So much to say... in a good way! (I love unintentional rhymes.)

These last two days have been infinitely better than Monday. I spent all of Tuesday in the same classroom that I was in Monday. Luckily, without having to be pushy, I got to be involved in the class. The teacher kept up with the stations format but let me work with a few students from the reading group during each period. The first group I had was three eighth grade students who had all read the same book already but had scored less than 70% on the computerized quiz. We read the text aloud as a group, alternating reading a paragraph each. My teacher had told me / suggested that I read aloud to them because many of the students are below grade level to the point where they spend so much time struggling with phonetics that they cannot even attempt comprehension. For this reason, I read longer chunks to the students than I required them to read and I also modified my approach with my latter classes. In some instances I told them I would read aloud until the desire struck one of them to take over reading, at which point they were free to interrupt me and read aloud for the group. Surprisingly, a few kids actually read a decent amount when given this option. However, I found the most effective thing that I could do was to stop every page or so for discussion. Some groups were stronger readers than others and some texts were harder than others (and, unfortunately, the strength of readers and the level of texts did not correlate), so the amount of discussion and success of discussion varied. I did have several moments where students clearly did not understand something on the first read-through and a few simple leading questions or another read-through got them to go “Oh! ____ is happening!” So that was really great. I also had a few instances of students working with me and still having time to take the quiz in the same class period, which meant that I got to see how they did… they went from failing scores to a 90-100% range. 

The only really frustrating part of the set-up was the fact that it was supposed to be station work and they were only supposed to spend twenty minutes reading with me and then move on to the computers to take the reading quizzes. Because, as I already explained, the levels of texts and levels of readers were kind of all over the place, some readings and groups took ten minutes to get through the text, whereas others took forty-five minutes. I felt like I had to rush through the process a few times so that students could take the quiz, but I didn’t want to sacrifice a successful read-and-discuss procedure so that they could rush to the quiz and not do so well… but I also wanted them to take the quiz that day, while the material was fresh in their mind, and not have to put it off until the next day. Conundrum. I also felt pressure from the teacher to speed them through it… I think she and they are used to just reading through something without discussing and thus underestimated the time required to get through the reading successfully. Regardless, it was a really great day. I was so grateful to get to work with the students personally after my first alienated day. The students were also much friendlier and willing to engage with me than I expected. I think Mark’s experience, while valid, is outdated enough that the preconceptions I got from discussing things with him made me overestimate the cultural barrier that I would encounter here. Some students joked with me and even asked me questions about myself. Like I said, it was great.

Today was great in an entirely different sense. Robin and I decided to get out of the one-classroom-all-day approach. It had been productive for getting to know the students better and for being able to help out, but it also had given us a very limited view of the school. The teacher I had worked with previously was absent, so today was actually a rather opportune day to get out and explore. I spent the first two class periods observing the teacher that Robin had worked with. The class was high school English (I saw 10th and 11th grade) and they were working on that same advertising assignment that Robin detailed in her last blog. I found it interesting to see how much the teacher emphasizes the Arizona state standards in her classroom; she started the class period with the pertinent standards written on the board and verbally informed the students and myself of what standards they would be addressing that day. During the first class, the principal (Terri Everett) stopped in to wish the students good luck with the start of the new semester. After she left the room, I followed her into the hallway and had a brief talk with her, in which she invited me to her office to chat and gave me some recommendations for classes to observe. Robin and I ended up going to her office third hour, where we were met by Terri, Carol, and Jarvis (he is a security guard here and wonderfully friendly… he told us some lovely stories about how the building we are staying in is haunted). We ended up staying there for a lot longer than anticipated (two whole periods) but had some really great conversations. We also got an invitation to go out to dinner with Carol and Terri tomorrow, so that should be really great. We then went and caught a bit of the traditional Navajo drumming practice, which was really neat.

From there, Robin and I took an unintentionally long lunch. We came back to the building we’re staying in to make sandwiches and ran into Mark, who was deep in conversation with two former Rock Point teachers who are also visiting. I’m sure Robin will write more about this so I won’t try to ignorantly explain it, but they are kind of celebrities in the Navajo journalism world. We got to listen to (and somewhat participate in) a really interesting conversation between them about the degradation of land out here. Again, I’ll let Robin do the topic better justice. Afterwards, we went to see a Sociology class that was really interesting. Again, I’m glad I got to see classes other than the one I was in the first two days. Because of the Read 180 program, my experiences in that classroom were pretty structured and repetitive. It was nice to see another class that, while traditional, involved discussion and student participation. Robin and I stayed afterwards to talk with the teacher and he gave us a really unique perspective on working here. As an Anglo teacher in a Navajo school, he put to rest some of our previous assumptions about an insurmountable cultural divide. He’s done some really innovative things here and explained to us that this type of school is a really great place to start out at and an opportunity to teach yourself to teach.

ALSO. Robin and I stopped in a classroom to ask a teacher if we could observe him tomorrow (we have a whole list of recommended teachers and classes to see tomorrow) and met a woman who is a Rock Point parent and also works in the special education department. She told us that her son spoke about us last night and said we were so helpful and he wished we could stay!!! After two days here, we were so surprised/delighted that we had made enough of an impression for a student to speak of us that way. Sigh. Moments that remind me how much I want to teach.

There’s a lot more I want to say… but this is already long and I am wiped out. Perhaps another post later tonight when all the other topics of importance come flooding back into my head? Perhaps.