anything to do" or "I can't find my book, notebook, packet, etc.".
Each student has a list of goals and materials in front of her folder. They don't need me to get started. But there are so many distractions--the opportunity to chat with other young moms, the cell phone, snacks, and maybe just exhaustion from sick babies--or partying.
T had a particularly rough day on Tuesday. She chatted with her sister through Parent and Child Together time. She was the last one in class, she got stuck on one problem and couldn't do anything else while waiting for help, she was the last one back from break, and she has to take additional time later to get a child to the Head Start bus. She got almost nothing done all morning and it frustrated me a lot. She has an enormous amount of responsiblity in her life as the custodian of nine siblings ranging from 2 to 18. I don't know how she stays sane. But if I take the attitude of "Poor T, I need to give her a break", she'll never get a GED. I called her after class and tried to use I language, not You language. "I need you to be a leader in the class", not "You never get anything done!". She was not happy with me, but Wednesday was so much better in every way.
I also tried to have individual, short conferences with each student on Wednesday to make sure her goals were clear and she knew what to do on her own. I try to say, "What do you think you should work on?" We had a much better day on Wednesday.
Each student has a list of goals and materials in front of her folder. They don't need me to get started. But there are so many distractions--the opportunity to chat with other young moms, the cell phone, snacks, and maybe just exhaustion from sick babies--or partying.
T had a particularly rough day on Tuesday. She chatted with her sister through Parent and Child Together time. She was the last one in class, she got stuck on one problem and couldn't do anything else while waiting for help, she was the last one back from break, and she has to take additional time later to get a child to the Head Start bus. She got almost nothing done all morning and it frustrated me a lot. She has an enormous amount of responsiblity in her life as the custodian of nine siblings ranging from 2 to 18. I don't know how she stays sane. But if I take the attitude of "Poor T, I need to give her a break", she'll never get a GED. I called her after class and tried to use I language, not You language. "I need you to be a leader in the class", not "You never get anything done!". She was not happy with me, but Wednesday was so much better in every way.
I also tried to have individual, short conferences with each student on Wednesday to make sure her goals were clear and she knew what to do on her own. I try to say, "What do you think you should work on?" We had a much better day on Wednesday.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
"(or Not)" is winning!
I am having too much fun to quit. Last week I sent out a request for "book club" sponsors on our church's email. I asked for ten copies of one book that we could read every day in circle and then send home with families on Thursday. I invited sponsors to read with us on Thursday. Within a few days, I had six sponsors and two others who could contribute individual books. I really like getting others involved in our program and I love telling our students (and my supervisor) that our church gives us this kind of support.
There are many rewards and affirmations daily or weekly, but sometimes there are some that come from way in the past. Yesterday a student in the sixth grade I taught in 1971 found me on Facebook. After making sure that she had the right person, she said that she had gone back to college at age 50 plus to become an elementary education teacher and that I had been somewhat of an influence in that decision! Almost 40 years later! I remember her as a fun-loving, creative 12 year old and it will be great to get to know her now as an adult.
Then today a gentleman from Catholic Charities who mans the control desk at the Housing Authority site where we are located greeted me by name. I asked his name and wondered how he knew mine. He said that in 1997 he had toured the Oliver Mansion with my class--it must have been a GED class from the Hope Rescue Mission. Whether he was a student or just came along, I don't remember. Copsaholm, the historic home of the Oliver family in South Bend, is memorable and I felt warmed that it must have meant something to him.
Sometimes I feel privileged to have such easy opportunities to help others. It makes up for the fact that there is a new substitute bus driver who couldn't find the students' homes this morning and that the playground is closed for weeks due to major renovations at the Housing Authority and everyone might not make it to the Talk with your Baby celebration tomorrow and that we have a three hour "professional development" staff meeting for adult education teachers on Thursday.
There are many rewards and affirmations daily or weekly, but sometimes there are some that come from way in the past. Yesterday a student in the sixth grade I taught in 1971 found me on Facebook. After making sure that she had the right person, she said that she had gone back to college at age 50 plus to become an elementary education teacher and that I had been somewhat of an influence in that decision! Almost 40 years later! I remember her as a fun-loving, creative 12 year old and it will be great to get to know her now as an adult.
Then today a gentleman from Catholic Charities who mans the control desk at the Housing Authority site where we are located greeted me by name. I asked his name and wondered how he knew mine. He said that in 1997 he had toured the Oliver Mansion with my class--it must have been a GED class from the Hope Rescue Mission. Whether he was a student or just came along, I don't remember. Copsaholm, the historic home of the Oliver family in South Bend, is memorable and I felt warmed that it must have meant something to him.
