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ENTERED
California State University, Fullerton
11-27-2010
Student Name: Gonzalez Jr, Salvador Venegas
Student Number: 894662873
DATE PRINTED: 01/24/2011 CalStateTEACH
FULLERTON REGION

Fieldwork Summary for Module 1: Planning for Classroom Management

For the first time in my professional career, I was the outsider; a newcomer to the
scene. It was not clear what would be expected of me. I was unsure of the social rules that would
silently govern the classroom interaction. I would rely on the generosity of the third graders and
their classroom teacher, Ms. “M” to draw me in. The new role would require me to become a
teacher-student and the students to participate as teachers. The process of this classroom setting
would be a challenge to what can be termed the “vertical pattern” of classroom power for the
outsider looking in. My [field work] experiences in the classroom would require all participants to
teach one another: here student and teacher create the learning.
Despite the earning curve, I very much enjoy my observations and participation in the field .
In the third grade classroom I have relied on rapport with the students that has blossomed into
trust and mutual respect in every context in which I have worked. My experiences in the first two
months in this new position [field work observer] forced me to question and reflect on all this
experience. It was difficult to develop rapport and trust. I was not the center of the classroom. I
could not assume that students would look to me to interpret their questions and needs. Often it
seemed as if conversations of real interest were taking place in a language in which I was unable
to participate. Trust evolved differently. As mutual respect and trust among the students began to
develop, and as a teacher in training I began to communicate and locate our shared interests, a
rapport developed that was more substantial and entirely mutual.

“JAY”
The teacher greeted “J” as he entered the classroom. It was my first day of student teaching
in Ms. M's class and, although my placement was in a school with a high Latino enrollment, I
immediately began to notice that keeping students “on task” - coupled with with managing
movement and noise – eclipsed eclipsed the challenges that one might expect to encounter
among English-language learners.
“He's the Energizer Bunny,” Ms. “M” chuckled as shared with me the challenges she
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encounters (almost daily) in regards to delivering quality instruction to larger than normal class-
sizes, while overcoming the barriers associated with English-language learners, various learning
disorders and learning disorders, and, of course, being able to make a difference in the lives of
those “live wires,” such as J.
-My co-operating teacher allowed me to work with J and implement some of the strategies and
methods I am currently learning within the first modularize series of the CalStateTEACH curricula
since she did not know “what else to do with him.” Consequently, I was starting t planned special
individualized math and reading instruction for J. Although he J continued to struggle, I did notice
that the one-on-one attention was having a (gradual) positive effect. Lessons for J incorporated
what I had learned in both special education and bilingual education courses. Pablo’s reading
skills began to improve.
Growing up in a world dominated by the Internet; “J” - born after the introduction of the
microcomputer – is energetic, adventurous, easily bored and seeks constant variety and
stimulation. When I asked “J” and a few of his his peers, “what's the hardest thing about being a
student today?”
The students had the same answer: “Having to sit through a class without being able to go
outside [recess] or go on online [computer]” When I shared my findings with Ms. M, the classroom
teacher, she replied, “wow, I would have answered Algebra.”
In terms of learning style it appears J is far more comfortable using a keyboard than writing
in a notebook and happier reading from a computer screen than from paper he can hold. In a few
more years, he will be in constant connection with friends and family at any time and from any
place – which will be (if not already) of utmost important to him. And as a member of the emerging
generation, J accelerates his opportunities for entertainment, learning, and working by
multitasking with several types of media, projects, and tasks at one time. His generation is instant
messaging while listening to their iPod and surfing the web. Research also suggests that the “Net
Generation” will “almost always be doing some other online activity while they are instant
messaging. In another study, the Steelcase Workplace Survey, the Net Generation was found to be
more adept at multitasking on the job than other generations. The findings suggest they were less
likely to be distracted by noise, more capable of working in a variety of contexts and more likely to
work while traveling than other generational workers (Pletka, 2007.)
“J” approaches learning as a “plug-and-play” experience. He uses interactive games for
enjoyment, challenge, and learning. Viewing interactivity as a key component of technology-based
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learning activity, he expects those types of activities in the classroom. J will simply plunge in and
learn through experimentation and active participation. Instead of reading an entire chapter in a
text, he reveals, he may detour to track an idea of specific information of interest and never return
to the staring point. He goes on to tell me he wants lessons and other fact-to-face teaching
supplemented with material and activities online. He also wants more learning in “realistic”
contexts as well as simulated environments or and relevant lesson plans.
Ms. “M” describes “J” as a live wire or the Energizer bunny which seems to capture the core
systems of his medically diagnosed ADHD: inattention and/or impulsive and hyperactivity. They
also help us imagine what it must be like to have ADHD. Ms. “M” and I foster empathy and a
sincere desire to help. Still, in the day-to-day grind of teaching, when problems emerge,
sometimes our best intentions and sensitivities are tested. Fidgety, loud, disorganized, disruptive,
hurried, careless, and off-task behavior coupled with messy, incomplete or missing work are tough
challenges in the classroom, even on a good day. What is on-task performance? (a) Doing what
you are supposed to be doing; (b) When you are supposed to be doing it; and © In the way you are
supposed to be doing it. The “what” or “it” can be following a rule, working on a task,using a social
skill, etc. Despite his learning challenges, J seems to know what he is supposed to be doing, but
at the point of performance he loses traction and doesn't do what he knows. Easily distracted,
hating to wait, restlessness, losing materials, or missing pieces of the whole interfere with even
best intentions of a dedicated teacher to do to do what is expected and to do it well.
During a lesson Ms. M was delivering, J calls out in class. She responds by saying “I didn't
see your hand raised. Why are you galling out? Please wait” to which he replies, “I can't. If I wait.
I'll forget.” “Okay, J” she says. “This time you can tell us, but next time you have to raise your
hand. What would you like to day?” But, by the time he is finished speaking J has already
forgotten what was so urgent in the first place.
On the surface, one might think he was just trying to disrupt the class when in reality, J
couldn't remember what was on his mind because at the point of performance, his train of thought
was disrupted. By allowing J to call out “just this one time,” his blurting behavior has been
reinforced by the teacher's kindness and best intentions, at the expense of effectively managing
the behavior.
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CLASSROOM AND CURRICULUM

