Week 3

Week 3 has gone by so quickly, and it was very crazy week, for a lot of different reasons.  I got to teach a full day on Monday, and I even taught a couple of lessons on Tuesday.  But, also, we felt a 6.4 magnitude earthquake from the south side of Java on Tuesday, so we haven’t been able to do as much this week.  The next couple weeks are going to be a lot of catching up on assignments and concepts.
Before I get into everything that happened this week, I wanted to go over my goals from the past week and where I am in meeting those goals.

My first goal was to get through a full day of just me teaching.  I am very happy to say that it was a successful Monday of teaching lessons.  I taught a vocabulary lesson as well as a reading lesson.  For the vocabulary lesson, the students were learning about the Latin root “plic” which means “fold.”  After some direct instruction, I decided to the Fly Swatter Game as a formative assessment.  The students, overall, loved playing it.  I think they really enjoyed being able to get out of their seats and doing something different for a change.  My favorite lesson to teach so far was a cover analysis of A Wrinkle in Time.  I implemented the Jigsaw Method, and it proved to be very effective in creating great ideas.  Students were able to use their critical thinking and discussion skills.  In one class, there were responses that really blew me away, because they were things that I didn’t even think of.  This was such a fun day this week, and I keep feeling more and more confident about teaching.

Classroom management is always something that I can continuously work on, but I believe that I am getting better at getting the class’s attention and making sure that they are on task.  My cooperating teacher explained that when I’m trying to get their attention, it’s not enough to just say “Eyes Up, Mouths Closed,” but what I have to be adamant about is saying it repeated times if they are still talking over me.  I saw this in class last week when my craziest class was talking out of turn, so I said, “Eyes Up, Mouths Closed.”  The students were still talking, so I raised my hand, held up a two with my fingers, and said it again.  There were still some students talking, but one of the students caught on and said, “Guys!”  It just takes a little push.  I think it’s good that there’s not a lot of phrases for classroom management, because that would just confuse these 6^th graders.  Also, once one phrase is integrated into the classroom environment, it is very important to be consistent.

My final goal was to plan everything for next week during this week.  Unfortunately, it was difficult to do this for reasons such as an earthquake in the middle of the week and having to prepare for full time teaching.  I did get most of what I would have liked done, but I know that I could have done more earlier in the week to make my life easier.  For this upcoming week, I know that I need to be on top of everything even more, because I am working on edTPA in addition to planning for the weeks.


As I mentioned earlier, this week was by far the craziest in comparison to the other weeks.  On Tuesday afternoon, an earthquake made our building sway quite a bit.  My cooperating teacher was subbing for another 6th grade teacher who couldn't be there during the school day, so I went with the 6th grade class that had English to the computer lab.  I didn't need to teach anything; I just had to make sure that everyone was on task.  All of a sudden, one of my students said, "Ms. Sarah, do you feel the ground shaking?  Is this an earthquake?"  I was so confused.  To be honest, I thought it was a joke.  But then, I decided to just stay still, and what do you know?  The ground was actually shaking.  Were we really experiencing an earthquake during English class?  Then, my students fled under their desks.  Not knowing a clue of what to do, I followed their lead.  Then, they started counting.  I later found out that after the ground stops moving, they are supposed to start counting to 60 seconds, just in case there were any aftershocks.  After that, an alarm sounded, and my first instinct was to get everyone out of that building.  One of the things that I wish my placement could have prepared me better for was in the case of an earthquake.  IPTS 9C states that the competent teacher “understands emergency response procedures as required under the School Safety Drill Act [105 ILCS 128/1], including school safety and crisis intervention protocol, initial response 8 actions (e.g., whether to stay in or evacuate a building), and first response to medical emergencies (e.g., first aid and life-saving techniques).”  Unfortunately, this was not something that I was taught in preparation for coming here.  But, thankfully, my students knew exactly what they were supposed to do.


