Tag Archives: teaching

Hands-On Problem Solving Creates Happy Kids

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This summer I worked at The Quad Manhattan, where I interned as a teaching assistant for seven weeks. The Quad’s mission is to teach social thinking skills through an interactive summer camp. The founder of the Quad noticed that students on the autism spectrum were attending schools that were failing them. Often, the parents of children on the spectrum chose academic needs over an equally important need—emotional support and social development. Choosing one over the other resulted in stalled education and worsening social and emotional well-being.

Specifically, I gained important skills adapted from Ross Greene’s Lost at School and Michelle Garcia Winner’s social-thinking models that will stay with me throughout my career in psychology and education. At The Quad, we focused on using collaborative problem solving with the kids to get to the root of their frustrations, anxiety, and disruptive behavior. The model was based on the idea that we will help children brainstorm their own solutions and strategies for dealing with their behaviors and feelings.ed my summer to learning the interventions used to engage students with social learning skills and challenge students to further develop their exceptional gifts and talents.

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For example, one of my students who we will call “C,” was having a lot of trouble focusing in class and couldn’t keep his body in the group during acting/improvisation class. He often left the group abruptly and started making disruptive sounds to irritate the classmates. The original “me” would have assumed that C was bored and wanted to stir some trouble. However, with the new collaborative problem solving model that was introduced to us, I was able to use empathy, define the problem, and brainstorm a solution with the child to get to the root of his defiance. I found out that C felt good whenever he was able to make his classmates laugh in class, and thought the only way to do this was to make profane sounds and be funny. He also felt insecure that his classmates did not like him, so the pressure to make others laugh and join him in with his defiant behaviors was even greater. We problem solved this by coming up with ideas to make his classmates laugh in other ways, such as telling appropriate jokes, or telling a funny story. This worked effectively and the defiant behaviors subsided significantly.

After this summer, I developed a solidified view of what I like about hands-on clinical psychology versus research-based psychology. I definitely feel more confident working with kids in a clinical setting by building lasting relationships through therapy. Because of my internship, I am more inclined to focus on clinical psychology in graduate school. In the fall when I return to Scripps, I am excited to grow my skills and training into a thesis topic that is specific to Autism Spectrum Disorder. I have begun brainstorming topics and perspectives that will be both imaginative and valuable to the existing research. One topic that I considered diving deeper into is the psychology of the siblings of children with ADHD and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder.Penny2

All in all, I had a fantastic summer, and this would not have happened without the generous Internship Grant I received. I am so grateful for this summer and I cannot wait to begin graduate school and my career after college!

Editor’s Note: This guest blogger was a 2014 Scripps College Internship Grant recipient. To learn more about the 2015 Internship Grant process, click here.  Deadline Feb. 5.

Writing Resumes in Bulgaria

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“Ivan Vazov” Foreign Language High School, Smolyan, Bulgaria

My 12th graders have a huge range of goals, some are pursuing university in Bulgaria, while others will head to universities in the UK or Germany. An equal amount expect to go straight into the work force, domestically and abroad. A couple have expressed interest in the military.

As I was brainstorming for lesson plans, there was one writing assignment that stood out as being useful for every single one of them: resume writing.

I took the things I’ve learned from CP&R over the years, borrowed some tips and tricks from their page on the Scripps website, and adapted it for presentation to my high school students. We were able to practice work-related verbs and appropriate tenses (the difference between “filing documents” and “filling documents”). There was a lot of “what is it called in English if you are someone who does XYZ.”

My co-teacher and I printed out and distributed the “EuroPass” CV form, a common form used by employers throughout Europe. After having discussed the components and important parts of resume-writing the week before, we gave them the 45-minute class period to fill out the form and hand them back for evaluation.

Having an actual form in front of them allowed for more specific questions and gave us a space to problem-solve some of the issues unique to them. There’s no name for the qualification you have upon graduating high school in Bulgaria that would be equivalent to “high school diploma,” so they were unsure what to write on the line for “title of qualification.” We went over the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, so they would know how to self-assess and report their language skills on their CV.

Most students here don’t have part-time or summer jobs, as their aren’t an abundance of jobs to go around. There weren’t even any babysitters in the group, as families here generally can’t afford to hire them. With this in mind, we thought about how they can interpret the experiences and occasional job they do have for use on a resume. Among my group we had a class representative, a freelance sports writer, Guinness World Record-holding bagpiper, and mushroom factory worker.

