Another day at Century School

I worked at Century School today. I know it is not the kind of place I want to be, or the person I want to be for that matter. I know my ideals, but when I am in action there I behave in contradiction to my values as a teacher. Why do I think this is? There is a culture there that is unsupportive of a nurturing learning environment. I have gained habits while I have been there. The children are used to the function of the school day at Century School. I don’t have the skills or self-confidence to implement my ideal classroom. Essentially I am the only thing keeping myself from being a better teacher. That is what I want to work on in the next year and a half. There are lots of societal problems, and cultural problems within schools and communities, but I need to strengthen my confidence and bolster it with tools and skills so that I can maintain my values as a teacher.
Today in school I really identified with A when he protested to my invitations to choose an academic. He said he did not want to do any of them, because they were all boring and take to long. He wanted to get back to playing as soon as possible. There are certain expectations of me from the lead teachers as to how “many academics” the students “complete”. So a solution in that culture is not to let him play all day, or choose other activities that have not been prescribed for him. While I believe there may be ways to make his academics more fun, it is also difficult because they are very structured curriculums that the school subscribes to. The academics are not very adaptable. Aidan’s parents are very involved and supportive of his education, yet he is not motivated. Century School utilizes a lot of drilling, with activities like Practice Mill. In programmed reading, teachers are encouraged to push reading until they attain fluency, not through a “whole reading” approach, but through memorizing sounds and words until prompting is no longer needed. However, I have often found that some of the students who are reading entire sentences, have difficulty sounding out new words because they have forgotten the sounds, while still memorizing new words.