Today I was supposed to be observing most of the day, which I did: I observed Ingrid who is a very good, though very traditional teacher, and then Sarah, who of course had such a wonderful rapport with the students and great presence in the class. When I went in to observe Orel, however, he wasn’t there (I’m guessing he mixed up his days since yesterday was a staff day, plus their schedule is nuts) -- so I ended up running the class. At first I didn’t know what to do, because when I walked into the class and asked for Orel they didn’t know where he was so I asked Sarah and she suggested that I go over a writing rubric with them to define what made a great essay. I loved interacting with the kids, though I don’t know how effective the class was. I just told them I wanted to learn the differences in teaching writing between the US and SA and so we looked at the rubric and compared terms and tried to clarify some of the vaguer descriptions in the rubric. I enjoyed the observations as well, but not as much as the actual interaction with the kids. ...
After school I went to Alex again to help in the recruiting examination that they give. Tomorrow Sarah and I will do a rap about figurative language...we call ourselves Hyperbole MC
Day 17 – Wednesday, July 14
Today where I am questioning my purpose here a little bit. Marc and John have obvious roles…mine I think is still unfolding -- the English dept here is pretty solid…Orel, Sarah and Ingrid are all really competent, open teachers, so I’m having to just be a support and I’m not sure yet how to do that. I started developing the Women’s day project, which I love and that has given me a focus, but that’s easy…
Day 18 – Thursday, July 15
Today was better. Sarah and I did our figurative language rap, and made complete fools of ourselves, which is always fun! Marc and I had a really insightful talk with Trevor, the LO teacher about the race issue in the school, as far as white teachers having a very dominant voice (Marc actually tallied), and we offered any assistance he might need in trying to implement changes to the meetings. After our talk with Trevor, I had a great conversation with Orel, who I find to be an extremely wise, thoughtful person. I LOVE how he pushes anyone he’s talking to…for example, if I say I liked a certain element of a class, he asks why…he asks why about everything…it’s awesome…so I don’t just spout off as I sometimes tend to do and am forced to reflect on and question my opinions. I got to sit in on his grade 10 class as well, where he went over the short story that was assigned, taking the time to very thoroughly explore the story, the more subtle meanings, how it applies to their lives, etc. At this point I feel that I’m definitely learning more from him than he is from me. I showed him a little bit of the women’s day project to get his feedback and he is very open to it, which is great because I was a little worried that I would be stepping on his toes. He’s clearly a wonderful teacher so I don’t want to impose myself where it isn’t needed.
Day 19 – Friday, July 16
This morning I was able to sit in on the LO class and I was blown away. Tibia and Trevor do an amazing job of creating an atmosphere of trust and respect and really draw students out in the many challenges they are facing…obviously different and more intense in ways from our advisory classes in the US, but at the same time, those rebellious teenage elements were still there. What I loved seeing was how attentive the students were to each other as they discussed their struggles, and how willing they were to challenge each other if they felt that a student wasn’t seeing a situation clearly or from a different perspective. I plan to attend all of the LO meetings for this group – the 10.1 class (Sarah’s English class). After this I again had a great conversation with Orel and we went over the project outline so far, with him reading and offering feedback/suggestions that we can discuss later. This afternoon I led his class in a figurative language activity (the same on that Sarah did with her class), and then they had a few minutes to start work on their poem.
I had such a great time teaching Orel’s class. They were so responsive and engaged, and so much fun. And the class went by so fast! I hope that Orel will let me teach a few more times…maybe I can even take one of Sarah’s classes.
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