How to discuss tragedy with students...

With the wake of the events that took place in Paris last week, I thought to myself; "How would I discuss these events with my students?" Teaching high school you can have a more open conversation about all aspects of an event like this. But how do you tell a younger child why things like this happen? I feel that it is our job as teachers to be sensitive towards discussing these events with all ages. We have a responsibility to talk about them, because this is the world our students live in. They may not be directly impacted, but they have questions and you need to be prepared to answer them. 

I think the best thing that the events allow us to do as teachers is to open up the discussion about stereotypes and race. It allows us to debunk stereotypes about certain religions, ethnic groups, races, etc. The classroom is often the only platform that many students have to discuss these issues. Be the sounding board for them and be honest with your students. I don't hold my feelings back from my students-they can feel that I am genuinely interested in the discussions we are having and want to make them comfortable. Making your students feel safe to openly discuss these events can be a "teachable moment" in your classroom. 

Be honest with your students-if you don't know the answer tell them so, keep the conversation real. 

Substitute

I have not been in the classroom since Feb. of 2014. I have been focused on school and getting my Specialist and Doctorate since then. That is the plan for the next few years! My husband has been super supportive of my choice to go back to school. Boy do I miss having my own classroom and teaching everyday, but this is the path I have chosen and it is for a greater good.
Friday is my first day subbing at one of the schools in the area. I am nervous...just a little bit. I will start my day with little ones-kindergarten to be exact. I will be subbing for the teachers aide, so I won't be completely lost. If you know me, I decided to teacher high school after one observation in a fourth grade class! I don't do little kids. I like to be at least the same height as my students, though most of my students did tower over me. I like little kids, I am just not that comfortable around them...so this should be interesting. After lunch, I will be in a junior high English class. I am happy that they have early dismissal, so I don't have to do two English classes in the afternoon. As a teacher, I would make my sub do as little as possible, so I am hopeful that the English class I am in will be working silently on something, without me having to do too much instruction! Pray for me!!! They don't really scare me, again I taught high school. I will preface my introduction to the class that I am not an English teacher, I am a history teacher, so if I get something wrong be patient with me. It will be ok, I am looking forward to it. I have been in this school working with the curriculum director since last fall to get my hours for class completed so I am familiar with some of the people and I know my way around. It is just a new experience in my life, and I am going to conquer it! I know people that love subbing and would rather do that then teach full time. Ok, the plus is I don't have to make up lesson plans!! So, Friday will be just fine! Wish me luck!

Why I do what I do...

When I decided to become a teacher I never knew that I would love it as much as I do. I had an unfortunate event where I was only able to start my career as a teacher for three years almost two years ago.I loved working with students and getting to know them. The bureaucratic "SH$$" that teachers have to deal with now is ridiculous and unfortunate to say the least. I dealt with administration that were bosses, but not LEADERS. It's kind similar to "you can be a father/mother to someone, but that doesn't make you a PARENT."  As an educator who has been through the ringer and came out still wanting to be in this profession, that says a lot. I care about one thing-the STUDENTS, they are the life force behind what I do and will continue to do with my career path.

In the state I live in, the evaluation process is putting a lot of emphasis on student growth, and that makes sense, but the way the state is going about it by testing students to death. Teachers are worn out, stressed, and overworked, worried that if they are not able to show growth among their students, they move down the ladder. If you add it up, students in this state are subjected to about six weeks of state mandated testing! Think of all the instructional time lost because of this, plus add in PD, holidays, in-services that also take away from the face time you have with your students.  The evaluation process in this state is a great model. Danielson has been around for sometime and has come up with a great way to evaluate teachers in several domains. It is clear cut and not subjective at all, the administrator just has to record what they see and hear during the lesson and their walk through. But there seems to be a disconnect with some schools when it comes to this model. They want to make it "specific" to their school, which in my mind leaves room for subjectivity. Why recreate the wheel, when Danielson has already done it for you. It is fine to add to the evaluation expectations as a whole as long as the teachers are aware of what the administrator is looking for as evidence. The school I was at, to this point is basically trying to recreate the wheel, making it difficult for teachers to know what to expect. When asked questions about the process, the answer depends on which administrator you talk to. It should be consistent across the board. As an educator that is working on my Specialist in Curriculum Instruction and Design, I see many problems. (But that is a whole different rant, I will save for later.)

