Live Blog - MACUL March 12

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A Change Would Do You Good - Dressing the Part of a Teacher

This adventure is among the scariest ones for me this year--as it is a fashion adventure! Bear with me, and try not to laugh at me too hard...

Anyone who knows me even remotely well probably knows how little I am interested in fashion. In college I was that guy who always wore T-shirts (that were often too big anyway) and rarely dressed to impress. My younger brother is an especially thoughtful dresser (and with taste that is both very trendy and somewhat pricey), and I just never got it.

I let my resistance to preoccupation with fashion carry over in China when there were no expectations of me. I had no reason to change. I wore the nice clothes my parents had gotten for me over the years when I started observing at my placement this fall. When the cold weather came, I wore all the nice sweaters my mother sent up from St. Louis, which were all old, way out of style, and too big. I looked like a square in the classroom. One student even jokingly compared one of my sweaters to a confederate flag. At that moment, I laughed at and appreciated the boy's humor (he is not malicious), but also realized that my refusal to care about fashion forced me into feeling uncomfortable with my dress and ultimately less confident in the classroom.

There are many many understandable and inevitable reasons why I felt so uneasy in the classroom in Redford for so much of the Fall that I got distracted from this simple fact: I was not comfortable at all in my own clothes! Not only did I probably show this in my demeanor, my clothes surely sent more messages than I am/was aware of. My college self would call this superficial or shallow, but it is the shallow truth: in high schools, no matter who you are (teacher, student, administrator, parent, etc.), YOU GET JUDGED BY YOUR APPEARANCE. I am not saying my wardrobe has been a fatal flaw and that my students have pigeonholed me. Quite the contrary, actually, I would say that I have fairly decent rapport with my students from my first days of teaching. But this rapport comes from my interactions and classroom demeanor as well. I am also not saying that I wish to dress to impress a bunch of teenagers. All I AM saying is that there are many facets to how people present themselves at any given moment, and we are always sending messages to people whether we want to be or not. And this probably applies more at high schools than many other places. So...

I did the unthinkable over Thanksgiving Break. I went shopping for clothes on Black Friday! I know--I know--those of you who personally know me are probably about to call "bulls**t" or point at me and yell "hypocrite!" To be clear I didn't even go on purpose. It was a chance to hang out with my friends Renault and Haoran, and since I was only home for 48 hours, I took it! Renault took me to Banana Republic. Renault is a guy who dresses quite well--he has a reputation for his good sense of style, and his gentle peer pressure was enough to turn me on to a simple black and white Argyle sweater to wear over a collared shirt. It was 50% off, so it was actually well priced. I bought it! It looks good, is modest (i.e. simple), but also somewhat stylish. I got home from that excursion at 3:00 AM, and by then, excitement had built up quite a bit. I was actually going to dress in something I liked and chose myself! I was going to express my style in the classroom (and for a teacher who is still trying to find his teacher style and voice, this is very exciting)! When I woke up hours later I realized that one cool new teaching ensemble would not be enough. I would want to wear it every day, and soon I will be in the school five days a week. I need to actually start investing in a larger wardrobe.

Very shortly after I realized this I was given a proposition from my mother to go on an errand with her. Family time. Naturally, I went with her but then went next door (to Target) thinking I would look at (but not buy of course) DVDs. I can't even calculate how quickly I was in the clothing section staring at slightly cheaper Argyle sweaters in a bigger variety of colors (and colors that my eccentric taste liked!). Now I am not a math major, but I do know that Target + Black Friday = Affordable, so I got a few more sweaters (Michigan will have a long winter) and collared shirts. It will be nice to not wear one of three shirts everytime I go in to teach, and to actually have clothing that I can take pride in. And it matches my frugal nature! Dressing nice does not mean dressing awkwardly or going against my own personal style. As obvious as this must be for so many people, it took me 24 years to learn this!
I consider this shopping an investment. I want to do everything I can to make myself more comfortable in front of the kids, visually define myself as a professional (to supplement my professional behavior), and also bring my own quirky (but also down to Earth) style and personality into the classroom. Let's get this straight: I am still a plain and simple Target and Meijer's guy at heart... but at least I'll look better. I never want to give the impression that I have my finger on the rapid pulse of the fashion world. The truth is though that my best teaching days so far were the ones where I found the freedom and security to be myself WHILE sticking to the agenda for the class. At my high school, given my introversion and highly sheltered background, this may be harder than it sounds.

