I am currently student teaching,6th grade social studies,at Bemidji Middle School, located here in Bemidji. It is just down the road from Target if you are not familiar with this institution. It is a school experience, that I myself have never had the opportunity to go to. Unlike other middle or elementary school settings, BMS is a very open institution. The classes are not stationary, but the instructors are. Saying this, I must elaborate, that the school is not a chaotic as I may have some people believe, but it is very liquid and not like any middle school I have come across. The students are assigned pods. A pod is a grouping of classrooms which together make up their daily class schedule. My pod is Delta. Within Delta there are 4 classrooms and 4 instructors. Each instructor is stationed in a room which is specialized for their subject matter. Our social studies room has a computer, projector and collection of maps, while the science pod has burners and the English pod has dictionaries. Whatever the case maybe, these pods are created and arranged so that throughout the day, the over 100 students belonging to Delta pod, shift class rooms, within the pod, as the day progresses.
This type of set up puts a lot of responsibility on the students, for they are now responsible to not only 1 or 2 teachers in a day, but four. They are responsible to be to class on time, and to recover things from their locker between break. When I was in the sixth grade we did not have these types of daily responsibilities and it may help them build character and responsibility, but it does consume a lot of time and is always a battle to have your class ready because of the extreme movement going on within the pod 5 times a day.
Because within the pod, their are no doors or hardly any doors, this combined with 4 teachers using microphones becomes very loud. This adds to the feeling of excitement and busyness within the pods. It can be another distraction, but the microphones do enable the whole class to be able to hear their teacher, in this very rambunctious environment. Aside from the mass movement of students all day, and the constant reminder of the classes within your pod, BMS is a very open and wonderful school. The school is designed to be a community. The pod is a small community of that grade or class. The school itself if a continuation of that feeling of community. It seemingly creates this community feeling (for the students), by evoking them to participate in a a vast collection of duties, teams, and events. I am always surprised to see the many opportunities these young students have, outside of the basic foundations of education. They are busy on the ski team, or the junior leadership team, dramatic readings, spelling bees, wrestling, and the list goes on.
Currently we teach 5 periods a day, to nearly 25 students each period. Each hour, the students are comprised of a huge variance of ability and maturity. This adds to the challenge, because what works for my first period hour, would have to be modified to work for my 4th hour class. Throughout the day their are a significant amount of people whom are border line special ed and a handful of students whom are on IEPs, for behaviour, and performance reasons. We have 5 students whom are higher functioning autistic students. We have a few hours within the day that we have educational assistants in the room, but they are really limited to helping the autistic students. It appears that the girls are a bit more mature than the boys, but like anything their is an exception to any rule. The school as a whole, is comprised of nearly 40% IEP students and 50% of students are reduced lunch, which is an indicator to low income. They are all pretty fun kids to teach too.
At this point my primary concern is that I am not effectively maintaining discipline during the day. I spend alot of time trying to stay focused and it distracts from my lesson. I realize that their will always be wasted time in anything, but limiting the amount of time lost to distractions is something I need to address and work on.
At this point I am looking forward most to the day in which I am able to fully implement the day to day functions of the class. Iam thrust head first, into this great practical experience in which, day by day, I can learn how to teach and reach my goals as an educator.
List of Goals
- To develop a disciplinary approach which allows for successful learning.
- Be able to successfully implement my lessons to the students.
- Reflect on my teaching ability, while considering and making effort to improve.
- Know all my students first names.
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