I have thrown myself into a Specialist in Curriculum Instruction and Design/Ed.d program over the last year and half because I see a need for me to advocate in the education profession. I want to help teachers and schools have a say in what is going on in their schools, regarding curriculum and the evaluation process. The state bought into PARRC as one of its tests to show student growth. This is a hot topic in most states that adopted it last year. For me, there is no need to subject students to another test that won't even be able to show student growth for at least several years, because there are so many problems with the test itself. Politicians need to stay out of education. They purchased this test before even knowing what the test would actually be able to show. There were no benchmarks set, so how can you show growth, when there is no goal for the student to reach? Do you see the frustration that comes with teaching? I know it is different for everyone that teaches, and varies from state to state, but I think we have lost the purpose of teaching. It is not to teach to a test, or just to prepare students for college. Not everyone is or will go to college for one reason or another. A test does not mean that as a teacher you have failed because your student did not score high enough. The test does not show that your student that came to you in August and had no interest in learning about the government and was failing your class by the first quarter, turned around and raised their test score to a C from a D. Those tests do not show that the student that has confidence issues, is now full of confidence because you told them they could do it. It boils down to the fact that these tests but all the accountability on the teachers and forces them to remove the most vital part of their job-getting to know their students and their strengths. If you are more focused on teaching to a test and you are worried about cramming information into their heads, you are missing out on the best part of teaching. I love getting to know what my students lives are like, I love seeing them outside of school, I love getting to know what they are passionate about. That is what drives me to continue to educating myself to better meet the needs of my future students and co-workers.

I did not get into this profession for money or the summers off, since you never really stop working even through the summer. I got into this profession because I am passionate about it and know that I can make a difference. I keep in contact with several of my former students through social media, and it is always nice to see how they are doing as they get older. Just last night I had one student, from my first year of teaching, send me a message thanking me for always believing in him. That is why I do what I do.

Be kind.

Choose your own ADVENTURE...

As a history teacher I love telling stories. My day is made up of telling stories about China, Western Europe, the Industrial Revolution, etc. I have learned that in order  for my students to be excited about what they are learning, I have to be excited about what I am teaching. I have to draw them into the story and make them want to know what happens at the end. How does one do this? Here is one of my favorite ways to draw them into history:

Let's say I am doing a lesson on the start of the Greek Civilization. 

1. I would tell my students the who, what, when and where.

2. I would highlight several main points of the development of the civilization and have the students read the text and other supplemental readings to gain content of the topic.

3. Here is the fun part...let the student choose how the story ends. Allow them to tell you how they think history would play out if one event did or didn't happen.  This is something that is beneficial to both the student and you as the teacher.

*You can assess if the student has grasped the main objective of the content you have presented them.

*The student is able to use higher level thinking skills and analyze the events you discussed in class and come to a conclusion about how history would be shaped if a particular event happened or didn't.

You could do this with almost any major event in history. Students, if given the chance, will do amazing things. This is an activity that would allow the student that loves to write excel, but would also allow students that struggle with writing a chance to write something that is a little less formal than an essay for class. Students of all learning levels love this activity, they are able to use their imagination and once again you as the teacher have been able to draw them into the wonderful world that is HISTORY.

Engaging Students-Service Learning Based Education

How do you engage your students? Going back to school over the last year has opened my eyes as to what I really want to focus on for my final Practicum and then my Doctoral Dissertation. I want to know how Service Learning can improve the students' overall engagement in the classroom, as well as mastery of the lesson objective.