Also, I want the students to see me the way I want to be seen. I used to (in my idealism) think that this is a purely figurative goal, but I am finding out that it is ALSO a literal one. I was amazed how some of my University of Michigan colleagues reacted to the new look in class yesterday. We will see how my first day actually teaching in the new clothes goes tomorrow!

Blurry - Language in the Classroom

Since the moment I decided I wanted to be a teacher in the US, I took for granted that the language barrier in the American high school classroom would be nothing in comparison to what I worked against overseas in China. I saw that students who actually tried in my classroom in China could follow along with my lessons and engage in my activities, whether it was group work or individual creative exercises. The uphill battle was convincing the kids who didn't want to try that they should. Some of the "worst" English students at that school did try in my class and succeed beautifully.

I found that using language only works on those who are willing to listen. I saw the language barrier as an illusionary wall that existed only for those who let themselves acknowledge it. To those who sought to transcend it and learn, the barrier was never a problem. I knew that in America, there would be no invisible barrier to hide behind and students would at least understand me. With some help from my student teaching this year, I have learned that I was wrong.

One of the requirements in my program at the University of Michigan is videotaping lessons. This allows for us to watch ourselves (and our colleagues) in the classroom from the eyes of a mentor, a peer, and also a student. I have already learned a lot after videotaping only two classes!

A clip I shot yesterday was especially difficult for me to watch, as found myself really displeased with a lesson I thought went well. This was my first week taking over the General (Not honors or AP) English 10 classes while relying on my own lesson plans and preparations. I taught both Tuesday and Thursday. My agenda was to get through a bit of The Crucible in class (students read the lines and perform the parts as enthusiastically as they can in front of the class of 35) while teach the vocabulary words “explicit” and “implicit.” I gave the simple definitions on Tuesday along with brief explanations. I followed through on Thursday with an activity that had questions from examples and two photographs I took while in China.

My mentor teacher also asked me to practice my assessment by giving a real quiz at the end of the class. The class seemed to get my questions really easily but one of the photographs did not go as well as I planned. The first photograph is of an ice statue in Haerbin, China. The picture had fish frozen in a large block of ice. Pretty explicit, right? There should be no doubt in the eye of the beholder that this photograph shows fish. The second photo is one of my many weird abstract photos I take for fun. It is of logs at the bottom of a lake in Jiuzhaigou, China. My purpose was to demonstrate implicit by having the students recognize that the photo is of logs, although the windswept surface of the lake obscures the shape of the logs. It should be common sense, right? Eventhough the logs are distorted by the water, it is common sense that rippled water distorts the image. It is also common sense that the objects are not fish, as they are too long. Here are the photographs:


My classes nailed the photograph of the Haerbin ice sculpture. They had trouble deducing that the Jiuzhaigou picture showed logs. It didn’t even occur to them! They kept thinking it was fish. Consequently I had to provide that there was no life in that lake (the same minerals that beautifully color the waters of Jiuzhaigou keep them mostly lifeless) and still, the idea I took for common sense of logs being in the shallow lake just did not dawn on them. Eventually a few students figured it out, but this was not helpful to constructing a solid explanation of the word “implicit.”

My explanation faltered and I found myself struggling to keep the students on a simple, straight path to understanding this word. I let it go when some of the students gave a satisfactory definition of the word, but I knew my image was not the hit that I had hoped it would be. In editing the videos of two of the three classes yesterday I found myself thinking it was even worse than I had originally thought. Not only did my photograph miss my intended purpose, but my explanation clumsily struggled to get back on track from the confusing image. I was speaking what I thought was clear English to fellow English speakers and they were not getting what I was saying. The quiz at the end of the hour also suggested this.