Infants and young children are entirely given over to their physical surroundings; they
absorb the world primarily through their senses and respond in the most active mode of knowing:
imitation. Imitation is the power to identify oneself with one's immediate environment through
one's active will. Everything – anger, love, joy, hate, intelligence, stupidity – speaks to the infant
through the tone of voice, the physical touch, bodily gesture, light, darkness, color, harmony, and
disharmony. These influences are absorbed by the still malleable physical organism and affect the
body for a lifetime. Those concerned with the young child –parents, teachers and administrators–
have a responsibility to create an environment that is worthy of the child's unquestioning imitation.
The environment should offer the child plenty of opportunity for meaningful and for creative 'play.'
This supports the child in the central activity of these early years: the development of the physical
organism. Drawing the child's energies away from this fundamental task to meet premature
intellectual demands robs the child of the health and vitality he or she will need later in life. In the
end, it weakens the very powers of judgment and practical intelligence the teacher wants to
encourage. In pre-school to kindergarten children play at cooking, they dress up and become
mothers and fathers, kings and queens; they sing, paint, and color. Through songs and poems they
learn to enjoy language; they make soup, model beeswax, and build houses of boxes, sheets, and
boards. To become fully engaged in such work is the child's best preparation for life. It builds
powers of concentration, interests and a lifelong love of learning. When children are ready to leave
kindergarten and enter first grade, they are eager to explore the world of experience for the second
time. Before, they identified with it and imitated it. Now, at a more conscious level, they are ready
to know it again; by means of the imagination – that extraordinary power of human cognition –
that allows us to “see” a picture, “hear” a story, and “divine” meanings within appearances. In the
third grade classroom, the educator's task is to transform all that the child needs to know about
the world into language of the imagination, a language that is as accurate and as responsible to
reality as intellectual analysis is in the adult. The wealth of an earlier, less intellectual age- folk
tales, legends, and mythologies, which speak through in parables and pictures – becomes the
teacher's inexhaustible treasure house. When seen through the lens of the imagination, nature,
the world of numbers, mathematics, geometrical form, and the practical work of the world are food
and drink to the soul of the child. The four arithmetical operations can, for instance, be introduced
as characters in a drama to be acted out with temperamental gusto by first graders. Whatever
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speaks to the imagination and is truly felt stirs and activities the feelings and is remember and
learned. The elementary years are tie time for education the “feeling experience.” How is the
developmental theory of childhood reflected in California public classrooms? The school day
beings with a long, uninterrupted lesson. One subject is the focus; the class deals with it in depth
each morning, or several weeks at a time. This long main lesson – which may well run for two
hours – allows the teacher to develop a wide variety of activities around the subject at hand.
Rhythmic activities get the circulation doing and bring children together as a group; they recite
poems connected with the main lesson, practice tongue twisters to limber-up speech, and work
with concentration exercises using body movements. After the day's lesson, which includes a
review of earlier learning, students record what they learned in their “learning logs” (journals).
Following recesses, the teacher presents shorter “run through” lessons with a strongly recitation
character. Afternoons are devoted to lessons in which the whole child is active: artistically guided
movement to music and speech, handwork, or PE, for example. Thus the day has a rhythm that
helps overcome fatigue and enhances balance learning. For the most part, the multiple subjects
(elementary) school teacher lead the main lesson at the beginning of each day. Other teachers
may handle special subjects, but the class teachers provide the continuity and consistency. The
class teacher and the children get to know each other very well, and it is the teacher who becomes
the school's closest link with the parents of that class. When problems arise, the strong
child/teacher/parent bond helps all involved work things through instead of ignoring the behavior
and handing the problem on to someone else. This experience of class community is both
challenging and deeply rewarding for the teacher. Having to prepare new subject matter as their
students get older from year to year is a guarantee against going stale. Children begin to see that a
human being can strive for a unity of knowledge and experience. When children reach high school
age, the pupil-teacher relationship changes and specialist teachers, for the most part, replace the
class teacher. The curriculum at this unified school district can be seen as an ascending spiral: the
long lessons that being each day, the concentrated blocks of study that focus on one subject for
several weeks. As students mature, they engage themselves at new levels of experience with each
subject. It is as though each year they come to a window on the ascending spiral that looks out
into the world through the lens of a particular subject. Through the main-lesson spiral curriculum,
the teacher lays the ground for a gradual vertical integration that deepens and widens each
subject experience and, at the same time, keeps moving with the other aspects of knowledge.