Cotton buds, Fortnights and Mat (first two days of school)

Hop a bus, walk down an Ave, take a left at the pub, a right at the stoplight and you'll see it on the corner.  A quant little building with a stone wall.  Welcome my little Irish school :), one of the last schools under the Church of Ireland.  Essentially, it caters to all denominations; however, Irish Church members get priority when applying.


Let me just say that its adorable and so far I love it! So, there are three classrooms total, and each grade is referred to as a class... let's see if I can explain this without confusing you and myself, for that matter. Okay, so the first class includes Junior and Senior Infants (4, 5 and some 6 year olds~ 12 kiddos total), the second class includes first, second and third class (6, 7, 8 and 9 year olds~30 kids total) and the last class includes fourth, fifth and sixth class (10, 11 and 12 year olds ~ 13 kids total).  My day began with what else but a cup of tea.  I was introduced to all 4 staff members and 2 helpers and a spanish gentleman who was also doing some student teaching there.  He's a bit older than I, but it's interesting to see how teaching cultures/techniques vary.


After tea and introductions I joined the older students for the first portion of the day.  The day began with  group sharing.  Students sat at the front of the room and shared any big news that happened to them over the weekend.  Reminded me very much of a morning meeting type routine.  Next, we jumped right into bible study.  Personally, I don't know very much about religion, but I must say that the lessons taught are really applicable to any denomination.  The lesson was about forgiveness and being kind to one another. It didnt harp on god or jesus, it essentially just reinforced good morals and how to approach life challenges that everyone faces at one time or another.


The second lesson of the day is Irish.  The language of Ireland.  Many people refer to this as Gaelic, but in my school it is referred to as Irish.  Students listened and watched a story in Gaelic on PROMETHEAN BOARDS!!! :) As of 2 years ago, all the classrooms have and use them.  I was extremely excited to see this, walking into the building.  After watching the story, one student was selected to play a game on the story on the board, his score was put on a white board.  More short stories and games were played, at the end the student with the highest score on the board received a ticket. At the end of the month all tickets go into a pot and are drawn.  Winners receive prizes out of a basket.


After Irish was a math lesson followed by a 10 minute tea break.  You may be wondering how one teacher teachers a class of varying age groups... it typically goes like this: the instructor gives two of the three groups problems to work on (practicing a current concept), meanwhile she is teaching one group of students a new concept.  The groups rotate through doing independent work and getting taught new lessons.  Using this system, it is extremely important to establish exactly what is expected of students during independent work periods.  After a group is taught a new concept, they too begin working on practice problems.  As they are working, the teacher checks answers and gives a "tick" aka checkmark for correct answers and a dot for incorrect answers.  Students must correct incorrect answers before they move on.  Math concepts such as addition, subtraction and long division are taught slightly differently in Ireland, as well.  However, I have seen some really cool manipulatives that i would love to look into! One was a simply beads on a shoe lace (10 yellow, 10 blue) alternating the whole way up the string.  Students simply slide the beads down to help with addition, subtraction, multiplication etc.


The rest of the day consists of lunch/recess (children bring their lunches outside and eat and play simultaneously)  literacy, science, history and art.  Each of the three groups of children get extra outside time for PE once a week.  There is also a special needs worker who alternates between two schools and comes to help struggling students two times a week.  I have been informed that Fridays are pool days.  The entire school goes to an indoor swimming pool down the street! Should be fun.


Classroom Management: I must say... this is emphasized MUCH more in the United States. Seriously, we should all be proud to be Penn State students because there are sooo many times that I thought, "wow the kids are kind of crazy, I know what to do in this situation."  I was speaking to another student teacher from Indiana, in a school down the road and she was saying that her school has classroom management difficulties as well.  We have both noticed that the most common attempt to quiet children is the "shush." Which we all know does not work.


