College of Education and Human Services

Jennifer Backes,  from South Milwaukee, is majoring in Music Education with an emphasis on Instrumental and General Education. Her inspiration to become a teacher comes from long line of educators and a desire to spread her passion of music to others  Her 18-week placement is broken down by the first 9-weeks at Rosenow Elementary in Fond du Lac, and the second at Merrill and Webster-Stanley Middle Schools in Oshkosh.

I have pretty much been teaching by myself most of the time now.  It has been a really great experience but boy does it sure leave me exhausted at the end of each day!  Since you are constantly busy every second of the day, you don’t have time to think about the fact that you have been standing, talking, and/or singing for sometimes three hours straight. You may not even realize that you hadn’t even gone to the bathroom all day! Your mind becomes focused on what you’re doing and making sure your students are behaving. You are constantly scanning and constantly redirecting since you have around 30 kids in one small classroom. It is a good thing I keep a water bottle on me at all times because there was even a point in which I was losing my voice from singing so much! Now I can understand why my cooperating teacher wears a little microphone so that she doesn’t have to speak louder and wear her voice out.

With Valentine’s Day, conferences, and half-days happening lately the kids have definitely been more worked up than usual.  But I have been handling and redirecting my kids pretty well so it wasn’t too bad.  Plus, I received some cute cards from my kids on Valentine’s Day that made me smile so much I couldn’t be upset with them for very long!  I even got into the Valentine’s Day spirit and wrote a short Valentine’s Day song to teach my kids. They loved it because I included instruments as well. Anytime you can get kids to play instruments, they instantly love anything! Even if it is something as simple as rhythm sticks or shakers, they love it!

Of course it wasn’t all easy. There was a boy with Autism who was having some difficulties this week because his routine was off due to the holiday.  He was more worked up than usual and had a harder time adjusting to all of the new noises of excitement and parties. I felt bad because there was an activity I was doing with his class where I drew names from a bag for students to come up and participate. I drew his name and asked if he would like a turn.  He nodded and quietly came forward. I was using a ribbon tied to a stick in which the students just had to twirl it around to create a pattern for the rest of the class to sing. My boy got a small smile on his face as he twirled it around but then the class laughed – not at him but at the fun design he created. However, he assumed they were laughing at him and so he ran out of the classroom. My cooperating teacher followed him and told me to just continue but I felt so bad. After class I had a short break and instead of planning for my next class that would arrive in a half hour I went to the room where he was calming down and sat next to him. I didn’t say anything but simply picked up the nearest book and began to read to myself.  I wanted him to know, on his own time, that I was there for him and that I appreciated him. We remained in silence like that for probably about 15 minutes but then he finally lifted his hand and patted my arm. He didn’t look at me, and it only lasted for a few seconds, but that gesture alone made me smile and feel so warm. His specialist, who was in the room at her desk, saw this as well and smiled and nodded to me. While it may seem like nothing, that was his way of acknowledging me and knowing that I was there for him, and will always be there for him. Words can’t even describe how moving and powerful it was.

Our presence means the world to our students. To take the time to show them that you care can make such a huge difference. I have an easy time connecting with students who have disabilities due to my job experience with CESA 6 and these students especially need to know that they have people on their side. Many students, and adults for that matter, cast them aside and assume they won’t understand or that they are “beyond hope” but that could not be further from the truth. They are people just like you and me who yearn for love and companionship. They may not be able to vocalize it as clearly as we can but they deserve it as well. They may not be able to express their gratitude as easily as others, but they are thankful. And it may be hard for us to know whether or not what we are teaching reaches their ears, but they do remember. We cannot give up on them just because they have a disability. If we do that then we are simply proving that we are the ones with the disability. Scott Hamilton once said, “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” As teachers we have agreed to try to touch and reach out to every single student so please do not leave anybody behind.  They all need us.

Paul Franzowiak, Menomonee Falls, Wi., is a Secondary Education Major with an emphasis in Mathematics. After tutoring friends in math, he was inspired to become a teacher. He will have a full 18 week placement at Maplewood Middle School in Menasha.  