Sometimes I feel privileged to have such easy opportunities to help others. It makes up for the fact that there is a new substitute bus driver who couldn't find the students' homes this morning and that the playground is closed for weeks due to major renovations at the Housing Authority and everyone might not make it to the Talk with your Baby celebration tomorrow and that we have a three hour "professional development" staff meeting for adult education teachers on Thursday.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Contextualized instruction
Contextualized instruction are two of the latest buzz words. I guess it means that the math we teach should relate to the student's life. Or that writing and reading need to involve real life documents.
I think one of my goals should be to broaden that context of a student's life. In the last week, however, I have been amused and delighted to hear how different the context of some words can be for me and for my students. And so the context of my own life gets broadened!
For example, a student mentioned the word "coalition" as heard in someone's hip hop song. I can't remember the phrase, but a woman needed to be approved by the singer's "coalition"--his bros or dudes. Then there was the word "contemporary" which a student thought meant relaxed--in the way you could describe most contemporary jazz, I guess. I remember one student defining "decline" as what happens when your credit card gets maxed out. I enjoyed reading the word "donor" on someone's Facebook page to describe an absent "baby daddy."
I think one of my goals should be to broaden that context of a student's life. In the last week, however, I have been amused and delighted to hear how different the context of some words can be for me and for my students. And so the context of my own life gets broadened!
For example, a student mentioned the word "coalition" as heard in someone's hip hop song. I can't remember the phrase, but a woman needed to be approved by the singer's "coalition"--his bros or dudes. Then there was the word "contemporary" which a student thought meant relaxed--in the way you could describe most contemporary jazz, I guess. I remember one student defining "decline" as what happens when your credit card gets maxed out. I enjoyed reading the word "donor" on someone's Facebook page to describe an absent "baby daddy."
Talk With Your Baby
Last year we were a pilot program for the TWYB initiative. The idea is that the more words an infant and toddler hear, the more literate they will become. Children of families with lower educational levels hear only functional language--Come here, Eat your supper, Stop hitting your brother, etc. Other children hear language that responds to their needs, that elaborates on what they say, and that introduces lots of vocabulary and concepts.
One staff member did two eight week sessions last year, one in the fall and one in the spring. We are now beginning another session with a new staff member leading it. The Parenting Counts curriculum is great. I have observed two different early childhood educators use the same curriculum with the stamp of their own experiences and personalities. And it works! The students listen and respond--and don't argue too much even when they are told that you can't spoil an infant! One said that she had seen too many teen-age moms think that all you needed to do was to feed and change a baby and a baby needs so much more.
Next week Wednesday we are invited to be at a celebration of a grant that will finance TWYB for two more years. The media will be there. Our children will be given t-shirts and goodie bags. One student may speak about what she has learned. Her own daughter was given early admission to kindergarten this year. It will be interesting. I hope everyone remembers to dress appropriately and that we don't have to keep the children quiet for too long! Apparently we will have valet parking. At this point I am not even sure how we will get rides for everyone with the requisite number of car seats.
One staff member did two eight week sessions last year, one in the fall and one in the spring. We are now beginning another session with a new staff member leading it. The Parenting Counts curriculum is great. I have observed two different early childhood educators use the same curriculum with the stamp of their own experiences and personalities. And it works! The students listen and respond--and don't argue too much even when they are told that you can't spoil an infant! One said that she had seen too many teen-age moms think that all you needed to do was to feed and change a baby and a baby needs so much more.
Next week Wednesday we are invited to be at a celebration of a grant that will finance TWYB for two more years. The media will be there. Our children will be given t-shirts and goodie bags. One student may speak about what she has learned. Her own daughter was given early admission to kindergarten this year. It will be interesting. I hope everyone remembers to dress appropriately and that we don't have to keep the children quiet for too long! Apparently we will have valet parking. At this point I am not even sure how we will get rides for everyone with the requisite number of car seats.
Post-testing
Seven students post-tested today using an alternate form of the Test of Adult Basic Education that they took when they registered for class. One student did not show improvement which was very surprising because she used a calculator on this second testing as permitted by the accommodations on her IEP. I try to use each test as a diagnostic tool. It was telling that she filled in the wrong bubbles at least three or four times. She did not use the calculator at times when it could have helped her--and she did use it to divide whole numbers, but entered the numbers incorrectly. So there was much to learn. It was frustrating for her however.
All the others showed improvement of at least 1 1/2 grade levels after five weeks of instruction. One went up four grade levels. This was very affirming for them and for me! We should send two students off to take the GED exam in the next two weeks. Two more are getting closer. But there are at least six families ready to take the place of these families.
All the others showed improvement of at least 1 1/2 grade levels after five weeks of instruction. One went up four grade levels. This was very affirming for them and for me! We should send two students off to take the GED exam in the next two weeks. Two more are getting closer. But there are at least six families ready to take the place of these families.
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