Assignment 1: Imagined Classroom

I. Five Images

1. 

A clean look is important both to me and for my students, psychologically. I really dislike the kinds of decorations most teachers feel the need to put up in their classrooms, and they are often distracting. I selected this image not only for the white theme and orderly arrangement, however, but also for greenery, which is important in making an otherwise austere space feel homier without distracting. 

(See footnotes for sources)

2.

This is a  second example of a classroom in which the desks are arranged in straight lines that only face the white board / projector area. The desks are not placed into small tables of two or three, but are isolated, and there is also space that I could (and will) at any point during the lesson walk to stand immediately next to any desk in the classroom. Any accessory areas, such as the bookshelves, reading nook, organizational cabinets, and teachers desk discussed below would ideally only be to the rear of all of the desks. Also note how much more greenery there is in this space! Even better. I also like that one entire wall is windows, which I would like in my classroom. Natural light is so much more relaxing and conducive to learning than artificial cave lighting.

 3.
As a future history teacher, books are important to have in my classroom (historical fiction, and creative non-fiction histories, I mean). What's more, visual artifacts are a fascinating way to get a glimpse into other cultures and times. I love to travel and collect interesting relics from my journeys, and I look forward to having bookshelves in the back of the classroom where they won't distract where I can mix books and interesting cultural pieces to catch my students' interests.

4.

One reason I so  dislike classroom decoration is because it is so unattractive  I have studied interior design, and one important thing about design is that attractively designed spaces uplift the minds and hearts of those who occupy them. Obviously the government can't lavish funds on spaces occupied by children and teenagers in order to make them impeccably designed, but I will have my hand in making my classroom as attractively designed as possible. I prefer a midcentury modern look for classroom ideas due to its clean lines and balance of formal and comfortable evocations.  Next to the bookshelves in the back of the classroom I would like to have a small reading nook with hopefully two chairs similar to the one shown above, with a standing invitation for students to spend breaks or lunch periods reading there if they'd like.

5.

One pet peeve I have in classrooms is when the organizational elements don't appear... organized. Now, I recognize that trying to collect work from hundreds of teenagers is not likely to result in a constantly pristine space. But when you have experience organizing, you learn the kinds of things that ought to be kept out of sight and those that should be kept easily accessible in order to encourage putting things away where they belong or hiding messy areas. I selected this image because of how orderly it is (though I don't like the cheesy posters or background wallpaper), as well as because I would like the false wood, probably vinyl cabinetry here in my classroom if I got to choose because it is both orderly, but paired with a light color scheme in the walls, wouldn't be stifling. If the walls were a darker color, however, I'd prefer lighter cabinets. There just has to be a balance .

II. Classroom Surrounding

     I think most people with an understanding of design would understand why people naturally gravitate to more modern building designs as appealing, and I certainly would prefer to work in a school built recently because psychological design considerations are taken into account. The room would have a light, preferably creme or white color scheme on the ceiling and walls, with darker flooring, preferably industrial style carpet to reduce the cool feeling. I would prefer darker wood styles if cabinetry is vinyl wood. Otherwise plain white cabinets are ideal. A lot of plants along the windows, a clearly defined teacher's desk area within view of the door, a reading nook right nearby (the chairs of which would double as an area for visitors, students, parents, etc. to sit when I'm at my desk). Bookshelves along the back walls with books about history that would actually be more interesting to them. A projector screen at the front of the classroom as well as whiteboards, not blackboards, preferably the kind that slide around and can cover certain portions of the board if I'd like. The projector will be used almost every single lesson for multimedia, and the whiteboard will be the location of the day's lesson plans, starter activities, and assignment due dates.

III. Students
     
     Since I plan to teach in Houston, I am excited about having a wide variety of students in my classroom! I have only ever been in fairly homogeneous classrooms of either all caucasian Mormons (who may nevertheless differ in other ways) or Chinese children. I hope my classrooms in the future will have black, Latino, Middle Eastern, Indian, white, staunch republican, Communist, atheist, evangelical Christian, Muslim, poor, rich, straight, trans, and every other kind of student one might find in a very diverse big city school! It will add such richness! There will be students with behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, ADHD, Autism. They'll like sports and drama and doodling and reading fantasy and spending time with their friends or not even know what they like. But most of all I imagine how we'll all be safe. Every single one of us will need to talk sometimes, and we'll all take time to listen and learn from each other. During lessons they'll be contemplating, analyzing, disagreeing, crying, laughing, learning! I want to engage them in some wonderful way at every point of every lesson.

