Tutoring a Second Grader While Learning a Lot About Life and the Education System

Towards the end of the school year I received a call from a relative on my husbands side asking if I could tutor her second grade daughter in math and that she would pay me. Being that she was a family member of my husbands I couldn't ask for the money and so I said I would do it as a favor. I also felt better not taking money for my service being that I have no experience of tutoring or teaching elementary students since my main focus is on teaching upper level math classes at a high school.

Today was my first day tutoring her and the main purpose for the tutoring is so that she gets caught up with the second grade math curriculum in time for the third grade. Her mother told me that she struggled in math and english all year long and that her test scores were very low. She was concerned that her daughter would fall behind so early on and would then struggle in the many years that follow. I began to think about ways in which I could help. I didn't even know what they taught in the second grade and so I told her mom to bring with her any workbooks, prior worksheets, tests, etc. I then remembered CST standards and released test questions and so I printed those out reviewing the problems. I learned something very fascinating. CST testing for second graders is done a lot differently than in the high school. The teacher reads the problems and directions for each problem out to the students as they work on them. I would really like to sit in on a class one day as students are testing to see how that is done as well as why and how it helps. I also wonder if the students are given the words to follow along.

Anyway, when the girl came over to my house today she brought over a workbook. I looked at the copyright and it was made back in 2007. I wondered how much the curriculum has changed since than and found that multiplication and division has since been pushed back to the second grade...wow...I was shocked. So much has changed since I have been in the elementary school. As I was tutoring I found where the girls strengths and weakness were in math. I found that she did great when it came to inequality symbols and completing statements to make them true. However, she struggled when it came to knowing her addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division for basic 1-10 numbers. I made her flash cards for all four categories and sent them home with her mom to go over them with her.

That really had me thinking about who is responsible for having students memorize their basic math operations for small numbers. Is it the teacher who needs to drill them with it at school and give them minute math tests or is it the parents that need to create flash cards and go through them once a night before bed. That made me think a lot about what I plan to do with my kids when it comes to school and homework. I think it is important for parents to pick up where teachers left off at the end of the day if they have the capability and knowledge to do so. I never realized how becoming a teacher will help me significantly in raising my own kids one day...

Implementing New Strategies for Classroom Managment

Last year was my first year of full time teaching. Reflecting back on my classroom management in the past school year I can say that I have many things I would like to change for the next school year.

Classroom management wasn't a great focus during the credential program so coming into teaching, I had very little classroom management strategies that I picked up from my master teacher. During the first week of class I posted a set of rules that needed to be followed in the classroom and also wrote them down in the syllabus. I then later came to realize that enforcing the rules was a lot harder than posting them. Part of the problem I faced was being consistent with the enforcement of the rules. For example, when students would have their cell phones out in class my rule would be that they get confiscated and given to the school dean. However, in order to send it to the office I would have to write up a referral and walk it up my self. I was consistent with writing referrals at the beginning, however towards the end more and more students were breaking this rule so I would let it go at some times, and other times I would write up referrals. Another problem I faced was that the school had no detention or saturday school program. Therefore, it made it hard for me to find consequences for students that were breaking rules.

For the next school year I plan to pick about 3 to five short important rules that I plan to be consistent with the entire school year. I also plan to be a broken record when it comes to off task behavior. For example, if a student is out of their seat and disrupting other students I plan on telling the student that they need to get back into their seat and get to work. If they begin to argue I plan to just repeat myself at most four times and afterward, if the student still has not respected my authority, I plan to walk away leaving the student with no one to argue with but themselves. Another classroom management strategy that I plan to use is to go over an agenda at the start of each class period so that students have an idea of what is coming next. By them knowing that after a warm up we are working on an activity they will be read for the next task rather than going off task and getting out of their seats. I hope that I learn more strategies during the masters program so that I can implement the ones which I feel will work with my students in the following school year.

More Technology but No Money :(

Technology is pushed across all schools and encouraged by all teachers. The school district I am at pushes for higher technology use in every meeting. A variety of trainings are offered to assist teachers in the use of smartboards, Elmo document cameras, IClickers,  and the school's online network. Although this may all sound great is only one problem here....where is the actual technology?

