Amber Lawson
EDUCATOR - INNOVATOR - MENTOR - SPARTAN
A Journey Fulfilled
Many people have a common idea of how schools should work and what the role of a teacher is. Some people believe that teachers are the people who go into the classroom, guide students in what they are going to learn, and have families’ support to ensure that students are learning successfully. When I first decided
to be a teacher, I was one of those people. I thought this based on my personal experiences and the experiences of my friends and other children in my family. Having this idea in mind, as well as having a deep love for working with children, I thought being a teacher would be easy for the most part and that being a teacher would be a good fit for me. As an undergraduate student taking teacher education courses that focused on urban context, I quickly realized that some of my former ideas weren’t quite true for all students, families, and teachers.
During my fifth year internship through MSU, many things I saw in the classroom shocked me even though a large variety of topics of what I was going to experience were covered in my undergraduate studies. From the comments people would make to the lack of parental participation disappointed me. Although I did not agree with some of the things I saw, I was glad that I experienced these situations during my field placement to be better prepared to work with my own class. For my first year of teaching, I taught kindergarten in Westland, but many things about the school were similar to schools in Detroit and other urban settings. When I took on the role of lead teacher, I wanted to change many of the things I saw such as students not doing their homework and parents not coming to conferences. I felt that I wasn’t fully supported by my students’ families and it was affecting my students’ learning. I felt that it was up to me to make sure that my students were prepared and meeting their fullest potential. I felt that I was doing everything that I possibly could, but I needed to do even more. I thought that by seeking a master’s degree and entering the Masters of Arts in Education Program that I would better myself in becoming an even finer teacher and ultimately better educate my students. While in the program, many of my courses helped me to reshape my role as an educator in urban education.
While some urban cities are considered cool places to be, urban education is viewed quite different. Urban students are thought of as the students who do not value education. Many times, urban students are labeled as bad, defiant, hostile, and unmotivated. When working with students who display these kinds of behavior, it makes both teaching and learning very difficult to do. I thought this was very challenging knowing that I need to reach all of my learners. It’s easy to assume that the student is wrong for not following classroom routines and not meeting classroom expectations. I thought this before, especially considering students are aware of the consequences for their actions. During my first year of teaching, I had a student mid way through the school year who started to display challenging behavior. I felt that I was no longer reaching him as a learner. I tried several different behavior modifications that seemed to work, however, they only worked short term. I figured it was possible that I may have students in the future with similar behavior or another kind of challenging behavior. I did not want to
feel that I couldn’t reach them either. I tried as many strategies as I possibly could. I reached out to his family and other staff members, but I still needed a more effective solution. I realized that it wasn’t completely his fault and that I needed to change something on my end to help him advance his knowledge as a learner.
While in the MAED Program, I took CEP 832, Educating Students with Challenging Behavior. While taking the course, I was provided with several research based practices that have been found effective when working with “tough to teach” students. I was able to expand my repertoire when working with students who are hostile, defiant, under achieving, and socially rejected by their peers. I learned how to work with students with issues that I never considered or worried about coming across as a teacher. I learned that challenging behavior does not just happen but that there’s always a underlying reason or issue that children have experienced that causes them to react the way they do in the classroom. I learned that it’s not only my job to enforce consequences when students do not make good choices. It is also my job to understand the issue that students have, provide them with the resources that they need to be successful, and make adjustments when necessary. It’s typical to want to respond to a student’s negative behavior with a negative consequence, which I have witnessed as a student and as a student teacher in numerous classrooms. This seems like the
Likewise, there are many myths to teaching and even more for urban education. Parents do not care. Students will never learn as much as suburban students. Teachers do not care as much as they should. The teachers are terrible. Throughout my undergraduate courses, I was able to break down some of these myths. It wasn’t until my master’s journey, that I was able to break down even more of these myths. By breaking down these myths and stereotypes, I was able to better see my role as a teacher in a different light. Not only did CEP 832 focus
right thing to do and of course, it makes sense. While taking this course, I learned that it’s not always the best choice. There are great gains to using positivity with undesired behavior from students. Even though my behavior plan that is in place may work for the majority of my students, I understand that it will not work for every student every school year. I have to be willing to not only make changes, but to make the most appropriate changes that will benefit my students. I completed a case study focusing specifically on one student with challenging behavior. By completing this case study, I was able to understand the process of assisting a “tough to teach” student and able to adopt this process into my teaching to use whenever necessary. I was able to select a strategy that I felt would be the most effective and watched closely how the strategy worked. After putting the strategy into place, I saw my targeted student's learning and my teaching become easier to do.
