A Lesson on Charity: Children in Need Day 2014

This past Friday, November 14, 2014 was Children in Need day in the UK. Children in Need is BBC’s charity that aims to change the lives of disabled children and people in the United Kingdom. It’s a really big deal here, with many celebrities getting involved, and leads up to a huge telethon broadcast. This year’s telethon included the reunion of S Club 7, One Direction, and Cheryl Cole among others.

Manorcroft also did its part to help on Children in Need day. Students were able to wear fancy dress, or costumes, if they brought in one pound to donate to the charity. At the weekly school assembly, student council members shared with the school some facts they learned about the charity, including that since 1980 it has raised over 600 million pounds. The Head Teacher also complimented everyone on their fancy dress, and even pointed out a few students who were dressed as Pudsey Bear, the charity’s mascot.

In my classroom, children came as characters from Frozen, football (soccer) players, princesses, and superheroes. While dressing up is fun for the children, Miss Cornick thought it was also important for the students to know why they were dressing up. I feel that it is sometimes difficult to teach students, especially 7 year olds, about controversial topics such as homelessness, disability, racism, poverty, etc. However, I was really impressed with the way in which Miss Cornick went about teaching this lesson.

She had the students sit on the floor and after showing students the short Children in Need video on the smart board, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Z6uCOku7k&list=PL2091C36E21B86CBF), Miss Cornick told the students a little bit about how the charity helps others. She showed them a picture of One Direction with Pudsey Bear, which really got the students excited. By doing so, Miss Cornick was able to show how popular groups or people that the students recognized are doing their part for Children in Need day.  She also played them the charity single, Wake Me Up, and explained that they might have heard on the radio or seen on the Tele in the past few weeks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ghScc6KDD0). This song is similar to the We Are the World charity single that got a bunch of celebrities and important people together to raise money after the earthquake in Haiti.

Then she asked students to get in a circle and asked students to go around in the circle and share a time when they helped someone else. Whoever was speaking held Pudsey Bear, which the students really enjoyed. She related their helping classmates to the help they were providing to the disadvantaged people by donating money. She told them that by dressing up, the pound they brought in was going directly to help the children and people they saw in the video.

The students then went back to their tables for an activity. On a piece of paper was a picture of Pudsey bear, which they were able to color, and they had to finish the sentence: “Children in Need is an important charity because…” As I walked around and helped students, I was amazed at how well the students understood the topic. Some sentences that students wrote were, “…because it helps children become happy” and “…because it makes children who are weak and poorly smile.”

I was really impressed with the lesson because Miss Cornick was able to take a loaded subject and bring it down to a level that the students could understand. I think teaching controversial topics is difficult for teachers because they don’t want to share any biases, nor do they want to present any material that is above students’ comprehension level or inappropriate for their age.  I had a difficult time when I was teaching a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. during my pre-practicum last year, especially when students were asking questions about facts that are still being debated today. I found it hard to determine how much information to tell them and how deep into the subject to go.

In America I’ve found that most lessons about controversial topics tend to be in an Open Circle or discussion based format. What I liked about Miss Cornick’s lesson was that she combined many different formats. She presented information on the smart board, then she had the discussion part of it, and finally she had students complete a writing/coloring activity, which served as an assessment for her. Observing Miss Cornick teach this lesson gave me many ideas about how to teach controversial subjects, and I plan on implementing them back in the US.

Here’s a picture from Friday of all my students in their fancy dress. Pudsey Bear is the yellow stuffed bear in the front row.

Comparing Diffferent Types of Schooling in Quito: Promoting Equity and Social Justice

Before I came to Ecuador, Madison (the old International Practicum supervisor) sent me a YouTube video promoting Colegio Menor, the school I am working at.  If you read the comments, some of them praise the amazing quality of the school, but others criticize the fact that there are children on the street and some children are going to this fancy school.  When I first talked to my host family about working at Colegio Menor, they told me that the students at the school have a reputation for being snobs.  While private education is much more feasible in Ecuador (it is much cheaper and there are more options), Colegio Menor is the most expensive private school in Quito.  Comparing my experiences with my practicum at Colegio Menor to some of my colleagues’ experiences volunteering at other schools in the Quito area has helped me see the inequity in schools.

