A word from the wise.

Student teaching is SO soon. I decided one of my best courses of action was to talk to a student teacher, who will finish his last 5 days of student teaching this coming week. After speaking with him, I learned several valuable lessons. I asked what his biggest lesson learned was and he told me that you will not know what to expect from students until you are actually in the classroom... And then you still won't know. He appreciated the experience that the field gave him and he felt that classes were great steps for preparation, although you can never be fully prepared for the real classroom until you are in it. 

I have to say, I agree with him. It proves this even in the ncpts 5: Teachers reflect on their teaching. He found, through practice, what worked and what didn't work. He reflected on this every hour to every day of his teaching. 

These past few weeks I have learned to roll with the punches and grow as time allows. For some reason, every college student is bombarded the last month of school. Whether this is their own fault because they've put off everything, or because professors need a few more grades, it happens. And it is felt all across the campus. Even though this widespread panic and stress attacks all of us, this does not mean it is okay to get sloppy with your work because it's drawing near the end of the semester. 

It means finish strong because you're nearing the end. This is a good thing. 

As my friend, Troy Bolton, famous Wildcat basketball player, once told me, "we're all in this together."

Always,
Brittany Kertesz

Teach well.

Did you know that there is a responsibility to teach math? Not only is there a responsibility to teach how to get answers, but there is a conceptual push behind every math problem to see the bigger picture. No longer is math just drill and practice; math is something that can teach and can grow students in their critical thinking skills and in their practices of all other subjects of learning too.

These standards are as follows:



Many of these are self explanatory, and if not, the little bald guy helps act it out in many of these scenarios, so model after him. Through these, students are responsible to demonstrate their thinking and persevere in working hard.

This seems like a weird topic to talk about, but as a teacher leader, we strive to be the best teachers we can be so that our students succeed. And let's be honest, we wouldn't be in this field if it weren't for our students. These students that get on your last nerve when they ask a question that you literally just finished answering or the student that you watch mark the wrong answer on the EOG test when they had just "mastered it" a day ago.

But these students are also the ones that draw pictures of you and them holding hands underneath that same sun and tree that every person has drawn before. They are the ones that you catch looking at you and when you redirect their eyes to their paper, you still see them smiling at their paper because that bond between the two of you is still there, even when being reprimanded. These students that want to tell you all about their day, because they trust you enough to share these minor details in their lives that right now, mean the world to them.

These are our students. We have the responsibility to teach them and teach them well. So, get out there and exhaust those resources, because we often see these children more than their parents do. We are some of the biggest influences in their lives right now, and although we may get frustrated, they are the reason we are still here.

Seriously, I'm exhausted too...
And I'm not even a teacher yet.
You're doing great!

Sincerely,
Brittany Kertesz

Post observation blues?

On Monday, I had the chance to teach a math lesson to my class. I was observed by not one, but two professors and my CE. Let me just say, I was given enough feedback to last me a good bit of reflection practice. I was pleasantly surprised when a lot of my feedback was positive. I don't really know why I was expecting something negative, but knowing that all 3 of these marvelous educators want me to be my very best, I knew I would have an improvement list to last a lifetime.

My lesson was on multiplying by the multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000. Unfortunately, the technology was a little wonky, but I jumped into my lesson as soon as I realized we were losing precious learning time. The students picked up this learning SO quickly. I was very impressed, especially when our tier 3 and EC students got the hang of it! WOW! I knew my students were capable, it was just exciting to watch the learning happen in their brains. At one point in the lesson, one of the girls in my class answered the problem correct and did a little dance of joy in her seat and my heart was so full!

Lately, I have been told horror story, after horror story of the education world... It is discouraging and makes me look into the future with questions and doubt. But when I see dances of joy because LEARNING happened, I know this is good.

Now on the title of my post... Luckily, I don't have the blues from this observation. I have approached my feedback with curious appreciation and a lot of it I can work on and fix easily. For instance, I have trained myself to not say the words "like" and "um" while presenting for fear of someone keeping tally. Unfortunately, I have another filler word that distracts from learning. This terrible word is "okay." Weird, right? One of my observers counted.. And let me just say, it was a big number. I was disappointed because I feel myself getting comfortable with something and then I realize that I too have this strange tick of filling the silence with my noisy mouth.

Upon reflection, I have practiced taking more time to speak, just in daily talking. I practice allowing a little bit of silence to fill my conversations and I am pleased to say I am noticing a change in how I approach speaking. This sounds so silly, but allotting more time to speak and allowing silence makes me more comfortable with the silence of the classroom. I can't wait to try it again in the classroom for a lesson!

Another one of those important acronyms.

Today in class, my classmates and I were charged with the direction to somehow present the NCPTS (North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards). My partner and I worked with standard 3, teachers know the content they teach. During this study, we created a series of memes (a humorous image that is spread rapidly throughout Internet users), to introduce and share about this standard. Here is an example of one of the memes we created:

The man on this meme is known as "the most interesting man in the world," so we figured, educators are pretty impressive, who better to represent us than THE most interesting man? 

