Crdub's Blog

This month I read the article “Responding to Defiance”. After reading this article, I think that my case study child may have Oppositional Defiance Disorder, also known as ODD. He displays all of the characteristics associated with the disorder. The article list many reasons why a child may have this diagnoses. I believe that some of the reasons AC may have ODD are because of the quality of the mother’s parental care and nutrition. AC often comes into the class smelling like smoke and a wet dog. His finger nails are always dirty and his mother is notorious for not showing up for meeting and dropping him off to school late. The article also stated that children with ODD also act this way to accomplish something, either to avoid and/or accomplish something. AC will usually object to doing work. Once the teacher gives him some form attention he will then begin to do the assignment on his own time. Then he will want praise for the work that he does. I think that he may act out to accomplish his goal of getting attention and praise for doing his work although he has proven to be reluctant to do his work. Unfortunately, my classroom environment may encourage his behavior. My CT, TA and I always address his undesired behavior but in doing this we may be enabling him by arguing back with him or allowing him to argue with us. My CT is much better at handling his defiant behavior than I am. She is very strict and has a reputation for providing the instruction and support that these children need. (I have learned a lot from her!) The article suggests that morning meeting is a great way to establish a psychologically supportive environment for students with ODD. Yet, my class does not have morning meeting. Positive behavioral Support or as it is known at my school PBS is a tools all teachers use at Efland-Cheeks. One key component of PBS that I use is recognizing positive behavior rather than negative behavior. A strategy I have used with all of my students is acknowledging when students are doing something well. I will say aloud “Thanks you Sara and Jake for setting an example of how to work silently” or ” Good job eagles for coming to the rig quickly and quietly. Kiss your brain!” This way, I am not calling attention to those students who want attention, rather I am letting the other student divert their attention to those who are behaving the way I expect them to. This usually works to get the talkative or disruptive students to follow the lead of the good example. Also, the reading states that effective directions are a way to communicate clear expectations. I use this as well. I will tell student what they should do rather than what not to do. For example I would day, “keep your hands to yourself” instead of “stop touching Sara”. I have found that this can cut out talking back. If I were to say stop it to my case study child he may stop touching ‘Sara’ but instead he may poke her. If I say keep your hands to yourself there is no grey area of what he should be doing with his hands. I found this article very useful. The points were all applicable and I will continue on the path suggest by the reading.

My behavior management plan got off to a slow start. I had begun by using post it notes to document the amount if interruptions my case study child has in one day. It was easier said than done because I could not keep up with all of the interruptions. In addition to teaching and other school things, I lost track of the interruptions. So, to confront these issues, I bought an index card notebook and document his interruptions. I also use the notebook to take notes during math. This worked a little better but I am still not able to note all behavior interruptions. One day, ‘AC’ was very upset and disrupted the all student’s learning. I did not know what to do, my CT was not there and she is the one who knows how to communicate with him better than I do. But, this was my chance to try a strategy. I took him out of the room and into the media center. I asked him why he was so upset and refused t do the work. I asked him to think about the other students in our class and to respect that they are trying to learn and they cannot learn when they are interrupted. I also told him that bullying is something that is not tolerated in the school ( it is a part of our school wide behavior management plan). I went onto tell him that he was bullying me when he speaks over me and does not allow me to do my job. I then told him, that tomorrow I would bring him a stress ball. Whenever he gets upset or feels like breaking a pencil or yelling, he can poke, punch, or  squeeze the heck out of the ball. That was the only item in the room that he could take he stress and anger out on, not a pencil, an item in the class, another student or me. Although I felt pleased with our talk, he when back into the room and still didn’t do his work until the last 10 minutes of math! Ugh! We are still working on trying to control his anger. It is a work in progress but I do believe that he is slowly improving.

