Mr Slattery
What to do…
Everybody wants to be something-a real somebody, something
that defines that somebody. Mr. Slattery grew up in a small town in Kansas and
ever since he was a young runt he wanted to be remembered for making his mark
on an entire generation. He went to high
school; he completed community college and received his Associates degree. He did everything he could to set up his
future. In high school, he wanted to be
a pharmacist, but there wasn’t enough human interaction for him.
Mr. Slattery is extremely extroverted and this allowed him
to excel in journalism. He thought he finally
reached his decision, “I’ll become a journalist!” Yet this still wasn’t the
perfect match for him. If he were a journalist, he would primarily report the
news, coming short of influencing an entire generation. Even writing opinion
columns wouldn’t allow him the influencing factor that he so desired.
Freshman year of College
Mr. Slattery was enjoying a steamy cup of coffee in the Conq
Corral with a classmate (that was the café located on campus at his Community
College) and an epiphany struck him. It
took him a while to come to this realization, 18 whole years, but he finally
concluded that his skills in writing and reading were primarily due to his
influential teachers and professors. “If
I were to become an English teacher, I could help students learn to appreciate
the art of writing and reading. I’m
going to go see my advisor and see what our school has to offer for teacher
preparation courses.”
Many semesters later….
Mr. Slattery is now a super senior at the State University
and has furthered his professional education, in pursuit to become a teacher of
English/Language Arts. Super is the
correct word to describe his emotional state and exhausted would be the
relative word to describe his mental state.
He is now a pre-student teacher and is gaining work experience through a
program called Co-Op. Between a full
load of college courses, pre-student teaching, Co-Op and his job at the local
grocery store, his most enjoyable experiences are located in the classroom or
preparing activities and lesson plans for his conceptual unit that is coming up
in a few weeks. Mr. Slattery is
establishing his identity and pedagogical practices one day at a time.
He has the opportunity to teach a conceptual unit which will
be his first time teaching consecutive lessons that correlate to one
another. Although Mr. Slattery considers
this as an opportunity, it is a requirement for his education program. This allows him to engage in the process of
design and planning for a weeklong unit. He has been in his placement classroom
for a couple of weeks now and he has students’ names, classroom procedures, and
expectations all down. It was now time
to discuss the unit of study that he would choose for his conceptual unit.
“Well we are going to start our unit over Night by Elie Wiesel in the beginning of
October, would you like to do that?” said his cooperating teacher.
“I’ve actually never read that book before, but I’ve heard that
it is a powerful book over the Holocaust” said Mr. Slattery.
“Well we’re going to spend much more than a week with it
since we only have one class copy. We’re
going to have to read it in class and discuss as we go. You could plan activities that build on their
background knowledge. Most of them have
had a unit over the Holocaust in the eighth grade, so they will have a lot to
bring to the table about the Holocaust but I think it would be a great
opportunity for you to build background knowledge, introduce themes and other
elements that will be brought up throughout the book, and also some other
texts, such as poems and other mediums that will make the engagement of this
text much more meaningful for these students.
Here, take home a copy and read the preface through chapter two and let
me know if you would like to teach this” said his cooperating teacher.
Only in her fourth year of teaching, his cooperating teacher
is a veteran in the art of designing overarching concepts, essential questions,
and especially classroom practices such as classroom and time management. She
was definitely a tough act to follow, but Mr. Slattery knew that he had a great
mentor that he could discuss questions or design concerns with.
“Thanks, I’ll do that!” Mr. Slattery said and departed from
her classroom and made his way to his Co-Op.
On his drive across town, Mr. Slattery pondered about the kind of
activities he could bring to make for a meaningful experience. He was definitely a fan of kinesthetic
activities such as “Mix Pair Share.” He
was also a fan of the impact that non-print texts make when correlated to the
text itself. He was definitely going to
use some of those. On his drive across
town, Mr. Slattery felt enlightened because of the flood of ideas that he could
incorporate into his classroom. This was
making him anxious and excited to teach his first unit.
Show time
The last couple of weeks, Mr. Slattery was not only planning
his lesson, but working on additional assignments and obligations as well. Still, he found the appropriate time to plan
and design a weeklong lesson that introduce and assess background knowledge,
creating a discussion and establishing purpose for reading this text. Mr. Slattery could feel the power of this
book and he hoped that his students could feel it too. Maybe the activities that he designed would
help some of those reluctant readers feel that same power. Hopefully the activities didn’t make those
active readers more reluctant. He hoped
that he wouldn’t completely ruin their education for a week. These were all the insecurities that passed
through Mr. Slattery’s head but he assured himself; he would prevail. He had spent countless hours developing a
PowerPoint presentation, searching for videos that would pair with introductory
design and various writing activities.