This standard that he is representing is standard 3, section d, part 1: 

Teachers incorporate 21st century life skills into their teaching deliberately, strategically, and broadly. These skills include leadership, ethics, accountability, adaptability, personal productivity, personal responsibility, people skills, self-direction, and social responsibility. Teachers help their students understand the relationship between the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and 21st century content, which includes global awareness; financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy; civic literacy; and health awareness.

If you are a teacher, or are training to be a teacher in North Carolina, this link takes you to a shareable Google Drive document that breaks down each of these standards in a know, understand and do format. Everything on this document is what a North Carolina Professional Teacher is responsible for and held accountable to uphold in their classroom at all times. With this document that you adhere to, your classroom will be a place of impactful learning and engaged students. 

Dare to be great, people!

Brittany Kertesz

When you're gone for a week...

Technically, it wasn't even a full week out of the classroom, just 3 days of instruction time. The students noticed, and the material they are learning is so much farther than I thought it would be. The students were thrown off by my not being there one of the days I'm usually there. It's interesting to see the way students react to the smallest things.

After creating plans for a substitute teacher for one of my assignments, I realized how much work it takes to walk someone through an entire day of class. Also, it is a big task to prepare an entire day of lessons. I have learned so much more in preparing a full days worth of classes than I have learned in creating individual lesson plans. Although there are pros and cons to creating individual lesson plans versus creating overwhelmingly huge unit plans, I have learned so much in the way that I think and in the way that they work together by creating the big picture. 


Throughout my education career, I have not seen a lot of the benefits of creating a single lesson plan that doesn't fit into anywhere. Not that we're practicing creating a plan for three weeks of instruction time with our students in student teaching, I'm continuing to see the form and flow of the classroom. Also, we have real life scenarios that we get to work through. Instead of trying to prepare lessons for the "what if" student, we have real students that we know and get to prepare for. 


Also, there are very helpful when creating substitute lesson plans. Although some of them can be cookie-cutter lessons, for the overwhelming majority of them, you can differentiate the lessons to for to your classroom. A substitute teacher can look like a practiced teacher by carrying out your instructions! 

So you need a substitute.

Today was an interesting day. My CE had already notified me that she would not be in the classroom today because she had jury duty. She asked me if I would be willing to close out the day with a mini math lesson and a social studies integrated literacy lesson. I, of course, jumped at this opportunity!

The only problem was I didn't have the material she was wanting me to teach the class.
This was the epitome of flexibility in a classroom.

I showed up about 30 minutes early to study the material, but with the sub trying to talk to me the whole time, it was really hard to focus on the task at hand. I was able to read over everything once and get somewhat of an understanding on what was expected in today's class. Luckily my CE leaves INCREDIBLE notes to follow. I had no question of what I was supposed to do and I felt confident in what she had left for us.

It was a great feeling to have this much practice, even unmentored. I am preparing for a smiliar experience tomorrow (continued jury duty for my CE) and will lead the math lesson at the beginning of the day along with 3 of the guided reading groups. I created a lesson plan for the guided reading groups, but as for the math, it is a little different.

Working through transitions is one of the best experiences I took from today. Directions have to be clearly stated and students have to be redirected as you, the teacher, are trying to prepare which slides are next and what devices should be turned off, on, or connected. The papers should be passed out as whiteboards are being picked up... Whew! It's a lot to take in. But I witnessed it for the first time and I'm proud of myself for completing all required material with plenty of time to spare.

From today, I learned that you have to be prepared for anything as a teacher. Whether this be your duty as an American or any other problem, teachers need to be prepared for situations like these that arise.


Stay inspired,
Brittany Kertesz

There's always one.

Continued adventures at the elementary school... I have been working with a fabulous class. This class has been great to observe and work with because my CE is incredible and my class is a great variety of students. These 4th graders have a range of reading abilities, from the 1st grade to the 10th grade reading level. My teacher has been described to me as a "gentle leader" of any group. She encourages, but not too often. She reprimands, but in a way that is constructive, not belittling.

This amazes me.

There is one student in the class and she does NOT STOP TALKING. I have tried proximity. I have tried calling her name out. I have tried talking to her, but she never quite gets it. And its not that she doesn't understand, she just loves talking. She's actually quite brilliant. She does well in every subject, has an impressive reading level, and she goes to 2 AIG classes. I do not believe it is because she is bored, she just has a lot of wit and sarcasm that she has to keep contained all day. She has been moved 3 times already, but she can genuinely talk to anyone and everyone.

So... what do you do?

After researching a few articles to fix this problem, I actually found a couple that were very interesting ideas. From this article, one teacher said that she had a very talkative student and what helped was when she finally brought in the child's parents to observe their child. After this, there was a huge attitude change. First of all, this is a good tactic because it gets the parents involved as well as straightens out the student's behavior. This was my favorite idea. There are more on the website, so I strongly suggest checking it out!

Good luck out there!
Brittany Kertesz