“We can only manage our own behavior and teach others how to do the same.” This quote from the reading is one that immediately sticks out to me. During a facility meeting last month I heard these very same sentiments echoed by the principal and other educators at Efland. This statement holds profound truth. I do not believe that I can expect my case study child to leave second grade with a totally new personality, I can only show him ways to better manage his behavior issues. I agree with the article in that one issue I faced when determining my students behavior challenge, is that I do not know what his target behavior is. Some days, he is subdued and other days there is no controlling him. I have a matrix of possible triggers, reasons, and behaviors I have noticed, but I still cannot determine what his target behavior is. I have narrowed down my choice; I believe he may be noncompliance and disruptive behavior. After scanning this article, I have come to the conclusion that he shows disruptive behavior more so than any other behavior. Yet, the reasoning for his disruptive behavior is a result of many things. He lives out of district; he was diagnosed as having ADHD last semester but now is being medicated for bipolar disorder. In my opinion, this may be one of the most alarming facts about my case study child. He is being drugged up for disorders that I do not believe he has, he is only 7 years old for goodness sake! In addition, he lives in an unstable home environment. Just last week I found out that his mother was in the hospital for three days because she was bitten by a spider and had a severe reaction.  During the time she was not at home with him, he was being watched by a friend of the family who ‘forgot’ to give him his medicine. All the while, I had no idea of this vital information and was disciplining him harshly for his disruptive behavior at school. His behavior even caused me to write a letter home to his mother one day, not knowing that she was in the hospital. He just told me, ‘she won’t care’. With all of this said, his situation leaves me wondering  how will I be fit to address his disruptive behavior issues when he is coming to school with so much baggage and I am not even aware of the luggage he drags around with him all day. Now that I have gotten to know the student much more he trust me a little more than before so he does sometime tell me about things that are going on at home. But when he gets angry, I can just tell that he not just getting mad because I asked him to complete an assignment. The anger in his face makes me feel that he is angry about something completely unrelated to school.

As mentioned in the article, my classroom enforces self discipline at times, but we have found that a more holistic discipline approach works best for our students. Many of them are too immature to learn from their own discipline. Yet, we have tried. One method we use in class is to implement the school wide behavior management philosophy. It is a work in progress to find the right fit to help him manage his behavior.

At long last, Ms. Latta returned! It was so refreshing to have her back in the classroom with me. The students were so glad to see her as well. And she is definitely feeling a lot better. Oh, and in other exciting news, the Air Conditioning has finally started working no more sweating in my classroom sauna. This week has also been sad because I know that my time teaching is coming to an end. It is going to be an interesting transition period for students because I am not gradually phasing out; I am pretty much just stopping. I have already found that there are some noticeable differences in the way students are treating Ms. Latta now than in the beginning of the school year. I allowed them more leeway when it comes to talking, but Ms. Latta has none of that. When she started teaching math on Monday, it took her many tries to get students to be  silent. That may be my fault. I guess it is just the difference in our teaching styles. I believe that when students are talking, they are learning (sometimes). Now that I am finished teaching my unit, I am so thrilled to grade my student’s work. They were so proud of their commercial and their writing is so clever. Not only am I excited to see their final products, I am excited to see my unit finally come to its conclusion with such great products. Ms. Latta keeps saying that there is always such a transformation in student teachers in the time we teach. At first I didn’t believe that there would be a physical change, but I definitely agree that I feel much more like a teacher than ever before, yay!!

This week was a short but eventful week. My CT called me on Monday morning and informed me that she was very sick and would not be at school. She ended up not being at school Monday and Tuesday. Both days students were particularly jittery because of the excitement of spring break. I anticipated this so the TA and I made adjustments to accommodate their excitement. On Tuesday we had a small exercise break outside. Then, during Reading workshop I had to alter my plans after noticing that students needed more time working on their final unit projects. Because my teacher wasn’t there, this somewhat added to the excitement in the classroom. But, students maintained order and worked hard. Of course, there were the same students who caused problems, but I used my behavior intervention plan to help one student who was struggling to control his behavior. I have not seen an improvement in hi behavior but I am remaining positive and altering my plan to accommodate his needs.

ü  The past two weeks have been such a whirl wind! Last week, I was so completely stressed. After meeting with Jennifer and my CT, I doubted my teaching skills. I felt like I was the worst student teacher my CT has ever had. I then realized that I just had to suck it up and do exactly as they asked of me, and then some. So I entered this week thinking that I was going to prove to them that I could be the teacher that I know I am. Yet, there was another setback. On Sunday night I had a fever of 104! I was so stressed about that and thought, great, another set back! After going to the doctor, they told me that I have mono and I need to rest and take it easy to ensure that the virus does not get worse and last longer than it should. So, while I was at home from school, I took Jennifer and my CT”s advice. When planning my lessons, I researched and tried to find things that that could truly benefit each and every one of my students. It took me a long time but I found so many great resources and tools that I know will greatly benefit my students. I truly tried to individualize my plans.  Also, I have been meeting with my CT before planning my lessons to find out exactly what students should be learning and to receive resources from her. She is such a great help, I wish I would have used her much before now. I just cannot believe that student teaching is almost over! It seems like we have just began. Although, I do believe the tin these last few weeks, I have been transforming into a teacher. The way I think, communicate with students, and the materials I teach are more ‘teacher like’. I really try to apply the things we learn. For example, yesterday, I had a class meeting with my class about tattling. I started by saying I notice… then I ask students what have you noticed. I used Charney and our discussion on Thursday to help guide me. It went well, but we will need more practice with this. I’m just glad we’re making progress!

