Skip Ahead (Ch.4-Making It Explicit)

Continuing our “Student Teacher Saga” we find our subjects realizing that they are”not someone who is part of the classroom.” The children knew more about the culture and one of the big challenges would be to learn that new culture. It seemed that everyone had experience being there but our student-teachers. Our Author suggests that they learn the patterns in order to learn the “norms and expectations.” What our subjects have learned is that the patterns are more obvious when interrupted. As visitor, they interviewed the host teachers, as well as students, and made a classroom map to help guide the way through the note-taking. While members “assumed the guest already knew” some of the reasons behind the actions. One such interview told the story of the importance of the clock and how it “controlled time spent.” Student teachers see that “classroom life is built overtime ….and through specific relationships.” Their first placements were easier because they were starting early in the year. The second placements, however, were more challenging due to the fact that the community members were already there and they were seen as guests. Faced with this new class, they not only had to “discover how to act and talk in order to be included,” but also had to continue to grow and “understand community practices.”

Now with all that being said, here’s my take on this chapter:

• That host teacher seemed a bit sarcastic. She had a visitor and the first little mistake, she jumped like an octopus playing goalie position (nice save).
• I like the maps. They provide visual aid when trying to recall events.
• Page 44 made me wonder if others saw the movement in my room as “disruptive”. If we are all quietly working and someone needs to get up and sharpen a pencil or get a tissue or dictionary, why on Earth should they have to raise their hand and WAIT to get my attention? Further, I have now interrupted the quiet to acknowledge, get a question and give an answer. They can quickly, and quietly get what they need and return to the task at hand. I see where they are going and what they are doing while others’ attentions are not taking from their thoughts. Not even two weeks ago a child sat, hand raised, and waited for me to notice. He then made a pencil sharpening motion and I nodded. After class that day, we had a brief talk about why he did that and he said he forgot because he had just left So and so’s class and would have been disciplined for getting up without permission. So now I wonder, is this my problem or So and so’s. Point taken in this chapter about “rules as part of a new classroom life.”
• Classroom management techniques vary from teacher to teacher. Some are seen weak because they “tolerate” more than others. Some are seen as tyrants because the smallest thing seems to be a huge disruption of the education process. And let’s face it, some just have a bad day. Regardless of our personal management techniques, we must first be accepted as the leader in the classroom community. By observing others (while in our student/teacher mode) we can learn what to do and not to do and take the experience with us to our own community. Confidence can only be felt/built by us, not what others think of us. (I can write it, but can I do it…hmm)
• The clock…sometimes we love it, sometimes we hate it. (Or we can go buy one with Goofy on it so we can tolerate to look at it) Good or bad, it does control the parts of our classroom culture. This thought goes hand in hand with student interest. It “can be the longest 53 minutes” -Jen or it could be the shortest depending in what our students are focused on…at that time of the day.
• Inquiries/Activities to ponder. Things that made me go hmm… Do I make my rules explicitly known? How do I invite new students in? How much time IS necessary for each of the two texts (academic and social)? What kind of talk is encouraged? For the answers to these and other important questions…

Tune in next time readers, as we follow our student-teachers and their life lessons as learned through art of ethnography.