            It is very apparent that Colegio Menor has a lot of resources.  The school has a campus with beautiful buildings and nice sporting fields.  There is a cafeteria that offers breakfast, with items such as pancakes, and lunch, with food such as sushi and ceviche.  There is a library with books of varying levels in both Spanish and English.  The library also has a smart board and around twenty iPads to help instruction.  While the teachers do work with two or three classes, there are teachers specialized in Spanish, Language Arts/Social Studies, and Math/Science.  There is also an assistant that helps the Language Arts Teachers.   There are also multiple psychologists and specialists to help students with special needs.  In addition to the standard classes, school has strong music and art instruction.  The students go on several different field trips throughout the year.  Furthermore, there are special events some weekends to promote school spirit and parent participation.  There are even after schools clubs in which the students can participate.  The students and teachers have plenty of resources to help them succeed.

            On the other hand, one of my friends is volunteering in a public school in Quito and another is volunteering at a school for children on welfare.  At the public school, there is one teacher for all subjects.  She often leaves my friend (who is not an education major and doesn’t feel completely comfortable with Spanish) for long periods of time.  There are many behavioral issues in the classroom.  The school for children on welfare is located in an dangerous area, so much so that my friend is not allowed to bring a bag to her volunteering to prevent robbery.  One of the students took a knife from the school and was threatening another student with it.  Each student is given five dollars to buy lunch.  There is one teacher for each class.  That teacher often has to lock the door to prevent students from leaving the school.  The teachers sometimes physically punish the children.  Hearing about these situations is disheartening.

            While I appreciate being able to see/ participate in the effective instruction at Colegio Menor, I am aware that the students there have a very different experience from some other students in Quito.  I feel guilty having my practicum count as my volunteering.  Nonetheless, this experience has further fueled my desire to promote social equity and help provide a better education for those with fewer resources.

Science in the Roman Classroom

For my second journal entry, I want to discuss specific lessons that I have observed in the classroom. I enjoy the math and science lessons the most, and because my teacher specializes in science and is very passionate about it, those lessons are so fun to be a part of. I am lucky that I am there on Wednesdays and get to observe science, because it is not a subject that the students have every day. They have science only twice a week, geography once a week, and current events once a week. They have math and language arts every day, and a variety of "specials" like music, art, and PE. My teacher is frustrated by this because she thinks that science should have more lessons per week than art or music class, instead science and music are taught the same amount of time every week. I have to agree. In American schools, they usually have the different arts once a week and the educational subjects every day. I am shocked that the students only have science twice a week, and I'm sure they would like to have it more because they absolutely love the interactive lessons.

For the past few months the subject has been electricity. The students all do experiments with circuit boards that have the ability to make electric charges. They usually work in groups and have to figure out how to make a lightbulb light up, a top spin, or use the batteries and wires in some other way. They absolutely love experimenting, and seeing when a student makes a discovery is so incredible to watch. For example, last week they were using two batteries and metal wires to make a closed circuit and light a lightbulb. One group could not figure out why their lightbulb wasn't working. Finally a student realized that they needed the batteries to face opposite directions so the positive and negative sides were back to back. When she finally discovered this, switched the battery and saw the lightbulb light, she was ecstatic! The students have a ton of freedom when doing science, so they all have different results and are able to make comparisons, predictions and conclusions.

This week the class made electromagnets for the first time. My cooperating teacher did a demonstration "fishbowl" where she sat at a table to demonstrate while the rest of the students crowded around (surprisingly there are very few problems with crowding around and being able to see during fishbowls!). She showed the students how they would make a circuit, some groups with one battery and some with two, and connect one wire to make an electromagnet by wrapping it around the body of the cylindric magnet. With that, she sent the groups off. They all worked well and all had a working electromagnet. We then "fishbowled" around each table while each group demonstrated. One group was able to pick up three washers, while the last group picked up over 20! With these observations, the excited students drew conclusions on why one worked so much better (the wire was wrapped tighter, more times around, closer to the head of the magnet, etc.) They then went back to their original groups and remade their electromagnets. By the end, all the groups were picking up 20s and 30s of washers.