But I must say 2 of the three teachers in my school do use the echo clap method, which seems to be effective in many cases.  I have also seen a sign with "race to space" on it.  There are 4 rocket ships moving up a line.  I have yet to inquire about how that works, but it looks like large group incentive.  With the junior and senior infants their are two areas on the board.  One lists all the students names within a star.  If they do "good" things throughout the day they get a star next to their name.  If they have stars at the end of the week they get a prize.  Students also get their names on the board for inappropriate behavior.  Name up is a warning, once check is the second warning, two checks is missing about 2 to 3 minutes of outside time.  I was explaining the stoplight method that was implemented in my student teaching in PA, she seemed really excited about it and is looking forward to implement it!  Exciting :).  I also shared many of the emergency lesson plans acquired in PA as well. She was sooo excited and photocopied them all, hope thats okay! Another classroom management technique that I'm seeing is a point system.  When students earn a certain number of points they get a ticket. At the end of the month, tickets are put in a lottery and if you are pulled you get to pick a prize, kind of like a raffle.


Furthermore, I would have to say that PA classroom management expectations are much stricter than Spain's, as well. Or perhaps we are just better informed of techniques to implement them? I'm not sure which it is, but I was watching the Spanish student teacher give his lesson and I wished I could have lended him a hand... but I didnt want to interrupt his lesson.  It was a really cool lesson, but here are somethings I reflected on and probably would have done differently...
1. Have a hook instead of just saying "okay we're going to learn about magnets, this is a ___ magnet, this is a ____ magnet.  Do you know what magnets stick to?"
1. Explain directions and expectations BEFORE handing out materials
2. Demonstrate exactly what you want students to do with the materials, show them!
3. Get students attentions before talking, instead of trying to yell over them
4. Try other quieting techniques besides "shhhh"
5. Give each child a paper to record the strength of each magnet, rather than one paper per group
6. Set high expectations for students, don't accept screaming and carrying on
7. Help summarize the lesson at the end rather than ending abruptly
8. Give some form of assessment! Did they learn anything???
I don't mean to be critical... these were just some of the things I considered as he was teaching... we should be proud that our system in the states covers many of these aspects of teaching!


How do standardized tests compare?


The Junior and Senior Infant Test is called the M.I.S.T.  This test is given at the end of each year and essentially tests logic skills, handwriting, listening, reading and identifying.  For instance, the test will give three pictures and ask the student to point to the picture of a tree falling down.  This test is administered in all Irish schools at the end of Senior Infant year.


First class through sixth class take the Sigma-t Exam every November.  This is a math exam and it is administered for the benefit of the INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL.  In Ireland, the state or government does not base funding off of the scores of these tests.  These tests are more for the benefit of each particular school, to gauge where teaching should begin.  A similar english test, called the Micra-t is also administered to classes 1-6.  Another varieties of this test seen in Ireland is the Ducomdra Test, which tests for English Comprehension.  While Ireland does not use standardized testing to submit to the government, England is using tests more and more to compare schools.  Some Irish teachers feel that this idea may seep into Ireland as well.


Tests are also administered at the end of secondary school.  These exams are much more critical and do effect placement into further education programs.


On Tuesday, all the children dressed up for St. Patrick's Day and we paraded around the courtyard. It was adorable! Apparently they do this every year.  The little ones made St. Patrick's Day kites and flew them around.  No school Wed, Thurs, Friday for St. Patrick's Day. I look forward to the long weekend and next week in the schools. I spoke to the principle and I will probably spend about two weeks in each of the three classrooms.  I mentioned I used to play the clarinet so I will probably do a lesson on the recorder (for music) and teach the kids a song.  I will also likely teach many lessons on the science topic of sound (to ages 10-12), the united states (10-12) and possibly art within the next few weeks. If anyone has any cool resources, activities or suggestions let me know!  Also, any suggestions for awesome American PE games, I'll probably teach them some of those as well. :)


Tonight I plan on going to Bray with another girl who is in a similar program, Kaitlyn.  Yesterday we saw the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire.  It was beautiful! The longest, flattest pier in the world.  We also did some shopping and eating at this Italian place... with an American name... this is where the local Irish men sent us! Delicious food though.  Also I got a card converter! So I will hopefully post pictures shortly.  That's all for now! Talk soon!
<3
BTW
cottonbuds- Qtips
rubbers- erasers
fortnight-2 weeks (this was actually used in a sentence in regular conversation!!! i was so excited! :))
mat- Math (good luck teaching the /th/ blend in Ireland, it simply does not exist)
wedges- potatoes


More Irish vocabulary to come soon