Challenging Conversations

I teach a literacy methods course to elementary education majors who have just entered the professional education program. This means they have completed their general education requirements, passed all three sections of the Praxis I exam, and survived an interview with select faculty to be deemed ready for the professional program. I teach the course in a professional development school. A professional development school is a public school/university partnership designed to support the initial and continuing development of teachers. As far as professional development schools go, most of what I've seen has been pretty traditional. Each pre-service teacher is assigned to a classroom teacher who guides and supports them into taking on classroom responsibilities. The university instructor/supervisor periodically comes to check in with the classroom teacher and observe the student teacher. To me, this model lacks rigor and makes assessment of professional development schools (whose number one goal should be to improve student learning) difficult. So...

I had to find a brave teacher who would take on me and my class of pre-service teachers (I have had between 5 and 15 students in my classes since I began teaching at the university). There were many reasons I wanted to try a model like this: First, I believe that, as a group working together, we can have a significant impact on student learning. Second, if we are all in the same classroom, I have more control over the literacy instruction my students observe, plan, and implement (while I don't typically consider myself a control freak, I never have understood those who say you can learn as much about teaching from an ineffective teacher as you can learn from an effective one). Further, I believe in the power of reflective talk and there is tremendous power in our weekly debriefing sessions. Finally, after implementing this model for 3 semesters, preliminary data has convinced me that it has a positive impact on multiple stakeholders;  elementary school students, pre-service teachers, a classroom teacher, and a university professor.

Ms. W is a fifth grade teacher who, some time ago, expressed an interest in restructuring her literacy instruction to better meet the needs of her students. We talked about readers' and writers' workshop and integrating science and social studies with literacy and I shared my ideas about bringing my elementary literacy methods class into her classroom. Since that discussion more than a year and a half ago, Ms. W and I have weekly planning meetings and every Wednesday I show up to her classroom with my students (10 this semester) and we collaboratively engage in literacy teaching and learning. In the time we've been working together, Ms. W has transformed her space from a skills-based, teacher directed classroom to a community of learners where questions are honored and students have time everyday to read and write about things that interest them. Each semester gets a little better as we continue to grow in our own learning and construct new ways to support our students. This semester was going exceptionally well, or so I thought, until last week.

There comes a point in each semester when my pre-service teachers engage in two weeks of  "full time" observations (while my class is only on Wednesday, my students are in the school all week taking a different class each day, Monday through Thursday). This means they spend one week in two different classrooms observing, planning, and teaching. For my literacy methods class, this group of pre-service teachers has only experienced Ms. W's class, but they have been in other classrooms for their science methods class. We (all the instructors who see these pre-service teachers this semester) agreed that our students should experience two classrooms during their "full time" weeks. During these two weeks, instructors do not hold class, so that our students can experience eight school days from beginning to end. While I don't hold class on these Wednesdays I do attend Ms. W's class during our typical practicum time.

Last week, the fifth grade students were MAP testing in the computer lab, so I was in Ms. W's classroom talking with my four students who were assigned to her class for the week. At lunch time, four students who were assigned to another classroom burst into Ms. W's room (Ms. W's room had become somewhat of a home base for the whole group of pre-service teachers).

One of the four students said, "I'm so glad to be back in here. The students in my classroom are so bad. It's not like being in here."

I immediately perked up, although I wasn't quite sure what to say. I knew that this could be a transformative moment and I didn't want to jump in too fast. I was just presented with evidence that my students weren't differentiating between the two classroom environments, or between the styles of teaching. They were blaming the children. Thinking back now, I should have said something immediately, because once the first comment was made, a barrage of negativity followed. It was a bit chaotic as multiple students talked at once. At one point, I tried to insert the following question:

How could the environment be changed to better support the learners in that classroom?

My question seemed to get lost in the heat of the discussion. I opted to step back and collect more information about my students perceptions of schools, classrooms, and children. I have scheduled a large chunk of time to debrief  their experiences from their full time weeks in class next Wednesday. I believe I can more effectively facilitate this conversation in a more formal classroom setting (or maybe, I just wanted some time to reflect and think about some guiding questions). I was definitely taken by surprise by the comments my students were making. There has been a great appreciation, among my students, for Ms. W and her classroom practices, so I was surprised that, when faced with an opposing set of beliefs and practices, my students didn't recognize the differences. 

It's important to me for my students to understand that, in most circumstances, children are responding to their environment, and that when our students are not meeting our expectations, we must first consider how we might restructure the environment to better meet their needs. We should probably consider it second, third, fourth, and fifth as well. So, this Wednesday, I will be facilitating this conversation with my students. Wish me luck!