The students really benefitted from this hands on experience, and talking to the students after, I found that they really loved science time. They said this is the first year at school where they have so much hands on experimenting, which they love. It is incredible to see how mature some of their responses are when they come back as a class, after small group work, to reflect and make conclusions. The intellectual level of some of the comments prove that this hands on work is irreplaceable, and really effective at teaching concepts properly. The only problems I observed during this group work were lack of materials available to the shyer students, who were unable to get into the group and participate as much as the more rambunctious group members. However, my cooperating teacher and I push the students to work together, and she occasionally splits a group into two even smaller groups so students can work more evenly with the materials. This solves the problem, and the students, whether they are the ones who actually wrap the wire around the magnet or not, are able to see and discover why their experiments work.

Science is my favorite part of the day because we have incredible lessons designed by my cooperating teacher. Not only the lessons make the period fun, but the excitement and passion shown from my cooperating teacher and the students are also great to see. I know there are students who look forward to only science class out of the whole day of academic periods, and though it isn't great, it's a start. It is such a great thing to see certain students interested and passionate when you don't usually see them feeling that way in an educational setting. I love, love the hands on work that we do in science, and I know it is highly beneficial to the students.

Typical Day in Granada, Spain

            While my placement in Spain is not exactly your typical pre-practicum experience, I have learned a lot about teaching in a way that I was not expecting. My schedule changes slightly every once in a while but I’ll try to outline a typical day at my placement.

            I get to my placement a little before 9 a.m. and meet with my CT, the English teacher at the school. Then, I either go with her to her class to observe a lesson and help or go to another classroom and start taking out small groups of 5 to 8 students to lead discussion-based English lessons. As she is an English teacher, she teaches all ages of students so I work with kids from around 11 to 16 years old. While this is a little bit older than the age that I hope to work with in the future, I have really enjoyed working with this age and since the lessons are in a foreign language, the lessons are not that different from topics that I would be teaching in the future. An example of a lesson that I have done with the students have been describing objects and people. While teaching the same topic to all students, I have had to learn how to make adjustments based on the age and level of the students, and not all students of the same age have the same level. For example, with the younger kids we made a list of adjectives and played a game similar to “I Spy” to describe objects in the room. With the older kids, we looked at a photo of a person, described him, and talked about a broader topic. For example, if your clothes say something about your personality or what clothes you like to wear. The students are also a lot more comfortable asking questions and potentially being wrong than I have seen with American students Some of my favorite questions that I have gotten are: What does swag mean? and Do you know Zac Efron?. I do these small group lessons/discussions for most of the day and while it can be fun, sometimes it can be really hard to get some students to talk either because they cannot understand my accent or because they do not know how to say a lot of in English. So, I have learned to talk slower and clearer, directly encourage the quieter students to participate and take their time and let them know that I can help them with words that they do not know.

            Besides teaching lessons in small groups, I also get a thirty-minute break at eleven while the students go outside. During this time, I go to the teacher’s lounge and talk to some of the teachers. It’s been nice to be able to hear other perspectives to understand the Spanish education system. Then, I continue the small group lessons/discussions until I go home at 2:30 p.m.

            One large cultural difference that I have noticed at this school, as well as in my classes at the university, is that their sense of time is a lot more flexible. For them, if they’re ten minutes late to a class, it’s not that big of deal. When my CT has to go talk to some volunteers, she will wait for them until they come and then go to class late. It has been the same in my classes at the university. Sometimes class starts twenty minutes late and that is just fine. While this was very hard to get used to, I have found that this less stressful way of living and not worrying is very nice and good for one’s mental health.

            So far my experience at my placement has been great and I have not only learned a lot about teaching and the Spanish culture, but have also gained a lot of practice in flexibility and adjusting my teaching methods. I look forward to seeing what else I learn for the remainder of the semester.

