Future Teacher, Forever Student

Somewhere on my bookshelves, sandwiched between worn copies of literary classics and young adult novels, rests my collection of the title On Writing and other memoirs focused on the craft. Several authors have attempted to make sense of their adopted art, and even more have tried to guide others through their creative processes: Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Sol Stein, Ray Bradbury, and George Orwell, to name a few. While many of the memoirs composed by those who have found great success in their writing highlight similar themes when discussing the elements of their work, each writer also offers a sort of defense for his or her own approach in connecting a pen to paper. That, of course, is the beauty of writing: an author has freedom within some set conventions, and even these boundaries can be broken if the right time presents itself. After four years of undergraduate study, I think the biggest takeaway from my experience as a pre-service teacher is that education

Throughout my undergraduate career, almost all of the courses in my education major started the semester with some type of reflection on philosophies in education. Since my courses on child and adolescent development (running in my second and fourth semesters respectively), I have identified most strongly with John Dewey’s Theory of Progressive Education. Progressivism has therefore been a common theme in my blog posts, and today’s reflection will continue my growth and strengthen the philosophical foundation I have built for myself as a progressivist teacher. Of course, other theories in education are worth consideration: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and humanism all offer insight on how we learn from various perspectives of study. However, I find that progressivism (if adopted fully) takes the best points of these theories and blends them together, creating a student-centered learning environment where student needs and interests are at the forefront of their educationa

In my search for great teacher resources following my education program’s transition to independent learning, I have found several websites and blogs run by educators currently or recently working in the field. Last week, I dove into the wealth of knowledge available on Cult of Pedagogy. This week, I’ve spent a lot of time on the 3P Learning website, and although it is geared more toward housing elementary education resources, a majority of the classroom management and general teaching strategy articles are relevant to educators in all grade levels. 3P Learning’s mission is centered around the use of enthusiasm and online gaming to engage students with their learning: “We create award-winning learning resources that are aligned with dozens of international curricula, matching engaging and gamified learning content to the standards, outcomes, and requirements of schools across the world.” Personally, I am a huge fan of pairing iCivics with social studies curriculums, so the idea of

“Good morning, Vietnam!” While there are a million different ways to offer someone a greeting, the only one that feels sufficient for our modern crisis is reminiscent of Robin Williams’s cheer and the turmoil of the 1960s. COVID-19 has changed the world as we know it, if not temporarily, and my last semester at Saint Michael’s College has suffered a similar fate to those of other universities across the United States. As educators, we encourage our students to persevere through academic and social challenges. As humans and community leaders, we must continue to do the same. In light of the changes taking place within my licensure program, the next few weeks will be filled with independent study of education-based topics from the safety of my own home. Together with my program supervisor, I have selected a few goals to work on remotely as a way to improve my teaching skills while practicing CDC guidelines and keeping out of a physical classroom. This week’s goal is a continuation of

Hello! After a long February break followed by a short three day return to EMS, Team Nova is back into the full swing of things with our “We The People” debates. Today, students practiced debating their fellow classmates in a similar format to what our debates will look like on Thursday, presenting and fine-tuning their arguments as the ideas of rebuttal and crossfire were introduced. Two practice debates were held simultaneously, with myself and Mr. J. each moderating one set of pro/con groups per class section. In my debates, we proceeded through the protocols slowly, reviewing each person’s arguments, appropriate rebuttals, and proper debate etiquette individually. While some groups will really need to hunker down and edit their arguments before debate day, today’s practice provided helpful insight for both students and teachers: the actual case material seems clear, but the concepts of forming and refuting arguments in a respectful but strong debate have room to grow. With

February break is on the horizon here at EMS, where Team Nova is actively preparing for an eighth grade wide debate day to be held in mid-March. Appropriately titled “We The People,” the debate unit focuses on First Amendment rights based on the U.S. Constitution and the subsequent Supreme Court cases related to students’ rights in schools. “We The People” is designed to function as an easily differentiated unit of study, featuring tiered research and debate groups, varied debate topics, and grounding lessons that detail three major court cases all students are expected to use when forming their arguments and counterarguments. As our introductory week comes to a close, students are wrapping up their research on our foundational SCOTUS cases: Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988), and Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986). Each of these cases asked the Supreme Court to better define the rights of students attending public schools, particularly those rig

Happy Wednesday! As Team Nova wades knee-deep in our new “We The People” first amendment debate unit, students are still thinking about westward expansion in the United States, likely because the closure that a graded summative assessment brings to a unit did not arrive until today. After nearly six weeks of readings, discussions, and a screening of James Cameron’s Avatar , Team Nova spent last Thursday taking their first (and probably only) major test of the year. Now, here’s a disclaimer: Mr. J. is not a fan of assessing student learning by an individual’s performance on traditionally styled tests (like those including multiple-choice questions, short essay responses, matching sections, true or false, etc.). I myself prefer to assess student progress and learning via writing prompts, performance assessments, personal communications, and any other forms of assessment that do not require highly accurate recall on top of reading, writing, and comprehension skills. However, with EMS eig

