First Principles: Best and Worst Classroom experiences

1/27/2021

Research demonstrates that regardless of how many methods classes a preservice teacher takes, the thing that will most influence how a teacher teaches is how they were taught. Your experiences as a student will, for much of your career, outweigh your experiences as a teacher. And that's not a bad thing. It's something to hold on too.

WHAT TO POST
Thus, to begin our semester together, we should start at the very beginning, with a brief reflection on your student experiences. In roughly 200-300 words, post a story about either a best or worst class experience. Rather than just report the experience, make sure to try to identify what about it made it a best or worst experience.

AFTER YOU POST
Take some time to read what your classmates have to say. Don't skip this step. I'm not asking you to post anything in response an am trusting that you will do this reading work prior to class.

WHEN WE MEET IN CLASS
I will ask you to discuss what you've read from your colleagues in small break out groups and develop a short summary of the qualities of an excellent classroom experience and, of course, the opposite of that, what seems to be the qualities of a bad classroom experience.

Over the course of the semester, we will develop our ideas, see how they fit into a wider discussion of theory and literacy pedagogy.

I look forward to reading and responding to your work here.

HOW TO POST
Click on the "comment" button located at either the top right or bottom left of this post. Fill in the form as required and post your 100-200 words in the dialogue box. You might want to compose in another program so nothing gets lost. Once you've finished, click submit.

NOTE: Occasionally, weekly asks you to identify a series of images in order to submit your post. Sometimes a glitch makes it impossible to see the "submit" button. If this happens, let me know. You can email me your post and I will post it on your behalf. When this happens, I contact weekly and they typically fix the problem.

19 Comments

Maria Pestilli

1/27/2021 05:55:29 pm

I think the worst experience I have had in a classroom was in my sophomore year of High School. It was the first day of my history class and my teacher sat us all down to explain his grading style. He said that all our test scores should align with a bell curve meaning there would be little Fs, a few Ds, a lot of Cs, a few Bs and little As. He even went as far to say that he would change people’s results on the test to fit his bell curve regardless of how they did so if too many people got As he would bump people from As to Bs. I think this is a terrible way to grade your students, at the time it made me feel helpless because of how harsh it was. This teacher was not lenient at all with us and he straight up told us that some of us would fail. I believe it is a teacher's job to not only teach their students but to make them want to learn and to enjoy it. A teacher shouldn’t make their students fear their class and a teacher shouldn’t make their students feel helpless. I did not like this teacher personally either. I broke my leg horribly when I was 14 and I end up having to walk with a cane most days. So when I would come to class with a cane this teacher would call me gimpy and even joked I would die first in the apocalypse. While him saying those things to me did not bother me a lot it did make me worry about how he treated other disabled students.
As for a good experience I had in a class, I would have to say it was in my senior year of High School. My English teacher would put either Slightly Agree, Agree, Slightly Disagree, and Disagree on each of the four walls of the class. She then would give each of us a list of statements that have to do with the book we are going to read, we would do this activity before reading the book. An example of a statement we would see would be “Fighting back is never ok”. The students would then decide if they agreed or disagreed with that statement. We would then get to have a small debate about why we chose the side we chose. I really like this activity because it gives students the chance to interact with each other and it also lets them practice their debate skills. I also like it because you get to hear how other people think and you can also change people’s opinions on ideas. I think it is a good exercise to not only introduce important ideas from a book but also help the class bond. If the class feels more like a community then people will be more likely to engage and answer questions.

Angel Walsh

1/28/2021 06:48:48 am

I think that the best school experience that I have ever had was my senior year of high school. It was my math teacher that made a difference in how she taught. Most math teachers will just teach you some boring math that is not relevant to the real world. Mrs. Hall assigned the seniors a project that honestly prepared me for living on my own. She told us that we were to pick a career that we wanted to go to college for, find a college we wanted to attend, and find out how much the job makes and what our debt would be after attending college. While it may have sounded silly to do, it made me think of how my career as a teacher would impact my living. We had to come up a weekly living budget, including a budget for things like car payments, groceries, rent, and so on. This made it seem real, and helped me in the real world. After graduating I was able to figure out my budget and how to live within it, it still helps me to this day. Mrs. Hall could have just taught plain old math, but instead she gave me a tool that I will be able to use for college career and my life.