This text provided me with many research based practices for working with "tough to teach" students.
on teaching students with challenging behavior, but it also addressed how some people may view the role of the teacher. I originally viewed the role of the teacher as the person who controls the majority of a student’s learning with some input from families with enforcing positive behavior in school, making sure that students do their homework, and that students study or practice skills for tests. I came to this conclusion because this was what I saw as a child. I mistakenly made the generalization that this was the norm for young learners everywhere. When I became a lead teacher, I realized that this wasn’t true for all students. I tried as much as I could to get parents’ support and to get parents more involved in their children’s learning. It wasn’t until my master’s program that I was able to take a step back and view the situation from a viewpoint other than my own.
CEP 832 as well as ED 800, Educational Inquiry, helped me to realize that I was approaching the role of the family in education from a middle class lens while I taught and currently teach at low socioeconomic status schools. I viewed the family role from a cultural aspect that was different than the culture of the school. At first, it was challenging to look at the family’s role as a participant observer. Through participant observation, I was able to understand the families more than as an outsider looking in. I was able to understand on an immediate level the dynamics and motivations of the behaviors being observed. I was able to entertain multiple points of view and even hold two apparently conflicting points of view at different logical levels. Being a participant observer can be difficult if one is not able to separate one’s own beliefs from the group that’s being observed. It is the contrast that makes the learning possible through participant
This text helped me understand how to become a partipant observer of other roles other than my own.
Watching this film was one of my first experiences usnderstanding another culture as a participant observer.
observation. I learned that some parents may have a different idea of the role of the teacher. Sometimes families may have difficulties understanding the language, issues with transportation, or finding the time with their work schedule to make it to school to talk to the teacher. Some families view the school as being responsible for their child’s learning. Some families may not fully be aware of the expectations that teachers have of them. Some families may have had a negative experience in school themselves and therefore distance themselves from school personnel in general which may prevent families from working together with teachers to help their children. Of course this does not apply to every family. If I never learned how to view the role of the teacher through different lenses, I would be stuck wondering why parents aren’t doing the things that I assumed they should be doing. These courses provided me with strategies that I am able to use to help build stronger family teacher relationships. These courses helped me to see my role not only as the lead teacher but a person with even more responsibility when teaching and
working with my students. I no longer believe that I have my students’ families as my partners at the beginning of the year but that they can become potential partners using the right strategies. I use as many strategies as I possibly can to get families involved in their children’s schooling. At the same time, I take into consideration many factors instead of assuming they do not care or they do not want to be involved.
Moreover, as educators, we want all students to become proficient readers and writers. Literacy is a foundational skill that all learners must develop to be successful in all subjects. Literacy learning includes many components that students must master to eventually become successful. Without fully mastering every component, the idea of students being proficient readers and writing becomes impossible. As a primary grades teacher, I understand that if students do not develop the foundational skills necessary such as phonological awareness and letter sound knowledge to name a few, students will not have the foundation to build on to become excellent readers and writers. Developing these skills can be challenging for students. During my first year of teaching, I had some students struggle with mastering phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and sight word recognition. I tried my best to differentiate instruction using a variety of strategies and a few different literacy curriculums. One of those curriculums was designed for students who do not learn the “traditional way” and yet, I still had some
Ashlee Baracy from Channel 4 News came in as a guest reader during reading month to read to my kindergartners.
learners who needed additional support. I often worked with students individually and in small groups and used different tools such as white boards, shaving cream, and the iPad as well as more traditional resources. Some of these strategies worked for many of my learners but there were still a few students’ literacy development that concerned me.
While working on my master’s, I decided to focus on literacy education as my concentration. One course that improved my literacy teaching was TE 842, Elementary Reading Assessment and Instruction. I had the chance to further my understanding of how children develop literacy skills. I learned how to dig deeper into students’ performance on literacy assessments. Literacy assessments do not only tell what students know and do not know, but they tell what area of
This text was a tool that I used to learn about new reading tools and strategies for instruction.
literacy that students may need additional support to master. All literacy skills are related. Without one, the others become unattainable. When assessing students with assessments that appear to evaluate one skill specifically really evaluates many literacy skills at the same time. This becomes visible not by looking at the results but by analyzing the data. This has become a natural part of my teaching. It is important to think about the other skills to plan future instruction. With this course, I was also able to expand my repertoire of literacy strategies to help reach all learners.
In the end, my master’s journey was more than a degree. It was more than reading, writing, and group projects. It was my evolution in becoming the teacher I am today. My journey has helped me in becoming a more diverse thinker, a more resourceful individual, and a better participant observer, not only in education, but in our global society. With these characteristics, I understand my role as a teacher more now than I ever did before. However, while on my journey, there are some things that have not changed, my enthusiasm and passion for student learning have remained the same.