I smiled and said, "But I do...my middle initials..."
But now I am drawing ever-closer to the Master's of Science (M.S.): Tuesday, December 17, I will present my master's thesis to faculty, students, family, and friends. The culminating project of my graduate experience will be done and my degree should be conferred in just a few weeks.
On Friday, I finished my second student teaching placement, eight weeks in the second grade.
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| My second grade class on our last day together. |
In this past week, my last week with these kiddoes, I've been pretty sick (still am). After standing at the classroom door and saying my final goodbyes, I then went to the doctor, now having the time to do so. I got promptly sicker upon returning home, vomiting up my just-prescribed antibiotics and not being able to keep anything down. I then passed out for nearly sixteen hours and had to take the weekend off---no teaching my acting classes, and no rehearsals for Shrek. It was as if my body realized that I absolutely had to get through student teaching and the moment I was done was the moment I was "allowed" to get sick. Funny how that works, eh?
The meds have FINALLY kicked in today and though I'm still feeling puny and can barely talk, I can at least sit in front of my computer. This is GREAT, because I need to finish that thesis...you know, the thing I'm presenting so I can get that M.S.....oh yeah, that's on Tuesday. :)
It will get done. I have learned a lot in this year of grad school, four straight semesters of fast-tracked credential and Master's work: constructivist practices and philosophies, facilitating inquiry-based instruction, classroom management, designing instruction based on learners' needs. I have also learned that everything gets done. This is a theatre lesson that has carried over: the show must go on; so must graduate school. It will get done and what is more important: I will have learned, through both process and product. So thank you, grad school. The professors and my block mates and my master teachers and supervisors have taught me well. I am articulate in the ways that I would wish to be, and am a stronger educator than I was previous to entering the program.
I started prerequisite courses in 2011, knowing from my work as a teaching artist and a director that while I might be fairly knowledgeable in my field and great with kids, I was missing that school language that I knew I needed to have an edge, to be more effective in my partnerships with schools, PTAs, and arts organizations. Theatre experience unto itself was not enough; I needed the Education experience, too.
Life is a process of learning and I will never be done. Anyone who thinks they have ever really finished learning is sadly mistaken about the very nature of what it means to be human. I am happy with this--I am hungry to continue learning more. Writing my Master's thesis has only proved this. My thesis Reimagining the Residency: A Resource for Theatre Teaching Artists, was written for people like me: a teaching artist needing something more to elevate practice and pedagogy to a level of depth and meaning. I have not yet mastered this myself; this will come in time, as Life continues to teach me her lessons. I am ready to get back into the arena, back to my own students, ready to develop programs, and ready to look for a classroom of my own in the K-8 system. Someday soon, I will be an Education Director for a theatre and I will be able to speak to both sides: the interests of the theatre and the interests of education--and the most important of all, the interests of the kids.
What a journey it has been.
In the picture above, I am teaching my last supervised lesson--this was this past Thursday. I wanted to ensure mastery of math content before I left, and the students had their math test on Friday. I asked my master teach for an extra day, so that I could review with them.
I had kept a close eye on the students' mathematics work all chapter long; the second graders were working with the beginnings of regrouping and finding the sums of up to four addends. This was all in conjunction with the Common Core State Standard which says that students should master at least 20 mental strategies by the end of Grade 2, and regroup up to the 100s place. Only a handful of students were mastering the content. I tried small groups with my struggling students, having different credentialed teachers use manipulatives and white boards with them while I reviewed with the rest of the class.
While working on my thesis during all of this, I wrote a theatre vignette based on the concept of universal design for learning. After meditating on the idea, I decided that the chapter review would be based on UDL. I would do centers for math---six centers in which students would spend 10 minutes before moving on to the next center. In keeping with the principles of universal design, the overall center design supported multiple means of representation and multiples means of expression. In one center, students were timed in basic math facts, the sum of 2 addends, orally. In another center, students completed the Mad Minute in basic math facts, written. It had become apparent to me that the students were not struggling with the concept of regrouping--they were struggling with addition itself. They knew 2+2=4 but they could not tell me what 9+8 was with automaticity. The numbers were just too big. So I had centers which featured many types of manipulatives: teddy bear blocks, base-10 blocks, foam blocks, wood shapes. Finally, I had a technology center in which students could use iPod Touches to play "Sushi Math" and continue to practice their math facts, growing in the number of addends as they passed each level.
The best part was that I had student teachers--actual second grade students demonstrating clear mastery of the content--facilitating each center while I facilitated the "seatwork center" (chapter review questions) and monitored class progress. Their names are the ones written next to each center. I differentiated instruction for all learners--the high and the struggling--all within the same lesson, including my Special Needs students and 11 English Learners.
I could not have done this prior to the program and it's a mark of my progress and learning that I could do so. The students talked, to be sure, but it was a good buzz: the students were talking about learning, and in a school that had been labeled because of its Title I status and low test scores, this was a win. Students are hungry to learn, and must be equipped with the necessary tools to do so--and it is up to the teacher to know his/her students well enough to know what those tools might be.
I've been struggling with coming to terms with my thesis as a "contribution to my field" because how can it truly be one, with only twelve weeks' of work? Most Master's students take a year or more to develop their projects.
But I've made a realization in typing this blog post. My thesis advisor says that my project is only the beginning of my work, not the end. And she's right. I think my contribution to the field thus far has been working with those second graders and the fourth/fifth graders in my last placement, also in a Title I school in which students were well-acquainted with hunger and homelessness.
I watercolored and assembled goodbye holiday cards for my students. And to them I said, "Thank you for teaching me."
Because they did. They always do.
There's Life again, teaching this lifelong learner more lessons. The students know how to learn, and they know how to teach. Give them the tools and watch them succeed.
And now, back to my thesis with a full heart...because I am very blessed indeed by these students, public school and theatre school alike.
To the finish line!
Best wishes,
Lissa
xoxoxo
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