The preparation is done. Now it
is time to practice his acquired classroom practices and apply them to real
life. It is show time.
Mr. Slattery had everything in order for his introductory
lesson and waited for the 8 o’clock bell to ring. It finally rang and a voice came over the
intercom: “Good morning City High School, please stand for the pledge.”
As he was saying the pledge of allegiance aloud, his mind
raced:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag,”
Almost time, ah crap I forgot to turn on the projector.
“Of the United States of America,”
Remember to keep your body position open to all students.
“And to the republic, for which it stands,”
Is everyone here today? Okay looks like we’re missing a few.
“One nation under god,”
Remember, this isn’t a history lesson,
“Indivisible, with liberty and justice,”
but the history is relevant
“For all.”
For a literary discussion.
What perplexed Mr. Slattery was this ability to be saying
one thing and thinking about the next thing.
One advice from his professors was “Think fast, talk slowly,” was
finally being put to the test.
l“Good morning
class, I hope you all had a great weekend.
For bell work today we are going to discuss our ‘lit term of the week’
and watch a brief video clip that will help you understand what the term
means. Remember that if you bring an
example of the lit term, write it on a sticky note and put it on the board, you
will get an extra credit point. This may
not seem like a whole lot but say, you didn’t do so hot on a quiz or an essay,
the combined extra credit points from every week could boost your total score
for this class” said Mr. Slattery as he introduced the “lit term of the week”
which was the word archetype.
Following the bell work activity, Mr. Slattery then went
over the day’s agenda and moved on to the next activity, which was an
introduction to the book that will be read in class. “Remember class, take notes today in your
thinking notes, I will give you directions as how to label each section as we
are proceeding throughout today’s lesson,” said Mr. Slattery. As he was introducing this book, he found
himself emotionally empowered to deliver the same intense mood that is
presented in the book. He read passages
from the preface that added to the author’s purpose for writing this book. Throughout the introduction, he also asked
questions informally assessing the background knowledge of the class. He then
started discussing the upcoming activity, which was a KWL chart over the Holocaust.
As he was giving instructions, he realized that much of what
he discussed during the book’s introduction could be used in the KWL
chart. He couldn’t decide whether this
was a good or bad thing, because he wanted to know what the students knew
without any instruction, but he also thought that the book introduction was a
good warm up. This was something that he
didn’t consider in developing this lesson.
Either way, the KWL lesson went without any quarrels. He
could have maybe done a better job of time management but he didn’t want to
stop the activity in the middle of a good discussion. Mr. Slattery then directed the students to
engage with their thinking notes as they watched an interview between the
author of Night and Oprah. As they watched they were instructed to think
about their concepts of thinking notes such as “questions,” “predicting,”
“connection,” and etc.
Throughout the lesson, Mr. Slattery kept wondering, if and
when we were going to get to the poetry discussion. It would have to be pushed back a day, which
devastated him. His cooperating teacher
told him “That’s the beauty of being a teacher, if you don’t get through an
entire lesson, we can always come back to it tomorrow. It’s better to overplan, than
underplan.” Still, this was the
beginning of his conceptual unit and he will have an opportunity to come back
to this activity. And he did.
This conceptual unit was an important learning experience
for Mr. Slattery. On Friday, Mr.
Slattery discussed his performance with his cooperating teacher. Mr. Slattery felt confident that he was going
to become a great teacher with the help of great role models like his cooperating
teacher and university professors.
Training
I was searching for so long.
What was a college freshman to do?
With no clue of occupation, how will I do it?
Now a senior, and singing my song,
I made a choice, a life long decision;
In the class I will remain, I must model composition
And teach my students about precision.
But am I prepared for their questions?
“When are we going to need this in life?”
“Why do I need dissect stories
with my minds knife?”
“We’re in the twenty-first century,
I don’t need this stuff.”
Don’t worry child, I know it’s tough
These are the questions and quarrels
That plague our youth.
How can we bridge the gap
between the useless and relevance
To bring revelation and practicality
for an educational experience?
You see, it starts with us,
Future educators that aspire,
and believe our students bring
practical background knowledge.
I began as a spectator, now incorporated
In to an active participant, the title of Mr.
New school, new rules, Freshman class
How can I help you? Bet you never thought,
I’d be learning from you.
Through my education to be an educator,
I’ve been to many schools, studied theory
But the only way to learn is to
Experience in inquiry.
Progress in quicksand
I see student’s speed in strife.
I see them calm in calamity
But this where we get it all wrong.
Time is our enemy but it is also our friend.
It’s almost three, but you just blew your chance.
Just give it time, young one,
even when you think you can’t.
I see student’s across the spectrum
And I see the same thing
I see student’s prevail and careless
Regardless of what you think,
I will show you what the meaning is.