  This has been by far the busiest week I have experienced so far. My CT had been absent on Thursday through Monday so I was facing the class by myself. Being along in the classroom with a substitute and the TA was not the problem at all. I enjoyed being able to teach all day. The major conflict for the week was career week. I found out about career week late on Sunday evening and the daily schedule was affected by the 40 minutes designated for career speakers. Writing workshop was completely removed from this week’s schedule. I guess that is the life of a teacher. I just had to find a way to accommodate my schedule and plans. I had planned for students to complete their all about book in writing workshop March 5th, but because if the unforeseen circumstances the due date has been pushed back a week. The conflicts in my schedule I have faced has showed me that as I will have to just go with the flow sometimes.

          My take over in Ms. Latta’s class is in full force! I am now teaching more than half of the subjects. This week, to my dread, I began taking over Math, ahhh! For some reason I am afraid of teaching math. I think it is because math has always been my weakest subject throughout my schooling. I hate math! But, despite this fact, I am still obligated to teach it. So, I am teaching about money and ungrouping, a very difficult concept for many of my students (another reason why I am so overwhelmed). Math is not proving to be as bad as I thought it would be, but the biggest issue is that students appear to understand while I am teaching, but then after I grade their quizzes and review their work, I find out that many of them do not understand as much as I thought. I am struggling to find ways to cater to the needs of all of my students during whole group instruction. But, I have found that the Smart Board has great tools to help with place value and money.

Another major obstacle that I am facing is the level of talking during my lessons. My CT reveled to me that the minute I turn my back to work on the Smart Board, students begin talking until I turn around again. Uggg! I have implemented a behavior management system that is a work in progress but I think eventually it will work almost flawlessly. I reward those who are behaving themselves all day with a parent phone call home or a trip to the prize box. To get students attention I use the “1-2-3 eyes on me, 1-2 eyes on you” chant. Next week I have a visitor coming to speak with students, I hope they are on their best behavior, because when Jennifer was observing me they were making me look like I chose the wrong profession! We’ll see what happens…

This week was an excellent week at Efland. I began teaching word study (and basically read aloud too because of last week’s weather), Yet, I was more excited about teaching read aloud. Our read aloud takes place in the morning and I am focusing this month’s read a louds on African American pioneers of change. I have found so many great books with awesome illustrations and rich with information. But I found out the hard way that I was planning my lessons that were a ‘mile wide and an inch deep’. I was cramming so much into my lessons that it was going into guided reading time. This week my teacher lead the guided reading groups and she reminded me that when I take over read aloud that I will have to end my lesson with enough time to lead two groups. So, after Jennifer observed my lesson and gave me feedback, I realized that I should change some of my lessons. I did, and we spent more two days on a long book instead of one day and the class really had the opportunity to grasp the objective of the lessons. So, next week, my lessons are definitely going to be more of an inch wide and a mile deep.

In second grade, behavior management is still a difficult thing for seven year olds to grasp, at least this seems to be the case in my classroom. Yet, Ms. Latta has many conventions to keep the little ones in order control. In the beginning of the year she discusses expectations and consequences. She and the students come up with these lists and it is posted in the room. Behavior management sheets are signed daily and each child is rated in their behavior for the day. They are green, yellow, or red (good, ok, and poor). I have found a flaw in this system because not every child has a behavior management sheet. I found out that some students do not have one because they lose it. I think that every child should have a sheet because every child’s behavior should be rated, not only those who are more organized than others.

When students misbehave during the day, they receive two warnings, then they must walk 5 minutes at recess. If their behavior continues to get worse then they must write a latter home to their parents stated what their misconduct was for the day and what they will do to improve. If they continue to get worse, parents are then called in for a conference. This behavior management policy allows students to improve current behavior standing if their behavior improves during the day. This only applies before recess because their 5 minutes walking time can be revoked. If students misbehave in the rug, they are sometimes sent back to their seat to complete the work we are doing on the rug. My CT has a very low tolerance for misbehavior. I am learning a lot from her classroom management.