Reflection of New Teacher Project

Looking at other posts from the class and within my group, it's easy to agree with the majority of the class in saying that at the start of this project, I didn't understand what UBD was, or why it was even appropriate to be implemented in curriculum and lesson designs. In retrospect though, as the class has evolved throughout the semester, the "big picture" so to speak has become much clearer for me.

Working backwards, and starting with what our goals are for our students (or teachers in the case of this project) makes a great deal of sense. In teaching history, I often do the same thing, in starting with the result or outcome of a certain world conflict (say The Crusades for example) and figuring out the reasons why things ended up the way that we did. Going back to this project, I feel as though our group worked really well together. Even though there were certain people that were responsible for putting together one part, I feel that our group really collaborated well together in creating each part or step of the process together. Everyone's ideas were heard, and so unlike many other group projects that I've been a part of, this was one of the only ones where it was actually a total group effort.

Professional development, as we all know since we are all a part of this graduate program, is paramount in preparing and improving teachers so that we can continue to help each other and reach our students. Knowing this, it is important that each district has a sound professional development program in place for novice teachers to provide them with a support system in answering any questions that they may have and in guiding them in the right direction within the scope of the teaching profession. More districts, mine in particular, need to reflect on what it is that they are doing for their novice teachers in giving them the support that they need, because I feel as though even though there are things being done, that there could be a whole lot more done in terms of truly helping and reaching these teachers. The UBD format and process is one that I feel works because it is a clear, concise, and organized approach that covers all facets of the teaching experience. Whenever I do decide to become an administrator, I will definitely think back to the work that was done on this project because I feel that many of the ideas that people have are things that need to be implemented to help out our novice teachers.

State Testing

As the weather gets warmer, and the flowers and trees start to bloom and blossom, it can only mean one thing...no not that spring is here, but rather, it's time for the state's standardized testing again! Each year, courtesy of our current President's administration, our students are subjected to take 3-4 days of testing that looks to gauge whether our students can read, write, and do math & science "on grade level". These "high stakes tests" are a way of our federal government saying two things:

1. Here are the problems with our public education system

2. Here are the ways our teachers are failing our students

In essence, these tests, which are designed by people who know nothing about teaching, or who have been out of the classroom for years, prove absolutely nothing but that we can bore our students to tears. They prove that our students can read and comprehend a story about dolphins, that they can't create a story based on a picture prompt - all things I know that are applicable to what they will have to do when the reach the real world. I'm sure that when Joey goes on his first real job interview, his future employer is going to ask him a question to see whether or not he can create a story based on a picture that he shows him. What do these tests teacher our students? The answer, NOTHING.

Blame Nobody, Expect Nothing, Do Something

This is the sign that I posted in my classroom just a few weeks ago. My students pretty much live their lives by the complete opposite of what this sign intends to do. All too often, when they don't get their way in terms of the grade they received on a particular assignment, or for my baseball players, the fact that they aren't receiving as much playing time as they would like, they immediately make excuses and point the finger at anyone but themselves. Moreover, probably because I work in an affluent district, many of my students and baseball players have never really had to work for very much in their lives. Because they have money, their parents have always taken care of things and handed them everything that they've ever gotten.

For these reasons, I spent about the first ten minutes of class the other day going over the meaning of this sign that I posted in the front of my classroom, as well as the reasons as to why I posted it. These kids need to come to an understanding that they themselves need to stop blaming other people for their problems, and that they need to start to take responsibility for their own actions. Furthermore, they also need to stop expecting people to spoon feed them and hand them everything that they have in their lives. Most importantly though, the work ethic that these kids has is pathetic. Nobody wants to work hard for anything anymore, they just expect things to get taken care of for them or be handed to them. For this reason, they need to stop expecting things like this to happen for them, and need to start helping themselves by actually doing something to help themselves.

I have had the privilege of working with a veteran math teacher of 37 years who recently announced that he is going to retire at the end of this school year. Keeping in mind the sign in my classroom, I was interested to see what his take was on things so I asked him what the biggest difference was between the kids who are currently in his class now as opposed to the kids he had in his class during his very first year of teaching. His response, "every single one of them was a good student back then". I knew immediately what he meant by that, and it was not that they were necessarily smarter than the kids of today, but that back then, all of his students, bright or not, worked hard so that they were good students. Kids these days don't have that type of desire and competitive spirit in them, and it only makes me worry about what the future has to offer for many of these spoiled and lazy kids.