I found through my research that service learning based lessons allow the students to apply what they learn and have a higher rate of mastery of the lesson objectives in the end. The case study that I loved, dealt with a shop class. The teacher had two sections of the same class. He opted to used a control in his experiment dealing with service learning. He taught one class the traditional way: Teach the students through demonstration, lecture and formal assessments. The other class was given the objectives of the lesson beforehand and told that they would be doing a project to determine mastery of those objectives. The class that was given the project, had to decided what they would do as a project for the class. The objectives of the lesson were to learn shop safety and proper use of the tools in the shop. They decided that they wanted to make toys for the elementary school next door to the high school. The class met with one class and discussed with the students about what they wanted Santa to bring them. They let the students draw pictures of toys they wanted. After the class met with the younger students, they thought, "It wouldn't be fair to just do this for one class." They decided as a class to make toys for all the elementary classes before Christmas Break.  Through journals and observation the teacher was able to see what each student was able to do. He would show the students the proper way to handle the equipment and then let them work on their own. He was there to supervise and monitor what they were doing, but the students had control of the project. They broke the project up into sections. Several students worked on templates for the toys, others worked on cutting, sanding and assembly of the toys. They even asked one art class to help out with the decorations of the toys.  The teacher recorded comments from the students stating that they "wished all their classes could be like this." He observed that students that typically in the pass during the year that did not put forth much effort in learning the material were excelling in this project. Throughout the quarter, the teacher did several formal assessments-quizzes and test- over the objectives, and noticed that the class that was doing the service learning project had higher scores on the assessments. Not to say that traditional approach to teaching was not effective in the mastery of the objectives, it just does not allow the students to engage themselves in the way they could.  In the end the students finished making over 100 toys and delivered them to the elementary students the day before Christmas Break. They even dressed up like elves.  The students were invested in the outcome and worked harder to master the skills needed to complete the project. The teacher rated the students according to what they did throughout the quarter, and even though some students did not fully participate in the interaction with the younger students, they did put forth the effort to help the rest of the class finish the project on time.

So, what does this all mean? Well, for me it speaks volumes about how service learning can be used in the classroom to help a teacher help students master the main objectives of a lesson. Students have to be fully engaged in what they are learning, mainly because they have a problem to solve and they must work to solve it. Service Learning can be done as a cross curricular project, or in individual subjects. It is something that many schools-mainly high schools- are turning towards to engage the students in the lessons. The best way to teach a student about something is to give them the power to oversee the outcome of the lesson. They must be invested in what they are learning in order to grasp the objectives and maintain the information and build their knowledge base.

So, the next time you sit down to design a lesson plan, stop and think about if this lesson could be implemented into a service learning project. Your job as a teacher is to get your students to love learning as much, if not more than you do, and service learning is a great start to that adventure with your students.

Store link...

I have updated all my products and add items regularly...check out the store. If there is something you have questions about let me know!!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Ahatley-Social-Studies

New Ideas

I haven't been a classroom for a year now, this will be my second year out. I went back to school to start working on my Doctorate in Education. I am finishing up my Specialization in Curriculum Instruction and Design next Spring! (Not counting down at all.) I have a TpT store that I have been posting lesson plans on since March of this year. It's a little slow in the store, but I am confident that once more people see what I have created they will spread the word. I try to work on things weekly. I have tons of lessons already created, so its just a matter of getting them set to go in the store. I also have a huge list of new ideas for lessons I want to create. As a teacher I am constantly thinking of ideas to better engage my students in activities that will allow them to grasp the main concept. I jot down ideas all the time, when they pop in my head. My list is growing, but that is good. That means I have not lost my desire to teach. Even though when I am finished with my Doctorate, I would love to teach at a university, I am not opposed to going back to teaching high school. (Don't know if I will have priced myself out of that market with a doctorate just yet.)

When you have an idea do you create the lesson/activity right away, or do you think about it a little bit to work out the problems? I have found that if I just create something right away, the kinks work themselves out while I am doing the lesson. Though my type A personality cringes at this method, it is slowly becoming more refined. I take a few days now to work out the logistics of the lesson or activity and then I create it. I have post-its all over the place! 

This blog will basically be me thinking things through and posting new ideas I have for lessons/activities for high school history classes. Many of the lessons I have in my TpT shop already can be modified for junior high. 

Hope you come back for more and visit my shop too.