During the first two weeks of this semester, this last semester before student teaching (eeeekkkk!!), my fellow teacher education students and I have jumped right into getting ready for student teaching in the spring. We are learning methods for teaching various subjects and learning how to tie them all together into one meaningful learning experience for our students.
In our teacher education course that is combined with our final reading course we are continuing to discuss what it means to create a compassionate community in our classrooms. Last semester we starting developing plans for how to create a classroom community comprised of learners who are compassionate and motivated. This semester we are continuing to develop those plans and are learning how to build the ideas of what it means to be compassionate into all the lessons we teach.
We have watched videos and read text to help us brainstorm ideas and engage in discussion with our colleagues. One of the videos we watched was by Thich Nhat Hanh called "The Art of Mindfulness. Click this link to watch: The Art of Mindfulness Video. This video teaches us to be mindful of what is happening in our lives. It points out that no matter where we are in our lives and what we are doing the simplest of tasks can be enjoyable if we put meaning to them. Thich Nhat Hanh talks in the video about the energy is that we bring to our lives. He talks about how we can learn to control our emotions through practice of being mindful. The ideas that he teaches us in this video can help new teachers who want to help their students learn to handle their emotions. He says that learning to be mindful is learned most effectively when practiced in a community of others who are practicing to be mindful. By creating a community in my future classroom of students practicing to be mindful I can try to help my students grow into mindful adults.
In the book "The Mindful Teacher" by Elizabeth Mcdonald and Dennis Shirley makes note of the difficult task of navigating federal, state and local mandates imposed on schools and teachers to teach using specific methods regardless of how those methods actually work for the students in a class. This is an important resource for me as teacher education student. I have spent countless hours over the last three semesters learning, planning and practicing how to reach my students in ways that engage and motivate them but if I can't work with the requirements set by current policies I'm only going to find myself not being the effective teacher I hope to be. It will be important for me to learn how to meet the expectations placed on my while also achieving my goals and helping my students reach the goals I have for them and the ones they have for themselves.
A second video we watched was produced by the Syracuse Academy of Science Charter School and was about the importance of setting up daily routines for our students. This video demonstrated the importance of directly teaching routines and procedures to our students for how to behave in the classroom. By establishing standards for behavior in the classroom we are able to develop a feeling of ownership among the students. The students will learn to care about their classroom if they are expected to maintain a specific discourse during the many hours they spend there.
We have also read the book "The First Six Weeks of School" by Paula Denton and Roxann Kriete which provides many suggestions and ideas for schedules and activities to use with students, of various grade levels, during the first six weeks of the school year. This book provides specific plans to help teaches establish the procedures and routines that they realize are so important to the development of a compassionate community.
The semester is off to a great start. I am anxious to get into the classroom with students in the next week or two and start practicing some of the ideas and methods we have been discussing.
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