First Week of School!

Well, the first week was a success! It was a bit crazy, and very overwhelming, but no one threw up and no one cried, so it was good! I will tell you that it would be beneficial to us all to learn a little bit of Spanish that we can communicate with some of our students. I'll ask Dr. Laws to help me out with that (haha). 

I realized that the first two weeks of kindergarten consists mainly of going over rules and procedures 100 times a day. It takes twenty minutes to go anywhere, you constantly have to remind students to keep their hands to themselves, get back in line, turn on their listening ears on, and "no, it is not play time". After the second week though, they usually start to get into a routine of things. 

The biggest thing I want to share with you this week is my experience with our county's new literacy program. Last week I mentioned that our school had adopted the phonics program Letter Land. After attending a literacy workshop last week, it turns out that it is SO MUCH more than that. It turns out that our entire county has bought the program Letter Land and everyone will be required to use it this year. Not only that, but our county brought in Dr. Max Thompson to come speak about the Learning-Focused School Model. Dr. Thompson is the project director of this new model. 

Here is link that will take you to a page telling more about Dr. Thompson:

http://www.learningfocused.com/max-thompson-vita/

Me, being a new, young, open-minded student, didn't think twice about what he was teaching. In my head I was thinking, "Oh, yeah! That sounds good to me! I think I could do that!" However, not everyone had the same opinion that I did; especially those teachers who had been teaching for twenty years or more. They were not excited about the new change that the county has set. Throughout the workshop I noticed facial expressions, murmurs, and eye rolls that gave me the impression that there was a lot of controversy about the new framework that Dr. Thompson wants teachers to start practicing. After the workshop, I reluctantly asked my CE about her feelings. She told me that she had her doubts and that she was reluctant, but that we would see at the end of the year. 

Dr. Thompson says that he has the research to back up his methods. He also says that these programs are extremely effective in high poverty schools. Our county fits the criteria from his research, so the administrators are hoping for strong results. The educators are not so sure. Standards this year have been raised and curriculum has been changed. 

High frequency words are out, content vocabulary words are in. Partners are out, collaborative pairs are in. This year, kindergarteners are expected to write eight full sentences by the end of the year. There are much more to this model, but these are just a few examples of the things that are making teachers question his framework. Like I said, I didn't question much of what he said, simply because I haven't had personal experience with this kind of work. I think the biggest reason for doubt and reluctancy is because it is change. When you have been teaching one way for so long, it can be very difficult to change, and I understand that. However, we also have to look at the research and facts and think about the students' best interest. It will be interesting to see how things in my school throughout the year, and also how growth will be effected this year. 

I STRONGLY recommend everyone go look at the Learning-Focused website. For us, there is much to learn and a lot of helpful resources. I think that the framework could really make a difference in student learning and could be something that we as student teachers could benefit from. 

Check out the Learning-Focused Website below to learn more:

http://www.learningfocused.com

This topic really relates to standard 3 of NCTCS. Teachers need to know the content they teach. It is so important for us to learn EFFECTIVE ways to teach our students and help them succeed.