{"id":183,"date":"2020-09-13T11:54:25","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T18:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/?p=183"},"modified":"2021-05-01T19:54:57","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T02:54:57","slug":"my-first-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/2020\/09\/13\/my-first-week\/","title":{"rendered":"My first week in school"},"content":{"rendered":"

During my first week at Yale Secondary, I observed my mentor teachers (Nathan and Karen) in the preparation process and integrated myself as a part of the school community. Right away, the staff at Yale welcomed me warmly and showed a genuine curiosity about who I am and how I would like to be involved at the school. Despite its large size, Yale Secondary has a distinctly warm and welcoming atmosphere, which I’m sure students perceive as well.<\/p>\n

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: The start of a schedule that is half-in-person and half-distance-learning was strange<\/em> to say the least. Many students commented that school during the pandemic feels “weird.” We wear masks in all common areas, and some students choose to wear them in the classroom during cohort learning. The schools has staggered entry and exit times for the different grade levels. The whole afternoon block is conducted online, with high-risk students being permitted to stay at school for in-person support. Lesson blocks are three hours long.<\/p>\n

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Squeezing 30 desks into a small space is a great challenge. Classroom set up will look a little different this year!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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With staggered entry times and the introduction of hall passes, the hallways look this empty most of the school day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet the adaptability my mentor teachers (and the other staff in the school!) showed this week was impressive. During in-person class, Nathan planned multiple activities to break up the three-hour lesson block, and halfway through we took the students outside for a walk-and-talk. During the online class, Karen had to prioritize activities because eLearning requires more time to account for technical difficulties.<\/p>\n

The artifact.<\/h3>\n

This week, I was interested to observe first-week routines. How did my mentor teachers take the time to build community and get to know students personally? How did they establish their classroom culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In both classes, personal connection started with attendance.<\/strong> Nathan asked me to stand at the door to greet students by name on their way in – this allowed us to check their daily health assessment, take attendance, and learn their names. Karen’s online classes started with “attendance questions,” where students interacted on Google Questions to get to know each other better and confirm their presence in the lesson.<\/p>\n

Nathan spent a good part of his first day going around the classroom to each individual student, asking for a summer highlight. The rest of the week, all of his conversations with students stemmed from this first interaction. For homework, students filled in an online survey to more elaborately tell Nathan about themselves. Nathan memorized most names by the end of the second day. Our walk-and-talk in the middle of the 3-hour block allowed students to personally connect with each other while talking a body break. Nathan’s presence in the classroom also effortlessly weaves personal connection (by making jokes, personally addressing unique characteristics of different students, referring to the class as “family”) into the learning of Biology, and he also firmly (and sometimes playfully) communicates behavioural boundaries (“can we do hands?” “don’t speak over each other; quick classroom rule: we don’t have any fun” “my pet peeve is students packing up early when we still have 10 minutes of class left”).<\/p>\n

Karen also spent most of her first class introducing herself, getting students to answer a get-to-know-you question verbally and with their video on<\/em> over Google Meet, and establishing the eLearning routine for the next 5 weeks. All of her first activities this week involved students getting to know themselves and each other, and then writing a paragraph about their learning. She was also vulnerable with her students about how the eLearning platform is new and unfamiliar to her, and that she felt nervous on the first few days. Yet Karen also added, “But that’s okay. Being nervous makes it exciting.”<\/p>\n

Why it matters.<\/h3>\n

The first week in a classroom is essential to establishing classroom culture and relationships. During staff orientation at school, the principal emphasized the need students have right now (during the pandemic) for social emotional learning at school, and he encouraged teachers to really take the time to support students relationally in this first week.<\/p>\n

In my EDUC 310 (special education) course, we were taught that the human brain is physically<\/em> incapable of learning when the individual is under great stress (see here<\/a> for an article that talks about this). Learning circuits are interrupted and the student cannot ingest and digest new information or skills.<\/p>\n

During this pandemic, a lot of students are under a great deal of stress. Ever since spring break, a lot of students have suffered from unmet expectations, a lack of rich social interaction, less freedom to try new things in their free time, and in general a greater sense of stress associated with their environment. International students have dealt with being separated from family for a prolonged period of time, or needed to self-quarantine upon returning to Canada. The Black Lives Matter movement of the recent months may also be an added stressor for a lot of students wrestling with the social issues the movement is bringing to the surface.<\/p>\n

In other words, now more than ever, teachers have the crucial role of establishing\u00a0safe<\/em> relationships with students. The classroom environment is one that must be calming, vulnerable, open, and free from stress<\/em>. In order for the class to learn properly, safe relationships need to be established and time taken to cater to the social emotional needs of each student.<\/p>\n

The Lotus team at Yale Secondary (associated with their counselling department) released a social emotional learning video on the first day of school, introducing students to nervousness, stress, and anxiety, and they plan to continue providing activities and resources for all<\/em> classes to participate in on a regular basis in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, establishing classroom routines<\/em> is crucial because a lot of students require structure to feel stress-free. This way, students know what to expect but are also more likely to engage because the routine is simple and the learning<\/em> is the focus.<\/p>\n

Next steps.<\/h3>\n

To prepare for my future classroom, I am coming up with some ideas for activities that would cater well to the English and Biology classroom for the first week of school.<\/p>\n