A Student's Day in Bath, England

For my second post I thought I would include a journal entry I wrote a few weeks ago about a day during which I followed around one specific student from my class. This is a task I was given by my education program here, but I found it very interesting and loved the opportunity to focus on one student, especially in a class of thirty, and get to know him a little bit better. (I have changed the name of the student):

Today I spend most of my day following and observing Robbie, one of the youngest students in the class. He is four years old, and my first impression of him was that he was extremely talkative. He is an incredibly interesting child who is receptive, independent, imaginative, and has amazing oral language skills.

            Mrs. W began the day as usual by greeting each student and encouraging them to say: “Good morning Mrs. W”. At this point, about half of the students will say it aloud, while the others are still very quiet. During the morning literacy lesson I sat with Robbie as the students learned a new sound: “b”. He was mostly attentive but quieter than most students. Several times he became distracted looking at the toys that had been laid out for free time later. He did well counting the sounds in the words out on this fingers. When they began practicing writing, I noticed that he had trouble holding his market correctly and forming his letters. Under each of his letters he drew dots and told me they were “sound buttons” (there are dots under the letters on Mrs. W’s flashcards that she points to when she wants to students to say that sound. I thought it was very interesting that Robbie picked this detail up and transferred it to his own work. Even though he is sometimes distracted or may not appear to be actively engaged, I believe that he is absorbing a lot of what is going on around him. Another way that I was able to pick up on his receptiveness was that fact that he is one of the only students who remembers my name and calls me “Ms. Jacobsen”. Because Mrs. W only introduced me once and I am only there once a week, most of the students are too young to remember exactly who I am.

            After the literacy lesson, students worked in small groups with the teachers either drawing, writing, or reading. I observed Mrs. W’s writing group where Robbie was working with three other boys. She seemed to have chosen this group because they are the ones most behind on their writing. They practiced writing letters and words that Mrs. Williams put up on the board, and then traced their names as she helped guide their hands. Robbie again had trouble holding his pencil correctly and forming his letters steadily. He also had trouble putting spaces between his letters and words. Afterwards, I spoke with Mrs. W briefly and she seemed to understand that this group of students was behind because of their language skills (two of the boys speak different languages at home, so have less-advanced English) or their age (Robbie is the second youngest in the class).

            Later, I spent time doing puzzles with Robbie and two other boys. He seemed distracted and wanted to play with other toys and I had to keep reminding him that this was the activity that we were doing now. He worked well with the other boys and was very happy when he was able to fit pieces together. However, he got frustrated and would say things like: “I give up” when he couldn’t find the right pieces. He finished one puzzle with my help, but I was not able to get him to concentrate for much longer. Throughout the activity he was very talkative, and especially liked beginning his sentences with: “Did you know…?” usually followed by some random and equally funny fact about anything from his sister to Robin Hood. During free choice time after assembly, Robbie spent most of his time playing outside. He played with some of the other children, but never seemed to stay with one group.

            After lunch, Mrs. W engaged the students in a math lesson. Today they were working on comparing groups of marbles using ‘more’ and ‘fewer’. I sat with Robbie again and noticed that he counted along with the rest of the group but did not raise his hand or participate aloud like many of the other students. He seemed distracted at times and would turn to me and make unrelated comments (like how he fell and got a scrape during playtime). When he started seeing other students getting called on and participating he became more engaged and was even chosen to have a turn with the marbles in front of the class. After the lesson, the students had more free choice time, but Robbie chose to stay and play with the marbles that Mrs. W had left out. I was able to get him to count the marbles aloud with me a couple of times, but he seemed to be more focused on collecting as many as he could (he even put them all in a jar and marched around the room saying “we’re the richest people in England!”). He continued to talk (both to me and himself) throughout the rest of free time.

            Robbie really seemed to enjoy the attention and having someone to talk to all day. Even though he is quieter during group lessons compared to some of the older children, he loves to talk about anything and everything when given the individual attention. His oral language skills are quite advanced for someone so young. Although he is often easily distracted and appears behind many of his peers due to his age, he is amazingly receptive and independent. It will be interesting to learn more about him and observe how he progresses over the next few months.