In an attempt to combat the sometimes active, other times dormant waves of hatred that possess an unknown number of students on campus, Saint Michael’s College suspended “business as usual” for all students this Tuesday, February 18th; exchanging classes, meetings, clubs, internships, and work-study shifts for a community-wide day of “learning and reflection” about racism. While I am still navigating my own feelings about today’s events in relationship to my role as a student of the college, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the stress and discomfort many of my peers and I felt today, and how I believe that discomfort is entirely necessary if one’s true intentions are to learn and grow in search of Truth. Quite a few of my past posts— particularly those related to lessons I designed about the Native American experience during U.S. westward expansion— highlight my belief in the importance of diverse and equitable representation within a humanities curriculum. Throughout th

Happy Valentine’s Day! After a long week of wagon building and westward expansion test-taking, Team Nova filled today (Friday) with a fun morning field trip to a bowling alley before our first round of wagon obstacle course runs. As you may recall from some of my recent blog posts, Team Nova teachers attended a three-day conference in Florida at the end of January, leaving students (and myself) to keep business as usual with two substitute teachers for Science and Math while I led Humanities. Reports of student behavior over the three-day span were almost all positive, so Nova decided to reward students for their respectable representation of the team and themselves with a fun field trip– no academics required. Booking 14 lanes at a bowling alley for three hours, Nova spent this morning enjoying competitive bowling matches, arcade games, and laser tag. Admittedly, the two weeks between the conference days and our field trip were a little rough, and I was worried that students wo

One of the most exciting times I have experienced with Nova’s eighth graders so far is the first wave of preparation for the students’ transition into high school. While our team’s core classes and unified arts courses are running on their same daily schedules, our team has made several arrangements in the past few weeks for EMS and Essex High School faculty and staff to present on what school life will be like for our students after middle school. About three weeks ago, EHS teachers and students involved in the media arts and music programs came to discuss the creative studies options the high school has to offer, and the music groups even performed a few songs as an added buy-in. Last week, students received their high school course recommendation and registration forms at an informational meeting held during Nova’s science classes. Today, the exploration of class/academic track options continued with a visit from a guidance coordinator working at the Center for Technology– Essex (C

Study halls. The sometimes coveted, sometimes looked down upon free periods where students can work on whatever tasks are currently occupying space in their agendas. While I remember middle school study halls as the free periods only students who did not take band or chorus had the luxury of fitting into their schedules, I have learned that some school systems offer multiple types of study halls for different student needs, and also that some students are assigned to specific study halls for guided studies at EMS. If managed well by both students and teachers, study halls prove beneficial to the academic and emotional needs of students, particularly in areas like work completion, stress and time management, working memory, and attention/focus. Of course, the temptation to aimlessly browse the internet with music playing in one’s ears is rarely irresistible to students who live in school districts with 1:1 technology ratios and/or have trouble finding time to decompress throughout t

It’s funny how complex math calculations, myths and legends, and even the natural sciences come easier to kids when figuring out the odds of school canceling for a snow day are involved. Granted, I still find myself checking Snow Day Calculator or fighting the temptation to sleep with a spoon under my pillow every now and then, especially since I know a wintry mix may mean slick roads and colder-than-average treks across campus. So as I circled Team Nova’s humanities classroom to help with scale ratio calculations for our model wagon project this week, I was not surprised to see that some students were on Snow Day Calculator or researching popular legends rumored to improve the chances of Zeus’s weather interventions. Considering the weather forecast that predicts Thursday morning through Friday night will hammer Northern Vermont with 8-10 inches of snow, I’d say there is a good chance that EMS will close on Friday for safety reasons. However, that might just be the hopeful eighth gra

One of my favorite things about my student teaching internship is the opportunity to see how well the quality integration of social studies and the English Language Arts can work in a single humanities classroom. Growing up in a public school district that taught social studies, ELA, most STEAM subjects, and the social sciences as separate curriculums, I was inexperienced with the implementation of an integrated humanities curriculum from both the student and teacher perspectives. Even more, I was skeptical of how successful a humanities curriculum could be without sacrificing essential social studies or ELA concepts and standards. My time at EMS thus far has proven to me that with purposeful planning, expert content knowledge, generous time management, sincere dedication, and crafty unit activities and assessments, teaching the humanities is entirely possible at the secondary education level. However biased my opinion may be based on my student teaching experience this semester, I ha