Patricia Diaz Fernandez

1/28/2021 09:50:07 am

My best classroom experience occurred in my Junior year of High School. I remember that I was taking a Creative Writing class and that one of the assignments for the course was to perform in front of the class our Spoken Word Assignment. Looking back, I remember that I was very nervous days prior to my performance since as a shy person, I have never been big on speaking or performing in front of others. I even talked to my teacher days before asking her for help and guidance on how to have enough courage to perform, which she was more than happy to provide. On the day of the presentation, while I was performing, I remember seeing her in the back of the classroom supporting me and after finishing up my performance, she hugged me and told the class how proud she was that I was able to conquer my fear. What made this the best experience I have ever had compared to others is the fact that for the first time ever, I found a teacher who understood how difficult public speaking was for me and still did not give up on me. While other teachers would gladly give students the zero that they deserve for not performing in front of the class despite their public speaking fear, she encouraged me the whole time. She made me realize that I was capable of breaking down that barrier of fear if I just believed in myself like she believed I could.

Rosalie Barkley

1/28/2021 02:38:50 pm

One of the best teachers that I had was my high school Anatomy teacher, Mr. Ragona. At the beginning of the year, everyone was fairly nervous because the course was one of the hardest that the school offered and he had a reputation of being the hardest teacher (and even a bit scary). He presented himself right off the bat as a no-nonsense sort of man and had very high expectations of his students. He was not the teacher that you could bring a sob story to and he would hold your hand and cut you some slack. However, as the year went on, Mr. Ragona made it obvious that his goal was not to scare us but to help us learn and succeed.
There were a couple of habits he had that stood out in particular. The first is that he never told a student they were wrong. If a student did give an incorrect answer, he always used phrases like “you almost have it, let’s see if we can work out the rest” or “not quite, would you like to ask a classmate?” He never used condescending language towards individual students. Another thing that stood out to me, was that despite being big, scary, and in-charge, he would always admit when he was wrong. Twice he made public apologies in front of the class when he wrongfully yelled at a student or said something to embarrass them.
Both of these aspects, plus several others, made this teacher one of the best I’ve ever had. He was real and upfront, but he had a kindness to him. He showed that he was a human being too, that teachers make mistakes, and that the goal of a teacher is not to make demands, but to be a resource. His classes did not only give us lessons in bones and cells, but he gave us lessons in life as well.

Djenifer Goncalves

1/28/2021 04:02:26 pm

One of the best experiences I’ve had as a student was in high school, and it was my junior year. For starters, it was a poetry class, I love poetry, and I was taking the class with one of my favorite teachers. He was patient, and he never taught us by the book. Every day, when I had his class, we’d had these openers/warm-up questions. They weren’t busy work or brainless activities that sometimes teachers put you up to. His questions were meaningful, and it helped you think about yourself the way you never taught about before. He would also inform us about what’s currently going on with the world that no history class would ever mention. It would be information about today’s society and politics. What I loved about this was that it made me reflect. So, when I left school, and I was sitting on the bus, I used to always think about what we’ve discussed in class and write it down on my journal. He was one of those teachers that I’ve always looked up to because he made his classroom a safe place for open discussions. I loved how he would incorporate music into our learning. There was this one class where he had us watch the music video “Take Care” by Drake ft. Rihanna and he had us interpret the song and symbols like it was poetry; It was so cool. For our final assignment, he had us pick our favorite album of the year, whatever artist we listened to, and he asked us to write poems on each of the songs in the album. The best part about school was knowing that I had a safe place to go to. I used to get excited about school, and now it’s just not the same.