I’m about a month into my placement at Maplewood and am starting to get settled in. I’ve taken over three of the five hours that I have for my daily schedule. I’m starting to understand the importance of being prepared and organized everyday that I come to class. There was one day where I began teaching a lesson and didn’t have a good example for the students. It caused some confusion amongst the students and a feeling of embarrassment for me. Luckily, my co-operating teacher was able to help me out and got me through the example. This was definitely not one of the best moments I’ve had thus far and learned from this experience.

I have also found myself bringing work home with me on a nightly basis. Whether it is grading homework, planning a lesson, making a test, or entering grades in to the computer, I always have schoolwork with me.

My co-operating teacher was gone for a couple of days I did have the opportunity to teach full-time for a couple days straight this past week. This was a good learning experience for me. I was able to look back on some of the things that I had planned and how they went. I figured out that there are some things I definitely need to work on. Having my co-operating teacher out of the room actually made things a little easier for me. It gave me a chance to relax since I knew that my “supervisor” wasn’t in the room watching what I was doing. It’s been a great couple of weeks so far and couldn’t be happier where I am right now!

Being a student for the past several years and preparing to teach children is the main focal point of college. We sometimes forget that being in a school also allows us to work with veterans of the teaching profession. Being able to work with the staff at Maplewood has been an awesome experience. All of the staff members have been nothing but outstanding in the support that they have been giving me. There are a few staff members in particular that I have developed a very good relationship with. I often look to them for advice, thoughts/ideas, and taken away different perspectives on things. They have all taught me many things that no classroom experience or class at Oshkosh could ever have taught me. I’ve enjoyed going to a variety of “faculty only” meetings and talking with a variety of people in the school. Make sure that when student teaching that you participate in all “get-togethers” that the faculty has. It’s a good way to get to know people in the building you normally don’t get a chance to see very often.

Melissa Walters, from Milwaukee, is graduating with a dual major in special education and general education for first through eighth grade. She has had a life long dream of becoming a teacher. Her 18-week session is broken into two 9-week programs. Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary  for the first 9-weeks, and Bethune Academy for the second both in the Milwaukee Public School System.

During my first week of my placement, I’ve been given a wide variety of student teaching experiences. In working with the 21 students on our case load in math, writing and language, I get to interact with a variety of students from third through fifth grade.
Each of these experiences provide me with different insights in teaching. Throughout this blog, I’ll share the situations I encounter and how it made me a better learner, teacher and person. Many of the students, not only in my classes but throughout the whole school, struggle with reading. The insight gained from working with some of my students who aren’t able to read words like two, look, where, yellow, or on, is that after around second grade, students are no longer learning to read. They being reading to learn. They have to have the base skills of reading and comprehension to learn anything else in the curriculum. These students struggle so much to sound out the words that they can’t read, comprehend and respond. For students at this ability level, their classwork and assignments need to be modified to have less reading to ensure that for math, you’re testing their ability in math rather than their ability to read.
My second most influential moment from this first week has nothing to do with academics in the classroom. While interacting with students in such a low income area, you heard about hardships that you would have never imagined one young person having to overcome. After everything they have to go through, they have to come to school, clear their minds and learn seemingly pointless information. This led me to the realization that as a teacher, you need to realize when the student is more important than the information. When a student is ready to fight you after every word or hasn’t said a word all morning, it could be more important to be there for the student as a person rather than as a student.

As I reflect on my first week, learning the area, connecting with students and overcoming my fears, I keep words of one of my favorite UW-O teachers in mind…
“As a teacher, you don’t have to like your students but you do have to love them.”

Jennifer Backes, from South Milwaukee, is majoring in Music Education with an emphasis on Instrumental and General Education. Her inspiration to become a teacher comes from long line of educators and a desire to spread her passion of music to others  Her 18-week placement is broken down by the first 9-weeks at Rosenow Elementary in Fond du Lac, and the second at Merrill and Webster-Stanley Middle Schools in Oshkosh.

Words cannot even begin to explain how much fun I have been having at my first student teaching placement!  My cooperating teacher is fantastic and really inspiring!  I am learning so much from her and love everything that she does!  All of the other teachers have also been very nice and welcoming as well.  But the kids, oh how I love them!

As the music teacher we receive every student within the school.  So instead of having to learn about 30 names we have to learn around 400.  We have 16 different classes in order to see every student.  During my first week I wrote and sang a song of introduction to each class so they knew a little bit about my family and me.  I coordinated my song with pictures that I had on a Prezi as well and the kids loved seeing what my family members looked like.  They were as quiet as mice while I was singing and then erupted with questions afterwards.