Even if they never need to write a CV or resume in English, I hope the exercise of thinking about their strengths, abilities and experiences will be helpful wherever they scout for jobs. And for those of my students who will be applying to jobs and universities abroad, this was a good start for them to think about how they represent themselves on applications in another language.

How do I know it was a success?

Other teachers heard about the lesson, and asked me to work through it with their classes as well. When suffering from culture shock and trying to survive the first year of teaching, there’s nothing better than the feeling that you’ve done something right. Many thanks to CP&R for teaching my resume-writing skills. Now I can pay it forward.

“It’s Complicated” with my Students on Facebook

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Right now I have 36 Facebook friend requests pending from my students. I haven’t quite decided what to do with them.

According to socialbakers.com, Milka is the second most popular brand for Bulgarians on Facebook… I totally understand why!

About one-third of Bulgaria’s population is on Facebook, which includes nearly all of my students. On the first day of school I told my students plainly, “I won’t be your Facebook friend until after this year is over.” Hello, boundaries!

Instead, I tried to engage my students through Facebook groups– one for each grade level I teach.  After I had set these groups up, I told each of my classes about them, expecting they would use the search function and join. For one grade level where all my students had Facebook accounts, I even assigned Facebook “homework” asking them to join the group and make three comments on the photos I would post.

No takers. On Facebook homework.

Really?!?

In the last few weeks I have had more students join the groups, thanks to the help of one of my colleagues. The teachers at my school (who I am friends with on Facebook) have few qualms about befriending their students online. One such teacher joined the groups to help me invite and add students. Even so, most students do not post or participate in the discussions. I wonder if befriending students on Facebook would give them more contact with American culture/media, and help my understanding of Bulgaria by forming “friendships” and getting more perspectives on life in Smolyan. Many Fulbright English Teaching Assistants here are friending their students and getting a lot out of that bond. It makes it easier to learn names at the very least.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that student-teacher relationships and social media don’t always mix well. During the first few weeks, a Fulbright friend of mine here posted about her frustrations with classroom discipline and student conduct on her personal tumblr. They were things that many of us Fulbrighters were thinking/feeling, but said in excessively strong language (read: like a sailor). Bulgarian students are a tech-savvy bunch, and it wasn’t long before her students read her post. Hours later she had an anonymous and threatening message sent by someone claiming to represent a group of her students. The conflict eventually resolved itself, but it was unnecessary drama that might have been prevented through self-censorship or distancing online and real-life identities.

So, should I break my own rule and friend my students early? If I did, would it mean I would have to stop sharing snarky, aggressively liberal Jezebel articles on my Facebook timeline? Or should I wait until the end of the year and possibly miss out on legitimate cross-cultural friendships?

Introducing My Students: They’re… well, teenagers.

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As I researched programs and opportunities to teach English abroad, I noticed a prevalent (and conveniently marketable) idea that all students abroad, particularly in newly industrialized and developing countries, love and are grateful for any education. Now this is a trend that perpetuates neo-colonialism, white-savior complexes, and a whole lot of other –isms I’m not going to get into right now. What I am going to talk about is how my experience hasn’t resembled the classroom full of wide-eyed, smiling kids you’ll find when you Google “teach abroad.”

My students are doing their eyeliner, teasing their hair, texting and even leaving to answer their phones in the hall (at least they don’t answer it in the classroom?). Then there is the sudoku, the driver’s manuals, the earbuds with music just loud enough so that everyone can hear it, and the constant chatter of people in the back. There’s the girl who turns her chair all the way around to talk to the girl behind her, and the boy who comes to class late and immediately starts talking loudly about how he is bored. There are the boys who walk into class 20 minutes late, and the couple in the front row who are always cuddling. I set my rules and expectations clearly the first day, harshed down the second, but I only see each class once a week. I’m faced with the dilemma of enforcing rules (something akin to whack-a-mole), or using my short 45-minutes to teach something to those willing to listen and only commenting on outrageous breaches of conduct.