DANIELLE DELAROCA

1/28/2021 06:29:43 pm

Everyone is talking about their best experiences, so I am going to reflect on one of the worst experiences I have ever had in a classroom. I am not sure if it is the absolute worst, but it is most definitely in the top 5 for being both the craziest and just flat out awful. It was my freshman year here at BSU and I was sitting in one of my classes and there were these girls who were always very loud and talkative which was always incredibly distracting. Needless to say, on a big exam day, they were still very loud except this time, they started fighting each other. VERY loudly. The professor tried to chime in and tried to get them to move away from each other but they were being super stubborn so he walked over to them and one of the girls yelled "I'M PREGNANT DON'T COME NEAR ME" (she wasn't. She was just saying that to cause even more of a scene). Anyway, after about them fighting for at LEAST 30 mins (I lost track of time) and the whole thing going in circles with the prof trying to get them to stop and them continuing to fight, they finally just up and left the room. Well, when all of that was said and done, the rest of us finally got to take the exam! Haha just kidding. The fire alarm went off soon after and we had to evacuate the building.

1/31/2021 10:37:24 am

To further elaborate, this was one of the worst experiences because it was chaotic and the students fighting had no regards for those of us who just wanted to take the exam. Disruptive students and a messy environment is never a good experience when it comes to being in a classroom. Plus along with that, although the fire drill was purely coincidental, it still added on to the stress of that day that was already caused by the fighting.

Catie Mullen

1/28/2021 06:41:31 pm

One of the best classroom experiences was my senior year of high school. I had an English teacher named Mr. Randall. I had him two years in a row and he was someone who influenced me to major in English. One of the classes I took with him was Philosophy and Film. I went into that class with absolutely no idea what I was doing, but after taking that class I have never felt so enriched with new writing and critical thinking skills. One of the assignments my class had to do was a four page essay about a philosopher that we learned about, and then apply that into a film we watched that semester. I used the skills I was taught by him when thinking critically about philosophers. Sometimes, it can be hard to understand the meaning behind a philosophers ideas. Mr. Randall made it look so easy to understand. He told the class, "Read it over a few times and apply what the philosopher is saying into the world today." With this essay that I had to write, I used that saying and the skills, and applied it to my essay. A few days later when I received the grade and feedback I was so happy because I got an A on it. He commented on how much I have grown with my writing in the past year and half he has been my teacher. He said that I should further my writing career because it is something that I have a talent for. Mr. Randall also asked me if it was okay if he used my essay as an example for a future class. It is an amazing feeling when you know that your hard work and dedication has paid off. At the beginning of junior year in his class, I was nervous because I didn’t believe in myself or my writing, but by the end of senior year I was confident. I know that studying literature and writing is something that I really want to focus on in my future elementary school classroom. I am going to use Mr. Randall's teaching skills, and believe in my students and push them to strive for greatness, just like Mr. Randall did for me.

Courtney Beale

1/28/2021 06:44:18 pm

For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been “good” at school. I was always confused by advanced (and sometimes simple) concepts in math. No matter how hard I tried to understand and figure out something as basic as multiplication, I was left frustrated, distraught, and filled with disappointment. I never had the desire to devour books from cover to cover. Obtaining accelerated reader points was like pulling teeth. I was the student that was pulled from class to work with a paraprofessional and other students that had the same challenges as me. I spent countless “ice cream socials” and recess incentives in a silent classroom, reading a book that I had no interest in. I was the student hiding their MCAS testing results because they were plastered with the words “needs improvement.” This negative awareness of my scholastic ability started very early in grade school. Standardized testing became the determiner in whether or not I was deemed a “good” student. This had led me to believe that the progress I made within the classroom didn’t matter because I didn’t make it within the “proficient” bracket. As I made my way to high school, I was lucky enough to have a caring, compassionate, and all-around amazing geometry teacher. Before even learning the material, I went into the class feeling anxious and underprepared because I spent years telling myself “You’ll never be good at math. It doesn’t matter how hard you try.” She taught me that your mindset is everything. If you go into something doubting yourself, then it makes it that much harder to succeed. When you keep an open mind, stay determined, and aren’t afraid to admit when you need help, you’ll be surprised how far you can go. This teacher made me feel valued, important, and competent in her class and other classes following.