They are all so adorable! They will hug you, tell you how beautiful you are, and tell you they love you, and even make you a flower from a Kleenex that you really really hope hadn’t been used.  I can’t help but smile every time I go into the school!  But it’s not even that, it’s just being there in general and sharing my passion for music.  Seeing them sing loud and proud or even just seeing them sway back and forth to music brings a huge smile to my face.  And I love walking down the hallway and having them shout, “Miss Backes!” after me.  This is certainly what it is like to be doing something you love!  Even the ridiculously early mornings can’t bring my spirits down!!

The fourth and fifth graders are putting on Pirates: The Musical for their concert in March.  So we auditioned kids for the various roles and now have been working with them on speaking/memorizing their parts.  The third graders are singing a selection of Pirate themed music for the concert so I chose the songs and have been teaching them to the classes.  I’ll be leading all of the grades in their greeting songs at the beginning of every class.  The younger grades (kindergarten through second grade) had their concert in December so it’s really nice because we have been able to do whatever we want with these classes.  We teach a variety of songs, do a bunch of music activities, and just have fun exploring different options with them!

Within my second week of teaching the kids have now gotten used to me being around and I have learned many things that I was never even exposed to in any of my classes throughout college.  Being a music education major, you don’t really receive much insight on teaching since all of the education classes are centered on the main subject areas.  The music methods courses are definitely beneficial and I have implemented much from those, but there are some experiences that you just never even think about until it happens.

I have a handful of students with varying levels of hearing loss.  Many of them have cochlear implants use FM transmitters them hear.  This is little microphone that we clip to ourselves so that our sound travels directly into their ear.  With so many noises happening around them it is hard for these students to decipher and pick out certain sounds.  So this FM transmitter allows the specific sound on the other end of the microphone to travel directly to them.  I never imagined having this many students with hearing loss.  There is one student who is even completely deaf and no FM transmitter would be able to help her case.  She, as do a few others, have an actual sign language interpreter.  I have been working alongside their interpreters to determine placement within the classroom (where the interpreter should stand depending on what I’m teaching/using that day) and also communication with the students.  It has really made me realize how truly sad it must be to not hear the sounds of the world around us.  We take it for granted so often that we don’t know what it must be like to simply live in a silent and/or muffle and distorted world.  Because of this, I have adapted my lessons to better include the hearing impaired by thinking about sound waves and vibrations.  I brought my violin in to work on vocal exploration and I had the hearing impaired feel the vibrations of my instrument as I played.  Their interpreters also used their hands to show the direction of the pitches I played.  It has been an incredibly eye opening experience that I never really thought of before.

I also have quite a bit of students with learning disabilities and/or emotional disabilities.  Now this is something we certainly do not get enough of within our education courses.  I am so thankful to have my job through CESA 6 where I work one-on-one with children with these disabilities because I would definitely be at a loss with what to do.  From my experiences, I have been able to determine when these particular students begin to escalate and can generally bring them back down before something happens.  However if I did not have this training, then I would not have been able to recognize these signs to diffuse them.

Most teaching and the skills you acquire come with experience.  You can take all of the classes in the world and still not know what to do.  Experience is key.  You have to make both mistakes and successes in order to know what works and doesn’t work.  This not only applies to the above situations but also to management in general.  Since I have been teaching quite a bit more this past week, some of the students have been testing me.  Because I’m the new teacher they expect me to either be more lenient or feel uncomfortable with discipline.  So when two were acting out and distracting my class, they were stunned when I called them out so quickly. Naturally, they were not happy with me during the rest of the class but they remained on task and did as I instructed.  This was a good experience for me to go through because it also allowed the rest of the class to realize that I wasn’t going to be a pushover.  While I am new and younger than their other teachers, I still expect them to follow the same rules that every other teacher expects of them.  They can be as upset with me as they want, but eventually they will understand and respect me for it.

Despite the misbehavior that you will always run into as a teacher, at the end of the day I love it.  I love seeing my students enjoying the music I teach them, enjoy the activities I create, and even tackle me with hugs upon seeing me.  I’m their role model and I certainly intend to be a good one.