Student Teaching in Sayulita, Mexico: Week 3 at CVIS—Socratic Seminars, Professional Development, and More!

AROUND SCHOOL

Lice is still in full force at CVIS. One of my fifth graders talked about his lice in great detail with the class during our morning meeting. Most students avoid talking about lice, but not him! He went on and on about how his mom combed his hair for hours the night before, trying to find and remove all of the lice. He went on to explain that some of his lice laid eggs, which stuck to his head when his mom tried to pull them out! All of us were scratching our heads thinking we might have lice by the time he was done talking…

One of my 6^th graders has also taken it upon himself to give me updates about scorpion sitings ever since I found one in my house. Last week his mom, one of the wonderful cafeteria ladies, was bit by a scorpion before coming to school. If I was her I would have gone straight to the hospital to get whatever medicine is needed to counteract the venom. But, apparently she has been bit before and knows how to handle it—with liquor! Locals say you can treat the venom with liquor, both internally and externally. It must work because she was fine in the days following her bite!

I spy an iguana by the playground!

They climb up trees and oftentimes

fall asleep and fall. They also poop

from the tree, so you want to avoid

standing underneath them!

MY FIRST SOCRATIC SEMINAR IN JOEL’S CLASS

My time in the classroom is full of excitement and new experiences. I am slowly but surely taking on more and more responsibility in both of the classrooms I am in. Joel is really open to all of my ideas and is really great about letting me try them out. This week I continued to work on the poem “La higuera” with the 5^th graders in Spanish class. The poem is about the inner beauty of a fig tree. When the poem was introduced last week I could tell some students were having difficulty comprehending the poem, especially the international students that have recently begun learning Spanish as a second language. To get students to think more about the meaning of the poem Joel and I had them create soundscapes in small groups. It was really cool to watch their presentations. I could tell that having to create actions and sounds to accompany the poem helped a lot of students become more engaged with the poem and understand it better in general. This soundscaping asks students to go beyond just reading the words by asking them to represent the words in some form. As a teacher it reinforced in me the importance of using movement and creativity as learning tools in the classroom.

Although the soundscapes helped students understand the poem better, I also wanted to design an activity that got them to dig deeper and look at the poem with an analytical lens. I decided to hold a Socratic Seminar, which is a whole-class discussion that can be used to analyze texts of many kinds. I participated in Socratic Seminars as a student in high school and learned more about them from a teacher’s perspective last semester in my Social Studies methods course. Socratic Seminars utilize three types of questions: opening, core and closing. The result is a conversation in which everybody can participate and analyze the text and hand and discuss the implications and applications it has on their own lives.

Joel and I put our own twist on the Socratic Seminar and made it a place-based learning experience. Our initial plan was to hold the seminar underneath an actual fig tree. There happened to be one right behind the school. However, it was on somebody’s private property so we took a mini walk around town in order to get a good view of it. The walk was stressful with 15 students. The entire time I was worried one of them was going to wander into the street and get hit by a car, but they are good kids and (for the most part) followed instructions well. About halfway through our walk we had to cross a bridge over a small stream. I wasn’t aware of the questionable state of the bridge until we were actually crossing it. It was pretty rusty, and did not seem stable at all. Joel and most of the students crossed it quickly without any problems or awareness of its questionable nature. It wasn’t until one of my students expressed her own uncertainty about the bridge that I realized we probably should have taken a different route. The two of us were already halfway across the bridge though, and the rest of the class was waiting for us, giggling because we were taking our sweet time. We braved the bridge hand in hand, holding onto the railway and taking slow but steady steps. The worst part was that once we reached what we thought would be a magnificent view of the fig tree we found that it was blocked by some other tree! We ended up taking a different route back to school (thank God!) and the owner of the fig tree allowed us into his yard to take a look at it. All of the students drew their own interpretations of the fig tree and thought of a word to describe it. Once we got back to the classroom, we kicked off the Socratic Seminar by sharing our drawings and descriptions with the whole group.

I am so happy we were able to

visit an actual fig tree while studying

the poem "La Higuera."

