I was assigned to teach 8th grade summer school Earth Science with Mr. Joseph Roy. There was another fellow, Ms. Alexis Dean, in this class already. Both Alexis and Joe were really nice. The class was quite chaotic. Alexis transferred to a different class after the third (of five) week of summer school.
I tried laying down the law by posting and rehearsing five classroom rules. Also, I established a way to quiet the class by teaching the students that, “When I raise my hand, everyone needs to look up at me and stop talking.” Lastly, I made assigned seats.
These procedures and the rules only worked for a few days, because I did not have any consequences beyond a verbal warning and I was inconsistent. The students were not graded on their daily performance and most students did not need to pass Earth Science during summer school. If a student failed math or English, they automatically had to take the full summer school curriculum, but only pass the subject(s) they failed. Moreover, summer school was seen by most people as “relaxed” and talking to parents did not seem to be recommended. Finally, it was difficult to be consistent with the class since I was not teaching or preparing the lessons most days. There was an inverse correlation between how engaging a lesson was and the level of misbehavior: the less engaging a lesson, the more misbehavior. Many of the lessons I did not prepare ended early, lacked demonstrations, and were disengaging. The level of success is mostly decided before you set foot in the classroom that day.
Although I made many mistakes and sometimes the class spiraled out of control with students throwing books across the room, stabbing each other with pencils, punching or body slamming one another, constantly swearing, listening to iPods, checking their cell phones and almost never listening to the teacher addressing the whole class (most of the instruction time was spent in talking to students one-on-one or speaking to small groups of students), I received superlative evaluations for my teaching. I was observed twice and by the second time received, “Exceeds Expectations” for all three categories: (1) Instructional Design and Delivery, (2) Classroom Management and Culture, and (3) Professional Values. During the time I was observed, the students behaved better than usual. Perhaps it was because I engaged them since I prepared my own lessons for those days? Perhaps I was fortunate?
The Pace University classes were an utter waste of time. We mostly learned about Understanding by Design. It is one of many ways to format lessons. It is not important how you format lessons; instead, it is important how engaging lessons are. If we focused on making demonstrations, activities, analogies, and other active learning concepts to prepare for teaching in September, then the class would’ve been useful.
It was so bad that I wanted to transfer from Pace University to City College. I contacted the NYCTF Placement Office and Pace Alternative Certification Office, but after much talking I understood that they would not let me make that switch no matter what. They already denied several other people before me. “They had to stick to their guns,” right? They “would not want to admit” that the Pace science curriculum was “b.s.” although many people came forward with complaints, so now there’s “bureaucratic red tape” to stop people from self-determination. They could let me go to Lehman College if I found a job in the Bronx; however, I hear that Lehman is no better than Pace. City College has the science immersion program and Brooklyn College has the Earth Science immersion program, which for some reason causes their general program to be better. Hence, future non-immersion science teaching fellows will have a low quality Master’s education unless you are keen and request to be transferred to City College directly after University placements are announced. It would’ve been nice for me to know this before. At this point, I was described as a “divorced child between my University and NYCTF.” It did not have to be this way!
Update (Monday, October 8, 2007): I hear that City College does not have a very good program either. Brooklyn College is the only college I get consistently good reviews, although it depends on what professor a student has.
Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.
