Soapbox- Schema for New Teachers

Before I get into my "aha" moments from the readings I've been doing, I feel like I need to address new teacher trainings and how they are not really helping those teachers as much as they think they are.

As a student teacher and "new" teacher, I had many books on my required reading list.  Most of these books will be very familiar to those teaching today- Strategies that Work, Classrooms That Work, Guided Reading, Rethinking Classroom Management, Mosaic of Thought, and Words Their Way to name just a few.  All great reads by very knowledgeable educators and researchers.  But how many of them were read?  None.  Some were "jigsawed" (possibly the worst way for information to be learned).  Some were just on our required textbook list never to be actually studied, but rather occasionally referenced to by instructors. Some just had a few chapters photocopied for us to read in class, losing all of the author's context.

Then I got a job and a classroom of my own and a BTSA support provider who figured my owning these texts meant that I a) read them b) understood them and was therefore c) using the information.  In fact it was d) none of the above.  Neither my master's/credential program nor BTSA actually taught the material in these texts, but rather just told me they were good reads full of best practices.  No argument here, but what they were not considering was my lack of schema for the information being presented.

Student teaching is not teaching.  It's observing with occasional practice in someone else's room.  Student teachers have little to no control over classroom set-up, schedule, grades, or even the majority of lessons.  Even with solo weeks, student teaching doesn't give you what cooperating teachers have in spades- failures under their belts.  They have tried those centers, they have done those lessons, they have made mistake after mistake after mistake.  The rooms that students teachers get to observe are the products of years of trial and error and the result of the cooperating teachers burying their noses in those books from their credential programs in an attempt to ensure those mistakes are corrected.

Observing someone else who "gets it" does not impart the amount of schema necessary to make those texts filled with teaching knowledge valuble to a new teacher.  Starting out in teaching, as the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know.  Whose to say what strategy works with your school, class, group of kids, team, parent population, etc?  A new teacher has to start from scratch on so many things that their cooperating teacher didn't have to while the studetn teachers were there- where to put the desks, which name tags will work, do I need a teacher desk, what homework is appropriate for this grade?  Most of the time new teachers defer to their cooperating teachers' methods of teaching or look to their experienced teammates for direction.  It is not until they have been teaching for a few years, and have tried and failed at a few things that they are ready to revisit that dusty shelf in their room filled with the books from that reading list.  Only then will the pages of suggestions and theories make any usable sense and only then will most teachers be willing to heed the authors' advice.

So the big question is: what can BSTA programs do to provide more authentic experiences to support new teachers during their first forays into teaching?

Welcome!

Welcome to the beginning of my blog about teaching.  I have recently decided to rethink a great deal of my teaching practice.  I would even go as far as to say I am doing a total tear down of my classroom, my thoughts on teaching, my classroom management, my methods for instruction- everything.

I've starting thinking about how to use the research that is out there to design a classroom that will accomplish a few things:
1. Students reach state/federal standards
2. The room itself is a comfortable place to be
3. Best practice is the name of the game- If it doesn't/hasn't worked, it's gone
4. Students are prepared for testing (if applicable)
5. Parents are informed of where their children are and where they're going
6. Have policies/procedures/plans that will work with increased class sizes and combo classes.

And here is where my list of ideas gets difficult because they involve other people:
7. Students are well supported by the special services team

or they involve diplomacy:
8. District "non-negotiables" and the "district's way" are throughly evaluated based on new research.

So how am I going to accomplish this?  I have an extensive list of reading material to get through, I've attended a great workshop, and I created this blog which I am hoping will be part soundingboard part soapbox.  And I don't think it should be all me. I firmly believe that some of the best ideas come from collaboration.  Got something teaching related you want to talk about, let me know and I'll make you an author on the blog.  Got a book or article you'd like to share, send to me and I'll post it.  Maybe it won't be just me who rethinks their classroom.