Overall, the Socratic Seminar was successful—especially for a first attempt. Because it was my students first time participating in a Socratic Seminar we went over the rules, which include guidelines such as: no raising your hand, always be courteous, and so on. Even though we talked about the rules and basic procedure for the seminar, I think it is going to take a few tries for students to get the hang of it. Socratic Seminars are supposed to be student-directed, with the teacher speaking minimally. I felt like I ended up talking much more than I wanted to because my students are not accustomed to activities in which they have the freedom to ask and answer questions to the whole group. I kept prompting them with questions, which is normal in a Socratic Seminar, but the responses didn’t last as long as I hoped and didn’t elicit the kind of conversation I was hoping it would spark. In the future I might try splitting the class into smaller groups, because I think some students felt overwhelmed trying to negotiate a conversation with the entire class. Despite some of the problems with participation, I was really impressed with the discussion my students had about the poem. They did a wonderful job analyzing the poem’s figurative language, messages, and how the poem applied to their own lives. To close the discussion they came up with some great alternative titles, which reflected the message of the poem. Some of the alternative titles they came up with include:

“La gran higuera”—The Great Fig Tree

“Belleza interior”—Internal Beauty

“Tu única belleza”—Your Unique Beauty/Your Only Beauty

UPDATE ON MY ROLE IN JEN’S CLASS

I am also doing a lot of teaching in Jen’s classroom. I am in charge of this bimester’s 6^th grade Science unit. Each student is studying a biome of the world and looking particularly at how organisms interact with one another and their environment in order to survive. This week students learned about energy transfer and different ecological roles within an ecosystem, and then used that knowledge to create food webs for their biomes of study. They are doing a fantastic job and I can’t wait to see their final projects at the end of the unit. I wanted students have freedom in choosing how to present their research because I value providing students with freedom and choices in the classroom because I think it makes learning more interesting, engaging, and relevant by giving them input in how they choose to express themselves and be assessed, not to mention an outlet for creativity. Some students have expressed an interest in creating 3D models, while others are writing formal reports with hand-drawn illustrations—whatever the result I can’t wait to see!

Jen intends to gradually give me responsibility in her classroom. So, she asked me to pick another subject or activity to teach to the 5^th graders this week. I decided to teach a math lesson, since I already have a math group when the math volunteer, Jeffrey, comes in to teach lessons on Tuesdays and Fridays. The 5^th graders have started working on some pre-algebraic concepts, but many of them still have issues with their math facts. One of Jen’s goals for this bimester is to have students practice their math facts and have an understanding of some of the mathematical language and vocabulary, such as “factors,” “multiples” and “product.” I decided to introduce these vocabulary words using the math game “Juniper Green.” Juniper Green is a math game that helps students practice their math facts by having them find factors and multiples of given numbers. The students had a lot of fun with the game. I think this is because the competitive aspect made the activity feel less like schoolwork. I am also glad to have a go-to-game students can play when they finish their work, because there is a huge range of students’ mathematical backgrounds and this will ensure that they always have something productive and educational to work on.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The last Friday of every month in Mexican schools is dedicated to professional development. So this past Friday there were no classes for students. The teachers still had to attend school, but the day was filled with workshops instead of classes. Although part of me wishes I could have slept in on Friday, being at the Professional Development made me feel more connected to the school and staff. Some of the topics we covered the school’s approach towards language acquisition, the WIDA test we will be administering to ESL students next week for the first time in the school’s history, the new teacher evaluation system, and special activities and events that are happening at CVIS later this year.

América, the 4^th grade teacher, is celebrating her birthday this weekend. Cynhia, Erin, Alyssa and I thought it would be nice to bring a cake for her birthday to share with all of the staff on the Professional Development. However, as soon as we got to school and were trying to find room in the fridge for our cake, Kathy informed us that the school buys a cake in honor of all of the month’s birthdays on the Professional Development day. So our nice gesture ended up being a bit strange because: A) the school ordered a cake also, and B) América’s birthday technically isn’t until February so our cake was a month early! I think she really appreciated the gesture, but it ended up being a little strange and out of place. I guess we’re still just the new kids on the block…

We bought an entire cake from this stand for only

$10 USD! The lady who made it bakes dozens

of cakes everyday, all year long!

América posing with her birthday cake!

América's cake paired with the school-sponsored

birthday cake. Whoops!

INTRODUCING THE CVIS BIRTHDAY WALL

Our birthday fever may have stemmed from one of our “extra responsibilities” around the school. Because CVIS is so small everybody has many responsibilities to keep the school up and running. So, during our first week Kathy sat the four of us down and gave us a list of things we can do to help out around the school while we are here. One thing we volunteered to do was create a “Birthday Wall” to display each month’s birthdays. This week we decided to get this project underway. On Wednesday while the kids were at their specials classes in the afternoon we painted a wall outside of La Secundaria. We might have killed a few plants in the process and created a few paint stains around the school but I think our wall turned out great. When it was unveiled at school yesterday the kids were ecstatic. I watched as one little girl proudly pointed her name out to her mom, and could tell that the wall had the effect Kathy was hoping for: to make the students at CVIS feel honored and special.