Mentor Teacher Interview

Marquetta Strait April 13, 2013 Claflin Universitys Learning Improvement for Future Excellence (CU L.I.F.E) Dr. Hicks

M. Strait |2

Marquetta Strait April 13, 2013 Claflin Universitys Learning Improvement for Future Excellence (CU L.I.F.E) Dr. Hicks

Mentor Teacher Interview

While completing my field experience Claflin Universitys Learning Improvement for Future Excellence (CU L.I.F.E), I had the wonderful pleasure of being placed in Mr. Wingards fourth grade classroom at Mitchell Math and Science Elementary School located in Charleston, South Carolina. He and his students were very welcoming and increased my desire to teach. As a future educator, I asked him a series of questions to get a better understanding of his teaching career and to get insight of what I will have to face when I become an educator. My mentor teacher, Mr. Wingard, has been teaching for twelve years at Mitchell Math and Science Elementary School. Although he taught third grade for six years, this is his sixth year teaching fourth grade. Mr. Wingards success in the teaching field can also be attributed to his background in teaching and coaching many after school and extracurricular activities, including chess club, math team, Lego Robotics, athletic teams (track and tennis), urban farming, and sailing. Mr. Wingard chose the teaching profession for three reasons. First, he comes from a family of educators and spent much of his childhood around schools and in athletic facilities. Second, he strongly values education and regards it as one of the most influential components of a persons existence. Lastly, he exposed himself to poverty in Charleston while he was in

M. Strait |3

college and was on a mission to find a low rent apartment. While living in the fabulous Eastside Community, he noticed disturbing trends in the academic performance of the neighborhood children. Also visible were all of the historical socioeconomic divisions within the citys

intricately complex past and present. It was like nowhere that he had ever lived before and he fell in love with a culture richer and more vibrant, yet more brutal and devastating than his own. Once he realized that we were all a part of a greater culture, derived from various combinations of American regionalism, he heard his calling to teach in this community and has been doing it ever since. His teaching style is based on the constructivist approach and the Socratic Method. He also incorporates interdisciplinary, project-based activities, and uses a lot of strategies from Learning by Design. He favors year round schooling, especially in high poverty areas. His main philosophy on education is that all children can succeed to become valuable citizens. Although he enjoyed his education program at his university, he does not feel that his student teaching experience prepared him for the classroom. He says, and I quote, My student teaching experience (spring 2001, W.B. Goodwin Elementary School) was trial by fire. I had a pretty good idea of philosophical education from academias experts, but I had no hands -on skills. I didnt have nearly enough live classroom experience in college. Mr. Wingard acknowledges that lesson planning is a chore, but an extremely useful one if you use them to your advantage. His advice to me was that I should never plan too far in advance. I should allow my long range plans and state curriculum guides to assist me. Students should be assessed to identify any misconceptions, as well as mastery, before moving to unfamiliar or more challenging content. He uses lessons as a matrix to guide him through small

M. Strait |4

group activities, texts, and materials that he uses on a weekly basis. The management of instructional materials gets confusing in an inclusion classroom setting where you teach all subjects, so his lesson plans serve to map out each content area and the constantly shifting instructional groupings within each area. The better I manage the various differentiated

instructional groups, the better I will be able to serve the needs of each individual student. His students success can also be attributed to his classroom management system. He believes that if teachers set high expectations, establish clear norms, and hold students accountable for their performance and conduct, then classroom management becomes a naturally self-sufficient process. Character education should be incorporated into every learning

opportunity, and students will organically manage themselves. Classroom management is about respect. Give it and you will receive it. Teachers should not make any promises to which they cannot commit. As far as his reward system, he believes that there should be numerous opportunities for students to feel rewarded, valued, and unique by including a system of Earning and Learning (Calendar Stickers, payroll, dress-down tickets, homework passes, etc.). He only uses food , especially junk food, as an incentive outside of school when students have completed a major feat or demonstrated a great deal of effort to meet a goal. Classroom management is all about providing a framework where students can develop habits that are intrinsically selfrewarding. Not only is it important to maintain a great relationship with your class, it is also important to have input from the students parents. It is important to have organization within the classroom and filing system because paperwork is overwhelming, especially at the beginning of the year. There should be a system for record keeping, grading, parent communication, and managing student work. He also recommends that I try to grow as a learner by always

M. Strait |5

committing myself to become a master of my content areas. I should be a historian, a scientist, a mathematician, a literary explorer, an economist, a politician, a citizen, and an author. Then, I should share myself as a learner to my students. Assessment and content drive his instruction. He finds areas of weakness or progress and differentiates instruction to address the most acute student needs, both in learning style and content acquisition. His instruction is personalized to each students ability level, providing

supports and interventions when learning needs to be accelerated and extensions and enrichments when learning needs to be deepened. Although his teaching experience has been great, he has had a few challenges. The challenges are a combination of psychological, behavioral, and medical concerns. Some students with extremely defiant, oppositional behaviors put a lot of pressure on the other students, especially if a school does not have adequate support systems for consistently disruptive students. This year, he has had three students characterized by this description. Often their conduct is obscene, violent, and destructive to the point of chaos and trauma. It is a health issue and an urgent child safety issue. Many parents have supported him in his quest to accommodate these students into a least restrictive environment with appropriate interventions for children with these psychiatric disorders. Mr. Wingard has to be extremely tactful in how he delicately handles these situations because he has to protect 16 kids while he gets help for a few. Another challenge is that there are situations where children live in extreme poverty. It torments his soul to see some of the conditions in which his students live and the horrific things they are exposed to on a daily basis. He spends a lot of time dwelling on and/or worrying about his students when he is alone in thoughtful reflection. His mind always thinks about what his students are having for dinner, what a student may have seen on her way to take out the trash, or

M. Strait |6

if another student will have a jacket to wear tomorrow when its cold. This challenge can also be one with silver lining. To see a student with such an intensely burdensome daily life

demonstrate resilience, optimism, and enthusiasm is one of the greatest rewards the teaching profession offers its dedicated servants. If Mr. Wingard was able to hit the redo button, for his career, he said that he would still go into the teaching field. Teaching is the most important job in our society and one of the most difficult. It is both an art and a science. The skill set required to be a successful teacher is a badge of honor. It sustains your productivity as it continuously demands inspired creativity, humble compassion, and rigorous discipline. Teachers must have grit. It connects him to humanity in ways that make life feel meaningful, joyous, and rich. Teaching is like a water faucet running over bucket with a hole: it constantly drains him, while it steadily fills him back up. It nourishes his mind, cleanses his soul, and fulfills his spirit. Teaching is an amazingly gratifying experience that gives his life added value every day. After interviewing Mr. Wingard, I was able to retain an abundance of information. By being in CU LIFE, I have enhanced my knowledge of teaching our youth. When I begin teaching, it is important to motivate my students, be able to educate diverse learning styles within my classroom, have a good repertoire with the students, and try a variety of instructional strategies. I plan to continue to enhance my skills as a future educator to better assist my students to become successful.