If you only observed the first day of school, this might not be the classroom environment you expect. I arrived at Ivan Vazov’s quad (a large cement rectangle that hosts stealthily smoking teens and playground games after school), to find all grades, quite a few parents and all the teachers gathered around the speakers blasting a dubstep remix of Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling.” The official ceremony included speeches by the principal and local big-wigs. Students loaded down their teachers with bouquets of flowers.  Students gave musical performances, read poetry, and danced traditional Bulgarian steps. One of my 12th graders played the gaida (a traditional Bulgarian bagpipe) as teachers and students lined up for a symbolic processional into the school, eating a piece of bread dipped in honey as they crossed over the threshold. A Fulbright scholar here doing fieldwork in Anthropology observed this ritual and pointed out that rituals don’t represent what is, but instead harken back to a golden, mythical age (Mircea Eliade, and a huge shout out to the RLST department). In this case, the ritual recalls some time under Ottoman rule, when the three most revered people in town were the mayor, clergy leader, and school-teacher.

A colorguard leads the processional

Younger students present themselves in the mandatory school uniform

A 10th grade English teacher carries an armful of flowers from her new students, who have forsaken their uniforms for the day

This isn’t to say I don’t have some awesome students. One student has emailed me detailed questions regarding university in America, and another asked where she might be able to find a paperback of the Great Gatsby. Five of my twenty-five 12th graders turned in the short personal essays I assigned, and they were a delight for me to read. My 8th graders have a lot of energy and someone always volunteers. On birthdays and name-days, students and teachers bring in large boxes of chocolate to share. This Saturday, the school marked World Walking Day with a school-wide hike to Balieva Voda, springs with purported healing properties.

Teaching here is a challenge, but it’s not all bad. If anything, it’s just louder than I expected.

The Job Description

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On the Fulbright website, the English Teaching Assistant job description is as follows:

In most cases, ETAs:

  • Are placed in schools or universities outside of capital cities
  • Are assigned various activities designed to improve their students’ language abilities and knowledge of the United States
  • Are fully integrated into the host community, increasing their own language skills and knowledge of the host country
  • May pursue individual study/research plans in addition to ETA responsibilities

This description is necessarily vague, because each country dictates where and how ETAs will be most useful. Even within countries, the job can vary greatly.

The view from my kitchen in Smolyan, Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, all the ETAs are placed at Foreign Language High Schools. Some are in cities of several hundred thousand inhabitants. My town, Smolyan, is a town of 30,000 in the Rhodope Mountains of Southern Bulgaria. For reference, 30,000 is roughly the population of Claremont, but Smolyan doesn’t have the added benefit of surrounding towns like Pomona, Montclair, and LaVerne. Smolyan simply is the urban center of this region, and the bus station here acts as the transportation hub to surrounding villages, which range in population from several thousand to only several hundred. The nearest city (and mall and fastfood chain) are three hours north in Plovdiv.

The English hall of my school, GPCHE “Ivan Vazov”

At school, I’m responsible for 16 classes a week, about 4 per day Monday through Thursday. I work with every single English student in my high school, which amounts to 300+ names and faces. I never see any class more than once per week, so learning their names has been a slow process. While I work with all English students in all five grade-levels (8-12), some ETAs here spend all of their time with one grade level, often the 8th graders.

The opening ceremony was filled with speeches and student performances, including a student singing Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day.

Most students receive basic English instruction starting in 3rd or 4th grade, but our 8th graders start again at the very beginning and move quickly through a curriculum designed to get them from A1 (breakthrough or beginner) to B1 (threshold or intermediate) on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

 

For 9th and 10th graders, I lead discussion classes. My goal is to get them speaking and actively using English. For the 11th graders, I am their once-a-week “English through Literature” class, meaning we will somehow move from mythology to Steinbeck over the course of the year. I’ve been asked to focus on writing with my 12th graders, though speaking is an important part of class, too. I’ve also been asked to help with a Creative Writing club that meets approximately once-a-week. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting an American Movie Club, primarily because I’d like a venue for showing 10 Things I Hate About You, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Forrest Gump, staples in any American cultural education.

Girls in traditional Rhodopean attire serve bread and honey to students and teachers as they cross the threshold into school on the first day

Before I arrived in Bulgaria, the Fulbright Commission sent paperwork, which included an outline of my job responsibilities. Although this was a contract, it was also, apparently, an approximation and my job duties look quite different on the ground than they did on paper. Those changes and uncertainties were a source of anxiety for me, and I’m glad to finally have a solid and clear idea of what I’m doing each week with each class… unfortunately it took well until after school started for me to get there. If you couldn’t tell from my previous post about planning, “going with the flow” is not something at which I excel, but I’m learning.