John Cronin

1/28/2021 07:10:02 pm

Throughout my college experience there has been only one class I came to dislike thanks to everything going completely online. Once lockdown began I was excited by the prospect of not commuting to Bristol Community College (BCC) everyday of the week. The first week of online work went by slowly as professors attempted to alter the syllabus to make everything work. After the second week all but one of my classes had made the transition to zoom conferences and online homework submissions. The one exception to this was my Geography professor who sent a single email asking us to stand by for further instructions on how to complete the class. Finally after another week of waiting I received an unexpected package from BCC filled with half a semester's worth of homework, quizzes and essay prompts. There was no order or checklist to go follow besides my initial syllabus, so I often found myself doing the work out of order. The worst part of this all was that to submit any of the work I had to physically mail it back to his home address that was provided to me on a paper mixed into the disastrous pile. Even though the rest of that semester was an unenjoyable mess I don't harbor and ill will towards the Professor. The way he went about finishing the class was messy but I know he was just trying his best.

Sara McNaughton

1/29/2021 11:53:10 am

My best classroom experience was my senior year AP environmental class. My teacher for that class encouraged and inspired me to go into education. She did not teach science the traditional way. Instead of giving lectures and notes, she encouraged creative means to learn the material. She had us build our own eco systems out of recycled materials, write pen pal letters to other AP classes, draw diagrams with chalk markers on the desks, etc. Not only was her method of instruction engaging, but her instruction always emphasized the importance of self-care. When students were having bad days, she was the first to ask them how they were doing and what she could do to help. She was aware of the stresses that come with the high school experience and always provided advice, reassurance, and snacks. Likewise, she never gave up on students. For students with severe behavioral problems, she met them with patience and compassion. When she recognized my desire to be a future educator, she brought me along to different classrooms in the district and taught me her best educator tips. Her classroom was a safe place where I learned so many amazing things about the environment. This experience taught me that conventional teaching methods are not always the way to go. What made the classroom great was the fact that she showed that she cared about our well-being as well as our academics. I think that is what I take away most from the experience. As a future educator, I hope to model some of my classroom practices after hers.

Andrew Mortarelli

1/29/2021 12:01:07 pm

My best experience in a classroom came in my freshman year of high school when we were studying Romeo and Juliet. The teacher I had was new, and very energetic. He wanted us to stay engaged with the reading so he had himself playing Romeo. During the part of the story where Friar Laurence marries Romeo and Juliet, one of the assistant principals at my high school came in to check up on the class (with the teacher being in his first year). The teacher paused the class and said "Ms. Beech, is there something I can help you with?" and she responded "Nope, I am just passing through!" and my teacher said "Well you are just in time for the wedding of Romeo and Juliet, why don't you take a copy of the script and join me up here and Friar Laurence will wed us!" and the VP very awkwardly stepped to the front of the class, and my teacher asked the student reading Friar Laurence to come and stand in between them as an officiator. I remember this vividly as it was the most enjoyable moment I experienced in a classroom. My teacher was reading the lines so over-dramatically that nobody in the class could keep a straight face, even the VP couldn't get her lines out because when she would look at my teacher he would be staring back at her like a star crossed lover.

This was my favorite experience because of how he was passionate about the reading and made it entertaining for everyone involved. The enthusiasm he had was great and even caught the Vice Principal off guard and made her enjoy the learning.

Stasia Wing

1/30/2021 01:41:44 pm

I would say my worst experience that I've ever had with a teacher was when I was in 9th grade. It was pretty much the beginning of the school year and sadly one of my best friends at the time was preparing for her mother to pass away due to a sickness. Only her closest friends knew and I happened to be one of them. On the day that her mother had passed we were in school and I was in my english class with one of my other really good friends. In the middle of class we heard the loud speaker go off and say "We ask that all teachers check their emails immediately, thank you." The friend that was with me in the class had told me that she thought it was about our friend's mom passing because she saw our friend get dismissed along with her sisters before our class. While my teacher was checking his email other kids in our class kept on asking him what the email had said. At first he said that he wasn't supposed to share and that it was just something sad. However, he then decided to say that three girls in our school had lost their mother that day. My friend and I began to cry because we were close with our other friends family, but beyond being sad we were angry with our teacher for disclosing our friend's personal business to the class without having consent to do so. There was only one family that had three daughters enrolled at the highschool during that time so it didn't take much for the other students to know who he was talking about. He was super unprofessional in that manner, and also continued to be unprofessional as a teacher as my freshman year went on. Because of his consistent unprofessionalism he was not asked to be a teacher at our school for the following year. He really showed me what being unprofessional in a classroom is like and how it affected the way I viewed my english class as a whole during that time, which is sad considering I love english.