I am not saying my students lack common sense for not seeing what I assumed was THE perfect (and beautiful) photographic representation of implicit. I am not saying they were dumb or slow for not getting the word after so many different demonstrations and explanations. These kids are intelligent and many of them were actually trying. The problem was my language. I wasn’t speaking their language.

Only now am I realizing how sarcastic and implicit my everyday speech patterns are. I have so many subtle jokes and implied meanings in my everyday speech! I don’t like being direct, naturally. I like to play with my language like a toy and use it creatively. People who know me well understand my meaning (or at least I hope), but I can’t assume that my students will too! This is a big lesson for me! They have not been exposed to my language. Sarcasm and implicit references are in some ways another language, and they take time and experience to understand. I HATE when colleagues and instructors say “dumb it down,” because I refuse to consider that I am talking down to dumb people. When I did not understand slang about Michigan geography and areas around the U of M campus, it was not because I was stupid. This is not too different of a concept. Acquiring language is a process. Part of assessment is figuring out what “languages” my students are able comprehend in the classroom and I have much more to assess than I thought.

A difficult complication is drawing the line between attributing misunderstanding to my speaking a foreign language in the classroom and students’ tuning out. I was not pleased with the quiz scores after I graded them, and many students seemed to define “implicit” as “vague.” I take this as my fault and I curved the quiz. Still I couldn’t help compare the scores of my quiz to those of other vocabulary and reading comprehension quizzes. After all, I DID give the correct definition many times and those who seemed the most engaged in my class made no mistake on the definition of “implicit.” Some earlier quizzes yielded even lower averages. I even remembered grading some of them for my mentor teacher a month ago and feeling my heart sink a little in my chest. I can’t help but wonder how much my muddled attempt at photographic representation actually hurt my students’ quiz scores. I AM NOT denying that I need to control my speech patterns a little more and work on giving solid clear instruction in the classroom, but I know there are other challenges present as well.

If I were to compare my instruction from that video to my mentor teacher, there is no comparison. He speaks the language of the local high school classroom quite well. I have a long way to go and much to think about!

Love is a Battlefield: "The Scarlet Letter in 21 Seconds" - A Claymation Video

This is a short humorous claymation depiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic The Scarlet Letter by Katie, myself, and Sara. I think I can speak for all of us when I say it is my first claymation video ever... enjoy

Best,
Adam

Discipline - A story from China

After warnings about how much of an issue discipline would be for me at my placement I was terrified of my first day. Beyond the typical naïveté and cluelessness of a student teacher on his or her first day in the classroom I was terrified of ruffian students actively rejecting any authority in the classroom. Even worse was a separate fear that the students would not reject or accept anything. I closed my eyes at night to see a classroom full of zombies, unaffected by any icebreaking joke I can think of. My mentor teacher, before classes started on the first day, assured me that probably only seventy percent of the morning classes would be zombies. Luckily, he was just trying to prepare me for the dissonance between my prestigious private school background and a less motivated classroom environment. Watching the classroom dynamics for the first two and a half weeks of school has been really fascinating and can inspire countless blog posts on different things I am observing, and it will, but right now I want to focus on discipline. Discipline comes into this situation in the form of classroom management. Educators do not want to be disciplinarians, but in some classes it can be difficult. Gaining trust and respect from the students is key. Without it, educators may be in for some major headaches. This is striking me very hard because it was so different when I was in China. The students, even at lower achieving high schools, were generally quite motivated, and not prone to act up significantly in class. The teachers even said they seldom had to worry about students’ respect. This is for a number of reasons, but I will only focus on one for this entry. I recently listened to one of my former students tell me about a requirement that all middle school, high school, and college students must endure during their first year of each of the above.

This specific account deals with schools in Shenzhen (A modern metropolis in southeastern China) and is from a current freshman in college (he goes by “Kidd”), but it applies to high school as well. This requirement is between one and three weeks of “military training.” One week for high school and middle school and up to three weeks for college or university students. The boy whose perspective I will be writing from was to “train” for the first three weeks of September in daily temperatures ranging from 32 to over 40 C in constant Guangdong humidity. This is his summary of the average day and is by no means an assault on or condemnation of Chinese education. This is Kidd’s experience.

