Student Involvement

I have found that thanks to all of the required testing and standards, that there is no time for real student involvement, questioning, and problem posing in my school. Teachers don't have the time for student connection (being open to the needs of students) or as Ira Shor would say teachers are not practicing "Unilateral Authority." Students are participating, by answering basic questions when called on, but students do not have the chance to interact with other students, they do not have the chance to question, and they do not have the chance to experiment. I am finding that students don't have the chance to express themselves, and all the classroom activities I have seen, have been totally teacher directed, except for the reading buddies program.

As a reading buddy, I have found that students are getting more time to "show what they know" and this can potentially be a fabulous way to get students involved in problem posing situations (where students are able to question, discuss, and solve problems).

One of the games I played with the students in the first few weeks of the program, was where Students took a dice and rolled a number, the number they rolled corresponded to 1 of 6 words that were on a piece of paper and the students had to say the word that went with their number, make a sentence that included that word, and then rewrite the word on top of the other word. We took turns and kept doing this until one of the words was rolled four times and reached the top. At the very end we all made a sentence with that word. The kids had a lot of fun, and enjoyed this activity.

But as the program has progressed throughout the semester, it has become more and more teacher directed. Each week now, I must spend the first 15 minutes doing a repetitive sound activity (which don't get me wrong, I think it is important to some degree, but before reading buddies, the teacher was just doing the same repetitive activities for 30 minutes with all the students). I have about 10 words that I practice repeating the sounds to (ex. /R/, /A/, /T/) for 15 minutes, then I spend the last 10 minutes doing an activity with the students that gets them involved, but it seems that we just get started and into it, and it's time to go.

Just yesterday, the teacher in my first grade class was very, very frustrated about reading buddies. She told me that the reading buddies program was taking valuable time away from her teaching, and her students were not getting equal opportunity with the her. She said "Children who are below grade level, and are at the lower level of the spectrum are getting small-group time with me, but the children performing at or above grade level are not. Usually the children who perform at or above grade level get one, 30 minute group period with me each week (which is not enough), but for the past two weeks now, I have had to tell very disappointed students that I had to help another group this week, because the literacy coach told me I needed to be spending more time with the lower-level students. It is not fair!”

The teacher also showed me some student exam scores for literacy that she did the first two weeks of the semester, and is now repeating the exact same exams to see how the students are doing two months later. She has completed half of the class (about 12 students), and five students scored significantly lower on the most recent exam given compared to the exam given the first week of class. For example, one child received a 9/10 for "word sounds" on the exam given the first week of class, and just last week the same activity was given to this child and they received a 2/10. The teacher is extremely frustrated, and feels as though she has not been able to be a successful teacher this year, because she is teaching other teachers students and other teachers have her students all the time (no time for teacher-student bonding, and connection).

It is too bad that once something is put into place at this school, every classroom teacher, whether it is successful or not successful in helping the students succeed, must abide by the same rules and do the same activities. Another thing the teacher told me was that she does think the reading buddies program can do good(so do I), but it's not doing good now. She said that last year, when tutors came in and took a small group of students outside the class the kids had more fun, learned more, and in the end were a lot more successful!