My students and I were right by the stairs, and we just kept running down until we were out of the building.  When we finally got outside, all of the students started lining up in their classes.  My cooperating teacher gave me a clipboard and said that I needed to take attendance of the class.  Their homeroom teacher wasn't there, so I became their honorary homeroom teacher for a few hours.  It was so humbling to take on that role.  With that kind of role in this kind of situation, I knew that I needed to be strong and comforting.  I had to hold it together for my students and for myself. As I mentioned before, everyone was out of that building and accounted for within 8 minutes.  That was relieving.  But, this was only the beginning.  We were outside for at least 3 hours, waiting for parents/ nannies to pick up their children, moving to a secondary location, and praying that it wouldn't start raining in the middle of rainy season.

For the rest of that day, as well as for Wednesday and Thursday, school was cancelled.  There wasn’t much that we could really do about that besides wait for clearance to come back to our building.  

Although there was no school on Thursday, we had a meeting with all of the teachers to debrief the earthquake and how to help our students cope with any kind of trauma.  There was also a pretty long discussion about how to better prepare for the next time an earthquake could happen or another kind of catastrophe.  From my perspective, this was a little bit of professional development.  We used a handout with information from this website to help us understand our role:  https://www.thepalmeirapractice.org.uk/expertise/2017/2/20/what-is-trauma-counselling.  It was a great day of thinking of how to improve as a school community in order to first and foremost benefit the students.  I'm really glad that my school had this large meeting, because we needed to heal and work together.  I love that this school is all about the community aspect, which is an effective practice to uphold.  When the students know that they are truly the priority, it helps them recognize that the learning and hard work is worth it.  

Because we didn't know how our students would react on Friday when we finally had school, we were prepared to be there for them.  We had adjusted everything in the schedule to help benefit them.  I truly felt like over the span of the past few days, I took on the role of a teacher, not just a student teacher.  At this point, these students were mine too.  This week, I had to take on responsibilities that I never thought I would have to.  I'm just glad that I had a wonderful support system surrounding me.    
If I learned anything this week, I learned how to be a better teacher outside of the classroom.  Teaching isn't just about classroom management; it's about the students.  In thinking about the education program learning outcomes, I feel like this week, I've really grown in embodying Christ-like servanthood.  Now that I'm thinking about it, during devos, we've been going through the book of John, and I'm reminded of this passage that we have often discussed:

While thoughts went around my head of where I would live for the next couple of days or how I was going to get all of my work done on time, my thoughts were on my students.  Where are their parents?  Are they doing okay?  What I can I do to be there for them?  I want to embody who Christ is and the way He is willing to give up His life for us.  He loves us that much.  

As I go into this next week, I've set some goals for myself:

1. Successfully do the edTPA!  (I'm filming this week, and I'm so nervous!)
2. Be more assertive.

Classroom Confidential

Since I'm actually in a different country, I find reading this chapter really interesting.  I'm in a unique situation, because I'm legitimately in a multicultural classroom.  In fact, because I am one of the few Americans in my classroom, I'm pretty out of place.  But, since they're not in the United States, I really have to pay attention to the culture of Indonesia and the schools in Indonesia.  The first skill that Schmidt lists is developing a tolerance for ambiguity.  Throughout the past few weeks, I have had many questions like this, but I've been able to just take a step back and observe.  Sure, people walk on the left side.  Many times, I've been called Ibu.  A good majority of the Jakartan population wears head scarves.  Whenever I'm paying for anything, a head is bowed to me in respect.  The same happens whenever I walk into the mall; the security ladies hold their hands up like they're praying, bow, and welcome me.  It's been so interesting to just watch and immerse myself in such a unique culture.

Schmidt also discusses that I should try not to judge others.  I really don't feel like I have an issue with this, because I've trained my mind to take things as they are and to not judge my students for their actions.  Culture and diversity is a big part of my school, and we learn to celebrate every single background.

I've learned so much about the culture here in a short amount of time, but I know that there is still so much more to learn.  7 weeks is not long enough to learn everything, but it's been such an amazing experience growing in my multicultural awareness.  Because of who I am and how I grew up, I have a tendency to see my class through culture-colored glasses, but being in an international school on the other side of the world has opened me up to new perspectives and has encouraged me to continue to respect all people and all cultures.