Hello from Dublin! I ended up
getting a late start at my school but I have been student teaching at St.
Andrew’s College for several weeks now and have been loving it! St. Andrew’s is
a well-funded, private, Presbyterian school with a highly international student
body comprising children from Ireland and a variety of other countries. I am
working in Ms. Cowman’s fourth grade classroom. This is Ms. Cowman’s first year
teaching at St. Andrew’s, so working with her during her transition to a new
school setting has been a valuable learning experience for me. There are 20
students in the classroom, and while a majority of the students are from
Ireland, a handful is from England and the United States.
The main difference I have noticed between
the Irish and American school systems is the style of teaching. My CT mainly
teaches whole class lessons, whereas at my previous placements at the Jackson
Mann in Allston and Countryside in Newton there was an emphasis on group work
and students often rotated through stations. Ms. Cowman sometimes puts the
students into small groups to work on history, geography, or drama projects
together, pairs students for math work, and prompts students to converse with
partners during Irish, but overall this structure made me wonder how much
differentiation was taking place and what supports were in place to assist
lower-level students. I asked Ms. Cowman about this, and she informed me that students
are initially leveled based on their performance on formal reading and math
tests at the beginning of the school year. During math and reading, she sits
down with a specific group, provides additional work to more advanced students,
and creates different worksheets to adapt to differing ability levels. Although
it depends on the subject, when she does group her students, she prefers to do
so heterogeneously. She also arranges the desks in groups and strategically
seats her students so that each group is of mixed ability to promote
scaffolding. I am interested in observing this differentiation in upcoming
weeks.
Another difference between St.
Andrew’s and Boston schools is the schedule. They overlap in that the core
subjects are Math, English, Science, and Social Studies, and Physical
Education, Music, Art, and Library are offered as specials in both school
systems. Contrastingly, Irish Language is a part of the everyday curriculum at
St. Andrew’s. While the Irish students learn Irish, the American students go to
another classroom for American Studies, where they learn about American
monuments, holidays, and important figures in history. S.E.S.E. (Social,
Environmental, and Scientific Education) is a course similar to Social Studies,
encompassing History, Geography, Science, and SPHE (Social, Personal, and
Health Education). Additional subjects that are offered at St. Andrew’s that I
have not seen in BPS are Computers, Religious Education, Drama, and European
Languages. Students have the option to learn French, German, Greek, or Spanish
before and after school as well as during blocks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. St.
Andrew’s offers instruction in a wide range of subjects and students seem to
really enjoy these additional courses. However, Ms. Cowman pointed out that
having general education teachers also teach specials makes the daily schedule
very inflexible.
I have found the collaboration
between teachers to be very similar to that of schools in the Boston area. Ms.
Cowman and the other fourth grade teacher, Ms. Lacey, work together to develop
a plan for each subject for the year as well as each semester, month, and week.
In these plans, they include lesson and unit objectives and methods of
differentiating instruction. Ms. Cowman and Ms. Lacey often share ideas for
activities and constantly communicate in order to maintain a similar pace. Especially
at Countryside in Newton, I observed my CT meet with other teachers in the
morning to plan activities and assess student work. This collaboration and
sharing of ideas is essential to being a successful teacher.
Another similarity I found was the strong
sense of community that these schools have developed. Since being at St.
Andrew’s, the students have put on a musical, prepared skits about morality for
school-wide assemblies, and participated in several themed days and weeks such
as Literacy Week, Dr. Seuss Week, and Wacky Wednesday. Similar to my Boston
placements, St. Andrew’s has paired reading once a week where older students
read with younger students. St. Andrew’s really fosters its students’
creativity and encourages students to collaborate and get to know each other,
which I have seen at my previous placements as well.
I look forward to continuing to
work with these students and answering more hilarious questions about American
things, i.e. what Twinkies taste like and why we call “car parks” “parking
lots.”