Mercedes Reid

1/31/2021 08:34:57 am

My best classroom experience was in the eigth grade. I had a history teacher named Jonathan Cooper-Wiele and he was the first person to teach me history as it was, no sugar coating and no trying to shield our feelings. When he witnessed how upset we were over the lies and misinformation we'd been taught he encouraged us to fight back, to read more and do more research to challenge any education system that would willingly feed its students lies. His classroom was where I learned the truth about Columbus, slavery, the Holocaust, and more prominent women's roles in American history. He was the first person to show me that Black history and American history are the same thing.

My worst classroom experience happened when one of my college professors, in the middle of class, for seemingly no reason, began to call for sympathy for the police (this was in the middle of the BLM protests over George Floyd and Breonna Taylor) saying that "They are treated too harshly, and they need more funds, not to be defunded. Those calling for the defunding of police need to stop it. *laughs* When they call the police no one will show up because they've been defunded and what will they do then?" When I pushed back to inform him that there was a difference between defunding and abolishing the police he decided to inform me that Black people commit over 50% of the violent crime in this country and we need more police in our neighborhoods. I was the only Black student in his entire class and to this day I regret that I didn't do more to stand up for myself and other Black people.

Vanessa Semeraro

2/1/2021 11:38:20 am

A few college classes left me speechless as to how poorly I felt while taking them. Previously, I was in community college and had two completely different majors as to what I am in now. Nutrition and Business were not hard for me, but finance and accounting, as well as Chemistry and Orgo was the deal breaker. I remember truly caring and putting my all into the work I was doing, as I was convinced they would have been my end all be all majors, and ended up being told I was not smart or good enough which resulted in not being taken seriously and advised to try something else. The professors did not help, they hurt me and led me to believe I wasted my first two years of college.

Olivia Halpin

2/1/2021 05:00:41 pm

One of my best classroom experiences was when I was a seventh grader in math class. Math had never been my strongest subject but my teacher Mrs. Ring made the class enjoyable and math more accessible to me. Mrs. Ring understood the frequent fear middle schoolers have for the subject math and calmed our fears with her clear instructions, encouraging words, and her confidence in our academic capabilities as students. Mrs. Ring would make up songs and dances to help us remember difficult math concepts. She would also have us participate in fun review games before tests that were engaging and reviewed the adequate content...She called the classroom her "Ringdom" and treated all of her students with respect and kindness. Mrs. Ring had a passion for math and it rubbed off on me a little bit, which is shocking considering how much I disliked math at the time! Mrs. Ring tried to reach every single one of her learners by using hands-on learning techniques, visuals, and other means to capture her students attention. The class was enjoyable to be in because she had an optimistic attitude that we were all capable students. This set the tone for students to believe in themselves and be motivated to succeed.

One of the worst classroom experiences I had was my elementary school gym class. The teacher intimidated the children and made first graders do push-ups. She would yell at students for not understanding instead of varying her instruction or using a respectful tone of voice. I always had anxiety attending that class as a child. Unfortunately, the teacher seemed constantly frustrated with all of the students and I think this could often set students up for failure because if feeling inadequate.The negative attitude of the teacher and her lack of belief in her students capabilities made for an unpleasant classroom experience.