The dorms are what one might expect from “military training.” The students must wake up at 5:30 AM and be dressed (full uniform, cap to boots) and ready to go by 6 AM. The first step is run several laps around the area to warm up. Then there is fitness training. Kidd recounts fifty each of various exercises, push-ups being tip of the iceberg. The military officers keeping them in task (wujing) constantly (nad loudly) ensure that each push-up or other exercise is the most sincere efforts. After these exercises the students must line up and stand at attention. This is for anywhere from forty minutes to one hour, and all movement is strictly prohibited. Kidd stresses that even shaking one’s hands or wiping away sweat are punished offences. The wujing officers’ punishments range from yelling, singling out/humiliating certain students, and in extreme (atypical) cases hitting a student with a bamboo stick. The physical punishment is only for consistent defiance or constant failure to fulfill the tasks. The strikes with the bamboo sticks are generally to the students’ legs. A scant breakfast of porridge is then served at or shortly after 7 AM.

After breakfast the students return to their dorms and clean up. The command is to fold their quilts “like tofu—” a very high standard indeed. If the quilts are not folded to the wujing officers’ standards, then they will cast the quilts on the ground and have it done again. Sometimes the wujing officers ask the students to fold them again regardless.

The next assembly happens at 8:30 AM for various other forms of training. Kidd speaks the most about marching, reminding that it is pretty simple for one person, but to keep fifty students in perfect harmony is not a simple task. When one student falls out of line, the students are to try again and again until perfect harmony is achieved. Kidd emphasizes the aching in the soles of his feet.

Lunch is served between 11 and 11:30 AM, usually consisting of cabbage, cucumber, and other simple vegetables with little meat. After lunch the wujing officers usually demand a little more quilt folding until 1:00 PM. There is an actual rest period until between 2:40 PM and 3 PM (it varies from day to day). This is where Kidd describes the dorms a little bit, saying that it is “a big storehouse holding five hundred students.” Five hundred warm bodies seem to add to the existing heat and Kidd finds it difficult to sleep, citing an average among students of forty minutes to “calm down and fall asleep.” Kidd adds that only wujing officers are allowed fans.

The afternoon training is much like the morning training and goes until dinner time at 6 PM. Dinner is similar to lunch in terms of food. After dinner there is a window of time for the students to shower, but Kidd recalls having difficulty finding enough physical space to shower amongst the masses in the shower room. Kid recalls that even the dish washing room was "full of naked people."

At 7:50 PM is the next and final assembly of the day. There is no training at this time, but instead taking classes about the achievements and benefits of being a part of the Communist Party and watching war films. According to Kidd, who says that this is his favorite time of the day, the mosquitoes also love it, feasting on all the “fresh blood.” At 10 PM is dismissal and 10:30 is lights out, as the day is finally over. Some nights, however, the wujing will wake students up around 1 AM for an “urgent assembly,” where the students must get out of bed and quietly (and in the dark) assemble outside. Failure to do this silently and orderly can result in punishment. This is an exercise of vigilance and again, discipline. To add to this, every student gets at least one chance for individual guard duty, where the student will have to stand “guard” alone for one hour in front of the dormitory during the night.

This is an intense program in the curriculums of Chinese middle schools, high schools, universities, and colleges that serves MANY purposes. Right now, my interest in this program is primarily for discipline. Having students be trained, like actual military, certainly must impact their attitudes toward school, responsibilities, and authority. I saw formalities at the high school I worked in which mirror this discipline. Although students’ behavior and obedience to rules were far from perfect, there was a clear VISIBLE respect for teachers and parents. The way the students addressed their teachers (in Chinese) was different in body language than they way students in US public schools do. Many times I saw students with their arms behind their backs, more or less, at attention, listening to their teachers. I also saw some students turn their backs and mock the teachers once they were free from the teachers’ audio and visual ranges. Is this respect genuine? How is it being genuine or not significant for the classroom setting if the goal is to transfer content into our students’ minds? I have my own opinions here but would rather leave these as questions for now…

Other differences in Chinese education influence students’ discipline in schools. Maybe a stronger cultural importance on grades, specifically the dramatically built up (for good reason) 高考, the college entrance exam, affects students’ respect for teachers and discipline more than this training. What I want to understand more, though, is how to motivate US public schools in less fortunate areas. What outside of the classroom can help teachers keep students motivated to engage in classes?

