Miss Toliver: A Math Teacher's Idol

So I finally got up the courage to watch my first, math teaching experience in the middle school. I really should have watched it right away instead of waiting 4 weeks because then I would not have yet had the exposure to Miss. Toliver. She seems to make math so much fun for the students. While I taught a hands on learning lesson to the students it was far from "Miss. Toliver" exciting. This is proof that you can make learning and teaching fun. I know there are ways I could have delivered my lesson differently to better engage and excite the class.

Kids on Race: Accepting all Colors in my Classroom

The other day in class we watched a bit of "Anderson Coopers 360: Kids on Race". Below is just a clip from what we watched in class.



I thought this was a really interesting study. However, not knowing that much about studies and research I found myself wondering somethings. The questions were posed in such a way that implied that the participants had to answer. They asked "which girl is the prettiest?" or "Point to the girl that is the good student?" which makes it sound like there is an answer. I started to think about this when some of the older students responded by saying that there was not enough information for them to answer the questions, and that all people are equal regardless of what their skin color was. So how do you decided if younger children in the study just answer because it seems like they have to or because they are showing biases? What if the questions were "Do you think any of these children are smarter than the others?" that to me would show more than just asking them which one.  While I do not know too much about research I do know that they look at the validity of the study to see if things were conducted appropriately. I would be curious to see what others would say about this study.

Another thing that I think is important to look at in the data is the other side. They said that "66% of students pointed to the darkest skinned child when asked to point to the mean child". The other side to that is 34% of children did not and what are they hearing and learning that is influencing their decisions.

Regardless of my knowledge of this study and research in general I think there is a message I can take away from this that will impact my teaching and when I am a parent some day. I want to make sure that the things I say and that my actions don't make any students think that one color over another is better or worse. That is not something I believe and therefor do not want it to be a message that students pick up. One of the expectations in my classroom will be that students work together and accept and cherish diversity and everyone differences. I will not only tell this to students but I will have activities in place that help the students to see this in action. That will just be one of the way we will begin to be a class that is not colorblind but one that accepts color regardless of the shade.

Are middle school students like kindergarten students?

Back in September I had a great experience with one of the students. The students were working on drawing pictures of themselves so we could graph how many boys and how many girls there were in the class. As I am walking around looking the the portraits I am trying to keep in mind what I learned in my Art Education class over the summer. We learned that telling a student their art is "good" or "nice" or even saying it is "bad" is not constructive feedback and that makes kids think their work is only acceptable if it is "good" or "nice". Students should not just be looking for those words of praise but should know what it is that they are doing nicely or why it looks good. So as I walk around I am pointing out to the students what I see. I say things like "I see you have a big smile on your face" or I might throw in a "looking good, I see your curly hair and your brown eyes" since it is hard for me to leave out those words completely, and I think not too necessary but that is a different blog. I happen to walk over to one student and say "Gavin that looks like you, I see your brown hair, and your blue eyes. I think the only at thing that is different is today you are wearing a green shirt and in your picture you drew you are wearing a red shirt." I followed that up by saying are you trying to tell us something, tomorrow are you going to wear a red shirt and this is a picture of exactly what you will look like tomorrow" Then I went on my way to see some more pictures.

The next morning Gavin walks into the classroom. He says to me "Good morning Ms. Parks look" as he pointed to his shirt. All I said was good morning back. Then a couple minutes later to my surprise I realized what he was trying to tell me, Gavin had remembered what we talked about and wore a red shirt. I not only thought it was incredibly cute that he did that but I was amazed that he  remembered. I went back over to him and did not say I forgot because how embarrassing if a five year old can remember shouldn't I be able to? Instead I started talking about him looking like his picture and that I thought it was really cool that he surprised me and did that.

That experience made me think about how kids really do listen and they want to impress you.
I couldn't help but think of Gavin when I happened to have a nice chat with A yesterday, the middle schooler who I happened to mention in another blog that always has an attitude problem. As I mentioned before we have not had any conflicts and I never did anything wrong to her but that she just doesn't like teachers. As I walk past A's desk I happen to notice that her binder cover has been cleared out of all of her artwork and pictures. I wanted to ask but hesitated because I did not want to get the same angry look or mumbled comment. However, I decided to ask anyway and she quickly looked up and responded saying "I took them all out because I want to reorganize my binder and I am giving my artwork away." Not only was that the most pleasant response she has given me but she next said "would you like one?" I was shocked! "What me? You want to give me something" I thought. Of course I told her I would love something. By the way she is a pretty good artist. So she starts pulling all of her art out of her binder to show it off and let me pick what I wanted. I felt really bad I was getting her off subject but really good that she was giving me the time. It was a complete turn around. After I picked my piece of her art she put them away and got back to work. When class was over I went up to her and asked if she was going to decorate her binder after school. She replied back with saying that she might if she had time. This was the moment I thought about that kindergarten boy. I wondered if A would come in with a newly decorated binder and if she would be interested in showing me.
The next day I was excited for 5th period to come around to see if A would acknowledge me or want to talk more about her art. sure enough she walks in and I am sitting in a chair in the back of the room and she pushes her binder towards me to show what she had been working on. I perked up and started to talk to her about what she had created. "Yay" I thought it my head. We talked about what was new and that she had never really taken an art class. A little while later I had showed her a picture that I had on my phone of a self portrait I had done years ago. She laughed at it but it was a very genuine laugh together and not like she was laughing at me. It was great. I felt so pleased that it seemed like I made a connection with her. I hope that next week things are still on the right path.
While I am very happy with the way things are going, I am having trouble with the way A's and my relationship shifted. It seems like the only way I could connect with her was to get her completely off the topic of her school and work. How can you make sure to connect and get to know your students when you have so little time to do so? It was not like this was the only time I have tried to talk to her about her likes and interests. It seems like she needed multiple attempts. However, I am also not the teacher and I only see her and the rest of the class two times a week for two months which makes it challenging. Maybe this would not be as big of a challenge if I was there more often.