IV. Policies
     Classroom rules will be simple. I will establish a consistent class routine from the first day of class: opener activity, class discussion, lecture, multimedia examples, group discussion, personal reflection. Students will come into the classroom and are expected to quietly work on their opener activity. Then when I start the class I can start with an explosion of energy, but energy that is focused on me and on learning, energy I am in control of. One student at a time may use the hall pass, without restrictions on its use unless I notice abuse. I will treat the students like young adults, giving them both a lot of freedom, but correspondingly high expectations for swift and complete compliance when I give instructions. The main rule in the classroom is safety-- physical, emotional, mental safety. No bullying of any kind will be tolerated. Food is allowed. Discipline will be administered privately unless the problem is urgent. Understanding and a positive relationship between me and rule breakers and parents / administration will hopefully facilitate a feeling of working together towards mutual goals. Homework will generally only consist of reading the historical textbook, with one book report, a couple of short analyses about primary sources of various kinds, and a large project to show how their empathy for the world has changed through learning history.

V. Lessons

     Lessons will focus a lot on essential questions (questions without definite answers that challenge our perceptions of the world and seem controversial or confusing). Students will be exposed to historical facts once through their textbook reading, which functions as a preview. They'll have to identify some of those facts and predict big themes they signal with a reading write up due every day. Then they'll be re-exposed to those facts within the context of our unit and year-long themes as we discuss in class and as I lecture. Finally, at the end of class periods they'll do small assessments that force them to recall those facts themselves and practice the skills of analysis and out-of-the-box thinking we work on all year. We'll learn world history together, diving into other places, cultures, and ways of looking at ourselves and the world and what we have always believed is true, is history. I chose world history because deep moral questions and personal growth are so easily facilitated by the study of success and failure through time. I will teach it as a contemplative, discussion-based field. Each lesson the students should gain knowledge of specific historical facts, improve skills of empathetic understanding and using evidence to support claims, and feel changed as people to be better in some way. 

VI. Teacher Time 

     During the lesson I'll be sitting up at the front on one of those taller chairs (it has to have a back), but I'll certainly be jumping down to walk around the classroom to stand right next to students, right things excitedly on the board, or stand in the back so as not to block the view of various media that will be shown on the projector! I'll be watching not just the bright or outspoken kids, but the shy ones to know when the right time to get them involved is, the unruly ones to understand how to help them behave better (identify antecedents of poor behavior), the struggling ones to note when they start to get confused. I'll be trying to calm the students who want to talk every time, trying to excite the students who are too cool for school, and, of course, mentally assessing my own teaching skills in order to improve. Was that a really good question? Did I give them enough time to think just then? How can I explain this topic better next time? Et cetera.

VII. Student Time

     During the lesson, I want my students wide-eyed as they learn astonishing, terrible, wonderful, unbelievably exciting things. I want them teary-eyed as they learn about how real people have and do live and realize what they have in their lives. I want their eyes blazing as they experience righteous anger at injustice and shallow indignation as their untried opinions are challenged. I want them with brows furrowed over reflective eyes as they consider a view of the truth they'd never have thought of before or as they struggle to understand what could possibly be significant about the source in front of them. I want them bright-eyed as they shrewdly assess propaganda, historical photographs, modern documentaries, and other engaging sources. And I sometimes I want to see them tired-eyed after I know I've pushed them hard at writing or proving their improved skills on writing and test days. During the lesson they're listening, speaking, writing, reading, thinking, feeling, smelling, tasting, singing, dancing, growing, loving, learning.

VIII. Assessment

     Students will show they've learned facts through some multiple choice questions on some tests, probably. They'll show they've gained skills by writing analyses of primary sources and distilling a unit's worth of discussion about themes into treatises about when war is justified, how we decide who to trust, or what the role of government is. They'll demonstrate their changed hearts by choosing a project, a way to most honestly express to me, their classmates, their parents, and themselves how world history has brought into their own small world a host of new emotions, experiences, and cares. I will discern that learning by watching their faces carefully as I speak, letting each of them talk and write frequently, and by writing tests that are not biased but are creative, insightful, and challenging.



Isn't idealism an important and exciting exercise?! :0)

Image Sources

1. http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/green-classrooms.aspx

2. http://www.davisdesign.com/images/portfolio/learning/Northeast/NE6.jpg

3. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/343821752775751317/

4. http://www.dwell.com/rooms-we-love/article/dreamy-reading-nooks-made-modernists#1

5. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2011/09/organization-why-you-will-have-more-time-year