The Gift - From China

So these past few weeks have been exciting for me. I feel somewhat like my life is divided into two parts. I know that as a teacher I will have to maintain a professional life and do my best to make sure that seeps deeply into my personal life as well. I also now feel a divide between my two experiences. I had one year teaching in a Chinese high school classroom where I learned much over the course of the year (through many mistakes and small victories) about classroom management and lesson preparation. I could fill pages about what I learned, but I’ll keep this entry on topic for now.

This post is about my Chinese high school students. In the 2007-2008 school year I had between 1000 and 1200 10th and 11th graders. Obviously I didn’t get to know all of them on a personal level, but I can say I got know about 50 students pretty well, which is a percentage I can be proud of, given the impersonal nature of the classroom culture, the cross cultural shyness I fought against constantly, and the sheer overwhelming numbers. After one year back in America, away from my busy students (with far more pressing priorities than staying connected with a foreigner they may never see again), I am surprised that I have kept in touch with over 30 of my students, including helping three of them apply to US colleges this year (and all three of them are coming to renowned American universities in August! More about them later!).

Throughout this past school year, many of the students I knew the best were seniors, meaning they had 6+ day school weeks and no time for any fun while preparing for National College Entrance Exam, but still kept in touch. Now that the test is in the past, these students are more animated now than ever, looking for ways to spend their last summer before (most of them) they embark on their collegiate adventures. Through email, google chat, and skype, I have heard many different ambitions, futures, and goals. Eventhough I had the students only for a short time at that school, compared to their other teachers, I feel I got to know them well, but hearing about their futures adds more depth to this. I had one student, an earnest and curious, but focused boy, will go to school to become a jingcha, which is basically a police officer. I have one who will study art in a fantastic school in Guangzhou, one who wants become a city-planner, one who will go into health at a renowned school in Shanghai, and one that will attend a respectable maritime university in a charming Manchurian port town… I could go on with several more… so many different goals and dreams. I don’t see this as my hard work paying off, as I was just a lowly foreign teacher at their school, teaching the only class that they had no grade nor actual requirements (AND it actually conflicted with the rest of their busy curriculum!). What makes me feel good (and honored) is that I get the privilege to be a part of this. They eagerly tell me their exciting news and I feel excited for them. Just as they look forward to embarking on their paths, I look forward to hearing about it down the road and learning about academic journeys far from my own roots and foci. I love knowing that I will see some of them again, be in America or China, especially as they spread out around their vast country, maybe even the world! Also, I see them less and less as students and more and more as developing people. I like the word “evolving” though…

The older I get the less I see education as a specific set of skills. One of my favorite (and least orthodox) teachers from high school once told me that high school was somewhat like a test to see if we can make it in the real world. Granted, he was trying to talk some sense into me after panicking from my first “C” in a really competitive place, but he was sincere in his description of a system based on grades and evaluation. I will not argue that high school is not necessary, but I do distinguish education from high school now. No intellectual’s education should ever stop. I am always observing, considering, analyzing, and critiquing the many new concepts I come across every day. Furthermore, I am constantly revising my understandings, challenging them. Education IS ALL ABOUT evolving. “Seeing my students” at this time is a great image of evolution, and now, as I am nervous and ready to begin student teaching in Redford, Michigan, I am seeing with clarity that in addition to being a high school teacher, I want to be an educator!

Maybe I am lucky that in this stressful summer semester I have been shown such a valuable gem that only teachers can mine.

Thanks for reading,
Adam