Life's HOTs questions

When I was first accepted into Teach For America as a senior at Duke many friends, professors and family members asked lower-level, "what, where, when" questions. "Where were you assigned to teach? What are you going to teach? When will you start? Are you excited? What do you expect?"

In my classroom, I try not to spend too much time asking my students these types of questions, but I always start with them. When I taught a unit on stars I started class with a "what" question. For the first five minutes of class I told them to write down a paragraph describing a star. I wanted to hear their thoughts about stars and wanted to see their ability to write simple explanations. It was a lower-level question, but it was necessary to get through to build to the topic's ultimate goal, which was to classify stars and predict the future life of different types of stars (a higher-level thinking process).

Now I am four months into teaching and I am finally getting life's HOTs (higher order thinking) questions. My two favorites are:"Why did you decide to do Teach For America?" and "What will you do after TFA?" Yeah, even though there's a "what" in there its asking for a prediction ;)

Unfortunately I have not been 100% honest with people who ask me the "Why" question. Usually I just say "Oh, I studied public policy and was interested in education policy and thought that TFA would be a great way to experience education policy in practice." It's a valid reason, but it's not the complete reason. 

I think the closest I've been to my more complete reason was when I bumped into a long lost friend from UNC  in the elevators at Institute. When she saw me her eyes lit up and loudly asked, "Why are you here?!" It was a really abrupt and direct way of starting the conversation, especially when everyone else around us was also probably thinking the same thing for themselves.

Without thinking twice I just blurted out, "I... want to close the achievement gap."

---

I am in Teach For America because I really care about education and about the future of this country. The U.S. public education system is a cornerstone to our democracy that serves as a ladder to social and economic mobility for all its citizens. Without a strong public education system, we fail to prepare the future of America to become self-sufficient, innovative and working adults. Currently, we have a public education system that is unjust. A child's zip code will determine whether they will receive an excellent education; and that shouldn't be the case. All children in this country deserve the same opportunity to learn. I know that TFA is not the solution to the achievement gap. There is no one solution. But I want to be part of the solution.

That is my response to the "Why?" and now I have to figure out the long-term "How?" question. How will I continue to fight to close the achievement gap after my two-year commitment?

Prediction questions are tough.

At the end of teaching the unit on stars, my HOTs question for my kids was "How can you determine what stage a star is in its life cycle?" It was an interesting lesson that they enjoyed because we discussed how our Sun will change over time. Scientists predict that in about about 5 billion years our Sun will change into a Red Giant and engulf Earth. Good thing we probably won't be around for that.

Happy New Year :)

November/Early December Update

Excuse the delay, but November was quite the month. I switched a few classes, I lost my planning period, and now teach two regular 7th grade science classes, one advanced 7th grade science class and three 8th grade science research honors classes. Two of the 8th grade classes had another TFA teacher but after our school’s first instructional review, the superintendent ordered the principal to make the switch. The other teacher only teaches 7th grade and I took his two 8th grade “double dose” science classes. In addition to those two, the school created another “double dose” class so that there are at least 60 8th graders at our school who are exposed to more science.

The 8th graders who had the other teacher were confused and some upset because of the switch. They are over it now, and many actually seem pleased to be in my class. My biggest task was to “re-sell” this double dose course because many would rather take P.E. or a more “fun” elective. I shared my high school science project that I completed at the University of Florida to motivate them about science. I told them about how I spent a summer in University of Florida as a high school student because of science and that they will have these opportunities if they do well in middle school.

I come off as a huge nerd to my students; I tell them how much I love science and science research. I put on a show for them and not just my 8th graders but to my 7th graders as well. For the past three weeks I’ve had to teach the rock cycle, rock classification and how rocks change Earth’s surface. It’s not the most exciting thing to teach but I act a fool and tell them that I LOVE rocks so much that I collect them and I tell them that I want them to be “rock stars.” They make fun of me, but it gets them (somewhat) engaged.

The cool thing about this research class is that I have more flexibility with my lessons to make it fun. For example, I had to teach a unit on atoms, compounds and mixtures. Before I actually taught anything I gaged their knowledge by giving them an “edible test” where they were given candy to make a model of an atom. The deal was to label and complete the atom before eating any of it, which they all did successfully. Many of them knew about the electrons, protons and neutrons, which helped getting through the material quicker for the day. We also did another experiment where we mixed chemicals and created iron sulfide. The room smelled like sulfur for two days, which wasn’t fun but they got to work with chemicals, hot plates, test tubes, etc.

This past week I left school in the middle of the day and as the substitute walked in my 4th period cried out, “MISS, WHY ARE YOU LEAVING?!” It was cute, but what was REALLY cute and shocking was the fact that one of my students called me as I was driving away from school asking to clarify the work I left for them. “Ms. H, so just to get this straight we are doing the textbook assignments and the three worksheets? Anything else?” I couldn’t believe my ears! It totally made my day. Unfortunately, I could count the number of students I have who are eager to work and learn. Most students tell me they don't care and that they're bored. It's sad. Most of my planning and effort goes to figuring out how to get these student motivated instead of how to get them to think/learn because if they aren't motivated in the first place, they won't digest any of the material I present.

On a different note, I’m officially a resident of Miami Beach. I was living with my parents for the past few months to save some money but the drive (30 minutes in the morning and up to an hour in the evening) was getting to me. I found a neat place in South Beach, which will be exciting to experience and is only 10 minutes away from work!

December has been a fast month… the kids are getting restless because break is coming up. The worst part is that our school has another instructional review on the 15th… and our last day before break is the 16th! Horrible timing, but it’ll come and go quickly. This update was shorter than the others, but over the break I plan to write and reflect more about my progress as a teacher and give more stories about my students. I’m developing great relationships with most of my students, but I’m also going through a really tough time with one particular class. I’m also trying to improve so many of my instructional strategies to get these kids to THINK for themselves, which is the million dollar question and is what we all are always trying to do.