Walking into my classroom on the first day I got hired I remember seeing 2 white boards, an old (I mean very old) bulky desktop computer from back in the day, and a run down overhead projector. A couple weeks into the school year I started to contemplate on spending my own money to buy a document camera at the very least. However, I was advised not to bring anything expensive that I pay for in the classroom because there are many break ins after school hours. A couple weeks later I applied for an Exxon Mobil 4000 grant which allows me to buy a few technology items. With the money I was able to purchase a projector, a laptop, a smartboard, 4 graphing calculators, and 10 scientific calculators. 

I know I was one of the few lucky ones that was able to apply for the grant since I am a math teacher and only math teachers can apply; but what about all the other teachers who have what I had at the start of the school year?  Budget restrictions are making it hard for teachers (Especially non math and science teachers) to incorporate technology into their lessons. Hopefully, one day, with the turn of the economy more grants are given towards the purchase of laptops, smartboards, etc so that we can at least try to catch up with all the technology available out there.

The North and the South

After completing the credential program at UCI I landed a job at South High School. South High is in the city of Torrance, the city I grew up in. I attended North High School and so coming into South I knew there would be major differences in the student makeup since both schools are on completely different ends of the city. North High was more diverse and has more students of low socioeconomic backgrounds since the school was on the border of Lawndale and Hawthorne. On the contrary, South High bordered the beautiful hills of Palos Verdes and the student makeup is predominately White and Asian.

On the first day of school I watched students pile into my classroom each class period and noticed that I can count with my hand (yes one hand) how many African American and Hispanic/Latino students I had. That is when I became really worried about how the year was going to turn out since I myself am Middle Eastern and Muslim, two things that were a minority at the school. As the year progressed I noticed that my students never made racial comments or looked down upon other races. However, I did notice that the White students would hang out in their groups on one side of the center quad, the Asians would hang out with their groups on the other side of the quad, and the other minority races at the school would hang out in groups between classrooms. I remember when I attended North High 5 years ago there would be one quad all races all together. Everyone got along just fine and there was no dominant race. I really wished that the same applied at South because it was unique to see all the different cultures and what each had to bring to the school culture.

North and South High would hold the same event titles, cultural food day and class competition assemblies, however, the actual assemblies in each school would be on completely different spectrum. Cultural food day at North would have a diversity of different foods from different cultures and I watched as students would embrace the different cultures and get to know one another. At South, cultural food day consisted of clubs buying food from fast food chains such as In-N-Out, Taco Bell, Jamba Juice, etc to sell to other students. Furthermore, the assemblies at North included all types of performances from different cultures. I remember in one assembly alone there was belly dancing, hula dancing, line dancing, hip-hop, contemporary, samba, the Chinese dragon presentation , and any other cultural performance you can think of. South's assemblies had the same repetitive dances of hip-hop and contemporary dance.

From my observations, I realized the importance of diversity at a school and the differences it makes both inside and outside the school. Students learn so much from each other and it is sad to still see the segregation at South High. I wish to one day see the culture and spirit at North applied to South one day.

Educational Technology Experiences Growing Up

The first piece of cool technology that I received for educational purposes was my Sony Vaio laptop my senior year of high school. I remember it being a really big upgrade from my bulky desktop that took up all my desk space. Although it was a laptop the battery life on it was about 30 minutes so I wasn't able to take it with me to school. It pretty much replaced my desk space. I remember not really needing to use my laptop for school except for typing up assignments for my English class. I had an email address but I would only need to check it once a month for coupons before I went shopping. Educational technology never really hit me hard until my freshman year at the University of California, Irvine where all my classes, including the math classes that were required for my Bachelors. The first 3 courses I took, Calculus A, Women Studies, and English 39B all revolved around the use of triple E. My calculus course used a website called webworks in which we had weekly math homework assignments that graded us once our assignments were completed. In my women studies and English class we used triple E to upload our assignments as well as the library database to search journal articles. I can definitely say that college was a huge technology shock which high school did not prepare me for. It took me a while to adapt to the technology that the University was using. Now, I feel as if I need to learn all the technology that is available for use in education so that I may in turn use it in my classroom for my students. Technology is growing fast and in order to stay in tune with it we must always be practicing it and updated our knowledge of it as technology updates itself.