Day 9 @ East Boston High (Oct 10 Tue)
I didn't go in to The Murphy today. I had kind of arranged with Lisa to go in last Thursday but I remembered that I was assigned as the scribe for the CRC (Cross Role Cohort) meeting so I asked if she could have it changed to today. Well, in the end, it didn't quite matter because I called in sick last Thursday. Opps. I'm feeling much, much better now, probably thanks to the long Columbus weekend. =)
East Boston is pretty big. 3 floors. One end to the other took some walking. Anyhows, my day started really early. I think most high schools tend to start earlier. Maybe? I don't know. It started 1 hour before The Murphy's and yes, ended 1 hour before. I guess it's good and bad. I mean, for me, it doesn't make much of a difference since I get to school at about the same time for both. I would imagine the difficulties should I need to travel on a cold winter morning to the high school if classes started at 7:20am! It was a cold day today and it didn't help even though I was indoors the whole day. I only took off my jackets during one of the classes because it was conducted in a classroom filled with windows on one side and had the nice, bright sun shinning in. It was warmer at The Murphy - might be because we actually have K-8 kids and they can't let the little ones freeze.
I sat in the Math department meeting in the morning. I wasn't too sure if the teachers were all in for the meeting because there was an air that everybody wanted to leave asap (even though food - cupcakes & orange juice - was provided). Perhaps the meetings aren't like those at The Murphy where everyone got together to get certain tasks accomplished. Here, the teachers meet for CPT time and frankly, I doubt much can be done for the 40-minutes they actually sit down. The agenda seemed somewhat loose and open-ended, unlike that of the meetings I've been in. Though yeah, I might just be very wrong. =)
Went back to Lisa's classroom and helped her mentor teacher set up for the coming class. I guess all BPS (Boston Public Schools) follow the same procedures: Do Nows, Explore and Launch. there were mid-chapter and end-chapter tests. Rubrics were common across the board and the lesson structures were the same as what I was taught in middle school, even though I was at a high school. It was an interesting class because the kids were ELL (English Language Learners) - which meant that they had difficulties understanding the class should it be taught completely in English. Hence, Lisa's mentor teacher taught math in 2 languages - Spanish and English. whenever she introduced a new term, she would say it to them in English and then explain it in Spanish. I couldn't follow every single thing she said, nor when the students asked questions in Spanish, but I saw it could generally help the students understand better since it was taught in their first language. I wonder though, how much of this can actually be applied in Singapore? Can English be used to teach Mandarin or Malay or Tamil? Can math be explained in Mandarin? Or science be introduced in Malay? *ponders*
Lisa accompanied me to this Geometry Honors class but left halfway. Somehow, the teacher *kind of* read my mind and asked if I'd like to move around in the class to help the students out. And it was really good. I managed to build some sort of rapport with some of the students (even though it was like a 40-minute period) as I challenged them to reason why they had arrived at that answer. It helped them think and explore the angle theorems more in depth. I enjoyed my time with this class and wonder if I should ever consider teaching at a higher grade.
Went to another Algebra 1 class after. It was the last block of the day and the students were generally tired and restless. The teacher had a hard time trying to get new materials across to her students but most of them tried their best to pay attention and do their work. The teacher came across to me as a nurturer - someone willing to take that step to motivate and cultivate the students' potentials to the fullest. I thought that her breaking down the simple syllabus into small digestable parts so that her students would not be lost in a world of math was a good way to reach the students.
East Boston is pretty big. 3 floors. One end to the other took some walking. Anyhows, my day started really early. I think most high schools tend to start earlier. Maybe? I don't know. It started 1 hour before The Murphy's and yes, ended 1 hour before. I guess it's good and bad. I mean, for me, it doesn't make much of a difference since I get to school at about the same time for both. I would imagine the difficulties should I need to travel on a cold winter morning to the high school if classes started at 7:20am! It was a cold day today and it didn't help even though I was indoors the whole day. I only took off my jackets during one of the classes because it was conducted in a classroom filled with windows on one side and had the nice, bright sun shinning in. It was warmer at The Murphy - might be because we actually have K-8 kids and they can't let the little ones freeze.
I sat in the Math department meeting in the morning. I wasn't too sure if the teachers were all in for the meeting because there was an air that everybody wanted to leave asap (even though food - cupcakes & orange juice - was provided). Perhaps the meetings aren't like those at The Murphy where everyone got together to get certain tasks accomplished. Here, the teachers meet for CPT time and frankly, I doubt much can be done for the 40-minutes they actually sit down. The agenda seemed somewhat loose and open-ended, unlike that of the meetings I've been in. Though yeah, I might just be very wrong. =)
Went back to Lisa's classroom and helped her mentor teacher set up for the coming class. I guess all BPS (Boston Public Schools) follow the same procedures: Do Nows, Explore and Launch. there were mid-chapter and end-chapter tests. Rubrics were common across the board and the lesson structures were the same as what I was taught in middle school, even though I was at a high school. It was an interesting class because the kids were ELL (English Language Learners) - which meant that they had difficulties understanding the class should it be taught completely in English. Hence, Lisa's mentor teacher taught math in 2 languages - Spanish and English. whenever she introduced a new term, she would say it to them in English and then explain it in Spanish. I couldn't follow every single thing she said, nor when the students asked questions in Spanish, but I saw it could generally help the students understand better since it was taught in their first language. I wonder though, how much of this can actually be applied in Singapore? Can English be used to teach Mandarin or Malay or Tamil? Can math be explained in Mandarin? Or science be introduced in Malay? *ponders*
Lisa accompanied me to this Geometry Honors class but left halfway. Somehow, the teacher *kind of* read my mind and asked if I'd like to move around in the class to help the students out. And it was really good. I managed to build some sort of rapport with some of the students (even though it was like a 40-minute period) as I challenged them to reason why they had arrived at that answer. It helped them think and explore the angle theorems more in depth. I enjoyed my time with this class and wonder if I should ever consider teaching at a higher grade.
Went to another Algebra 1 class after. It was the last block of the day and the students were generally tired and restless. The teacher had a hard time trying to get new materials across to her students but most of them tried their best to pay attention and do their work. The teacher came across to me as a nurturer - someone willing to take that step to motivate and cultivate the students' potentials to the fullest. I thought that her breaking down the simple syllabus into small digestable parts so that her students would not be lost in a world of math was a good way to reach the students.
posted by sarabel @ 2:51 PM
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