Megan Canterbury

2/2/2021 05:06:07 am

I grew up a daughter of immigrants who placed a tremendous amount of pressure on their children’s academics. The American dream is simple – work hard, take advantage of all resources, and succeed. That pressure on young children can become quite a heavy burden, and for me it became too much to bear. I was a straight A student, star athlete, and volunteer for many charities and helpful organizations and was therefore accepted into a prestigious private high school. I struggled with the transition. My peers were naturally incredibly intelligent while I put in hours and hours of work at home to understand the same lessons that seemed to come so naturally to everyone else. I was discouraged and by the middle of my freshman year my grades reflected that. I transitioned from a hopeful, funny, generally happy tween into a grumpy, rebellious, and disheartened teenager who did not prioritize my education.
One teacher took a personal stake in my digression and pulled me aside to talk about what was going on. After a few meetings he felt like more of a friend and confidant than a powerful teacher that I should have my guard up around. Our therapy-like appointments turned into afterschool help with classes once he helped me realize that my anger stemmed from a frustration with schoolwork. He put in countless hours to help me better understand my assignments, teach me valuable organizational skills and ways to approach problems, and he singlehandedly helped me turn back into the happy and motivated student I once had been. My experience with Mr. Swanbeck is one of the main reasons I have decided to become a teacher myself.

Rowan Kelley

2/2/2021 07:49:01 am

It's hard for me to focus down onto one singular class experience that made school worthwhile for me, but there was a specific teacher who made her classroom warm and inviting. When I was in middle school, I often struggled to find motivation to participate, but my 7th grade History teacher, Ms. Bisby, created such a safe space for me to communicate ideas and thoughts. She made it her mission to ensure each student succeeded by having one on ones with students throughout class, giving opportunities for students to work together, and having a positive attitude towards not only teaching, but how well students are learning. She was consistently moving throughout the classroom while teaching to keep us awake, and through her enthusiasm for her own subject, she was able to install a passion in us. She was a younger teacher, and I think her age allowed her to plan lessons better accustomed for each individual student, especially considering the relationship she developed with each of us. Without her, I’m not sure I would’ve ever gained a passion for learning, and I even keep in contact with her through social media now.

2/4/2021 07:51:26 am

Of course the sudden pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to education and due to switching to remote or asynchronous schedules many students, families and educators are struggling but it is the population of students with varying disabilities that are suffering the most. In this article several public school students of varying ages are focused on and interviewed about their online learning situations at the end of the spring 2020 semester, and the stories are heartbreaking. One mother feels hopeless as her son with severe autism is taking backwards steps as his occupational and physical therapy lessons have ceased. Many of these students are not able to work a computer by themselves so parents have to be present for every second of every day of class which causes incredible trouble when these same parents must work as well. One student, in particular, cannot focus on a computer screen and screams if Sesame Street isn’t playing so online classes feel useless to his parents.
Parents are losing the battle. After years and years of routines and the expectation and consistent pattern of school and classroom, this shift to homeschooling and the lack of separation between parents and teacher is too much to handle. Many students just can’t do it, and these untrained parents have stopped trying, missing classes, appointments and other meetings.
These children “are not just falling behind academically but are missing developmental milestones and losing key skills necessary for an independent life,” plus the frustrating experience is damaging to student’s self-esteem. Students with disabilities are showing a trend of becoming angrier and more physically aggressive.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, protects the specialized rights of students with disabilities that require IEPs, or individualized education programs. These regulations work in school environments, but given the obstacles, specifically the lack of physical presence, that remote learning presents, these regulations must be changed to include this new environment.
Parents and teachers alike are at a loss. Teachers are trying to instruct parents on how to do the lessons at home, both educational and independent living lessons but students are still struggling. What is the solution?
I have experience working with the Special Olympics, as well as students with IEPs and I admit, this situation stumps me as well. If it’s not safe to be in a classroom, especially with students who commonly cannot keep masks on and require hands on support and physical contact, then classrooms seem out of the question. But how can our society expect working parents to fill the role of highly trained and professional educators, while also fulfilling their parental roles, and most likely professional jobs outside of the home.
My solution would be small pods, outside of school establishments, funded by the government where one teacher can work with one or two students in a safe environment mimicking that of a classroom. Of course logistically figuring out these safe spaces, and enough professionals to adapt to the small ratios, but if this pandemic continues and the vaccines continue to take a long time to reach the general public then it’s time to get creative.

First Principles: Best and Worst Classroom experiences

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Torda's
(Spring 2021)
ENGL 301

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First Principles: Best and Worst Classroom experiences

Leave a Reply.

Torda's​(Spring 2021) ENGL 301

Archives

Categories

Torda's
(Spring 2021)
ENGL 301