Learning to Connect (lesson 2)

The LessonI was so upset about this lesson, I couldn't write about it for nearly a week. It probably felt worse because going into the lesson, I was so much more confident. My co- teacher and I worked together to plan week two so that the content was relevant to the girls interests and there was a lot of hands on opportunities. This lesson was to look at how media shapes our understanding/perspectives/beliefs about women’s beauty. The three core activities were first to watch a video about beauty and have a discussion, then work collages by picking out all of the beauty products being sold to women and finally have the girls present their collages and talk about their impressions of how media shapes our understanding of beauty.During the first activity we watched a video PSA that was made by Dove showing a woman undergoing a transition through makeup, hair and finally digital retouching. We watched the video a few times and then the plan was to have a discussion about what the girls observed in the video and discuss the questions that I posed to the girls. At first, it was like pulling teeth, no one had any feedback. I persisted with the questioning and the girls slowly started to respond. Unfortunately the responses weren’t what I was trying to get at. The girls were volunteering comments like “well she was ugly and they made her pretty, good for her” and “she looks better now.” My hope was that we could have talked about how artificial the beauty we see on billboards/in magazines really is, because so much of it is manufactured. I was hoping the girls would be able to talk about how the video made them feel but it was a very superficial discussion.Then I tried to do a short overview of stereotypes and perceptions of beauty. I was not prepared for this despite all my preparing. Presenting content to new learners is so hard and this is where classroom management becomes so crucial. We had (without warning) been assigned 4 more girls, bringing our total up to 10. Two of the new girls and one that been a challenge last week were running around the room, occasionally yelling out, talking over both myself and the co-teacher but always ready to say “Oh I apologize” in the same breath. Unfortunately this did make it easier to have a discussion. To complicate matters, my co-teacher was away and so there was a sub in the room to help me, but she wasn’t familiar with the girls making it harder for either of us to deal with behavior.After muddling through the media mini-lesson, I moved the girls on to the media collages. We broke them up into groups of 2-3 and gave them each a women’s magazines (e.g. Vogue, Women’s Health) and had them look out for the various beauty products being marketed to women. While they cut these out and created a collage, we asked the girls to discuss what kind of influence these types of images had on women’s thoughts on beauty and what was necessary to be beautiful. The girls seemed engaged and for the most part content doing this activity. However, we had a whole slew of behavior issues, with the same 2-3 girls. One of them was running in and out of class, one girl was yelling and trying to provoke her classmates and the other one was just vying for a bit of attention. I was struggling to keep my cool, work with the girls who were trying to participate and keep things moving along.Finally, after giving extra time, I had the girls present their collages in teams. Again, modeling!!! I'm kicking myself right now because I had control over that! That's when I felt like I had lost the classroom, girls were in and out, there was all kinds of movement. They seemed to like presenting but they didn’t want to listen to each other, so when they weren’t presenting they were all over the place.We didn’t even get to the friendship circle and I barely had the energy to say goodbye. I was devastated.Reflections on Today’s LessonAfter two classes, my most significant takeaway is that discussions are something that take a really long time to get right and I am not yet sure how to get there. This is even true with peer to peer discussions. Despite the framing I gave to the girls to discuss with their partners they didn’t know what they were supposed to say to one another. One way I countered that was to circulate to each group while they worked independently and ask them about what they were working on, which got them to talk to me, but not one another. What I had hoped was that there would be a more meaningful discussion about why the pictures did or did not meet the criteria and the implications. As I type that I realize that I didn't model for them what I wanted them to do. I fell into the trap of simply giving instructions without any structure, so they did as much as they could given the information they had available. What this says about teaching (to me) is that this model of I do, you do, we do, is really important. If I can’t do the task and show it to them, at least at the beginning, then why should I think they can?Another thing that just occurred to me is that I was made aware by the girls that they didn't sign up for my apprenticeship, at least most didn't. However, kids ranging from kindergarten to 8th grade don’t really sign up for any classes, but a teachers job is still to teach and create meaningful, engaging learning experiences.Additional ReflectionsHere are more notes I jotted down for me to think about as I plan for next week. The general theme is developing the classroom environment for effective discussions and questions that lead to critical thinking and rich classroom discourse. They are somewhat repetitive but felt like it was helpful to include for those of you thinking about the same things!

  • Always model or do the first example together. Don't get intimidated! What’s worse is not setting expectations and giving them clear objectives/goals and supports to actually participate in the learning experiences.
  • Starting next week, work on the scaffolding necessary to have a class discussion where girls are not only responding voluntarily (versus being called on) but also able to respond to each other and eventually lead the discussions. This is going to be the hardest work because it requires so much focus, attention and planning. I don’t think I fully appreciated this until tonight! However, the first thing is to build the rapport and trust with the girls. Getting them to share their opinions without the foundation will only result in responses that are what they think I want to hear.
  • I noticed that the girls are much more used to “thinking on paper.” If they have a graphic organizer that has questions, they will do some thinking to respond to questions. However, if I posed the same questions out loud, even sequentially, they won’t always respond the same way. I need to get them to move beyond “thinking on paper.” Again I think it comes down to modeling and practice.
  • Before I left the DOE, we had done a series of PD activities with educators on looking at questioning in the classroom and trying to evaluate teachers using the Danielson rubric. I think my questioning techniques for this class were developing. Unfortunately, the thing that the rubric doesn’t do is really help me think about the steps necessary to get to effective.