My student-teacher is now 100% in charge of all the teaching during the day, so lately I spend the majority of my day watching her and writing things down. It's very different from a typical day. of the recent past.
It's hard to not be teaching and learning alongside the students like I usually do. I "miss" them and they miss me. I need to supervise my teacher-candidate but I don't want my presence to negatively influence the lesson; after all, it's natural for the students to come to me with questions, even though SC is the one in charge. So, I tuck myself into a corner, try to be as "invisible" as I can, and I write notes for and about SC.
Before SC was responsible for the full day, I'd hand-write my observations with different coloured Sharpies, but I knew my hand would tire, so this week, I switched to making notes on my laptop in a Google document. I've been averaging about 5 pages a day of notes.
What do I write? Almost anything and everything. I write down the questions she asks. I write down what she does and the conversations between her and the students. I write down what I see the students doing. I write down the conversations the students have with each other. I write down the classroom management techniques she uses and the results. I write a lot. I've asked SC if my copious note-taking bothers her, but she reassured me that it doesn't. She reads over the feedback each evening and I notice that she makes adjustments to her question tactics, or pacing, or whatever I might have observed and wondered about the day prior.
If you can get over the semi-evaluative nature of this process, it's actually great to have an extra pair of eyes to see things you miss and an extra scribe.
I realized that this theme, of the benefits of recording as much as possible as soon as possible, echoed in other ways throughout this week.
In my Kindergarten Additional Qualification course this week, we had Kvitka Holman come in to talk about math in the early years. As part of her session, she asked us to take notes on what we saw some of our classmates doing as they explored the learning invitations they had set out. I will edit this post to include a JPG of the notes I took. There was so much going on and so much to capture that my pencil and paper couldn't keep up!Kvitka pointed out that, if we look closely enough to the play and thought that happens while students interact with a learning invitation, we can see evidence for many of the expectations in the Kindergarten Program guide. She right; I saw so much but I was frantically trying to preserve as much as I could as quickly as I could. My scribbles look like a mess - hopefully I can recall what I meant when I made them. I'm looking forward to Michael Mohammed's session on Pedagogical Documentation next week (especially because I was planning to see him at the STAO conference but that has been cancelled due to concerns regarding the current work situation as well as COVID-19).Merci @kvitka_holman for providing strategies to support math thinking in K. “Math is social. We must not only thinking about how kids listen to math but how they explain and discuss their thinking.— Kenisha Bynoe (@booklamations) March 6, 2020
Language should not be a barrier to math success”. @BedeauGail @YorkUeducation pic.twitter.com/L6MlUitaMm
Recording has become important in my personal life as well. One of my Lenten promises this year is to visit my parents much more regularly. Three times a week, I go to their house. To give myself and my visits a sense of purpose, I decided that I would record all the stories my parents have told about their lives over the years. Why write it down? There are several reasons. I've heard some of these stories so often that I could probably recite them by heart myself, but forcing myself to write them down means that I listen much more attentively. I pay attention closer. I double-check that I'm capturing their ideas in the most accurate way possible. I ask clarification questions, which sometimes leads to details that were previously not mentioned in past retellings. Also, even though I've sworn that I'll remember these stories forever, I won't. My parents won't. Sometimes, they don't. Some of the names are starting to fade away from memory. The tales from long ago are still as clear to them as they were when they happened, but other stories are becoming lost. I don't want to lose those stories like other things that are in danger of disappearing.
This photo, for instance, was taken as my parents explained why they chose to bring certain items in their suitcases with them when they emigrated from Guyana to Canada. My mom is holding a real, stuffed (as in taxidermy) caiman in this picture. My parents brought some very odd things with them, from a cutlass to a caiman, from a turtle shell to a plastic garden gnome. They explained why, and it made for an interesting and enlightening story.
So, to conclude, there are many good reasons why it's important to record as much as you can as soon as your can.
- you won't forget
- you won't be disappointed if you rely on your memory and it fails
- you can pay close attention to what you are capturing and why
- you can share your observations / stories with others easier
- you can notice things that you might overlook in your regular interactions
- you can learn from your recollections and make positive change
- you can ensure you don't unintentionally ignore something vital happening
- you can make people you are recording about feel valued and important
- you can use it as a method of assessment or evaluation for students (or yourself)
Record it while you can, when you can. You never know when you might not have the chance.
Freaking out, here! You have the stories, told by your parents, of why they brought what they brought when they came to Canada? Oh, my gosh! Primary source gold! You are incredible. That is all!
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