We managed to fit the new episode of Teach: Tony Danza in during Natalie's afternoon nap. Afterward, Mike asked me if I like this show so much because he is teaching English. I think that I like it more because I identify with the content, but the show is doing an awesome job focusing on general challenges in teaching.
I really liked how this episode showed the chaos of teaching. He has three students he's having trouble with because of dealing with special ed accommodations - their legality versus his ideals. Then, there is a student who he is riding because she isn't working to her potential, yet she is completely resisting him. Also, there is one student begging for more challenging work, while another student listed as gifted is complaining about being lost. This was a very realistic picture of what a single class can be like and I think the producers did a great job of portraying this.
This episode focused mostly on issues surrounding special eduction. Tony had three students who wanted to use the Resource Room for their quiz, but he asked them to stay instead. I still think that his line of thinking came from the best of intentions. He thought, "Let's try it here first, where you are part of the class, and if things go poorly, we'll address it." He saw sending them out of the class as either him passing the problem along or their using it as a crutch to not try harder, both of which can happen with special ed students. (I say this from experience. I once had a student who's mother brow beat a new special ed case worker into getting it on the IEP that her son only had to write something like 5 sentences for assignments. Five sentences for a high school essay? That student had already proven he could do more and his mother was using his disability as an excuse. As to Resource Rooms sometimes not providing the most productive kind of support: A fellow teacher once had a student who was allowed to use a dictionary on a vocab quiz she took in the Resource Room). After an intervention from his coach, attending a mini seminar on the resource room (was this already scheduled or was it planned for the benefit of Tony and the show?), and talking to the principal, Tony gets it. It doesn't matter what he thinks on the matter; legally he must accommodate for these students if they ask for it.
While I thought that Tony's idea of trying the quiz in the classroom first and him giving them extra time and effort was noble, he didn't handle the quiz debriefing well. He strongly gave the impression that the thought everyone did poorly because they weren't trying. While that is definitely the case for some students, it wasn't for all, especially the special ed students who were trying to explain to him their difficulties. Tony was left not asking the right questions. He trying to be very supportive and reassuring, but he didn't get down to the problem at hand much. What I saw the most was students saying they were stuck, but he didn't ask them more specific questions or pull out the text and get into working through it. I saw a lot of the same problems I've encountered with students, such as smart kids reading but still being confused and other kids unable to engage with the text.
I found the way Tony dealt with Paige (a student who was doing poorly and resisting his help) both commendable and pushy. I have never been able to go over to a student and talk to him or her face to face the way Tony was. I always feared pushing too hard or singling the student out, which is exactly what Tony did. Paige pulled back more and more as he pushed. I personally don't think that he should have discussed her grades with her at her desk where other students could hear them so easily. That was something I always tried to avoid. (In fact, a lot of his debriefing of the quiz got too personal about students' individual problems). But, I do think that Tony was right to call home, and that Paige was starting to come around by the end of the episode. She did participate in the activity for him. Showing students you care about them on such an individual level is amazing stuff if you can pull it off correctly.
Monty is another story. I don't understand why he agreed to be on the show if he wanted an advanced class experience. Did he really think that if he was in a mixed class that the class would go at the pace of the top students? I really disliked watching his monologues about the class since he was so single sighted and critical, claiming that it was all in the name of his education. However, he was very much like many advanced students I've met in the past. Its just a side of that type of student that I don't much enjoy. I have to give him props though for asking for extra work. It was a great idea. But, I do feel sad that he only waited a week (if that) before asking his grandmother to go in and talk to Tony about it. As viewers, we know the kind of week that Tony had, and he probably didn't have much mental energy left for coming up with extra advanced assignments.
Near the end of the episode, he breaks down after talking to his coach and the coach sends the assistant principal (because she is a woman I wonder?) to talk to him. An assistant principal needs to be able to deal crying from all sorts, and she did a wonderful job talking him through it. Another person who was rather impressive in this episode was Paige's friend, Tiana (I think that was her name). She did an excellent job telling her friend the truth about the situation with Mr. Danza nagging her and singling her out and it was refreshing to see a student conversation where the student helping her friend really understood the teacher's motivates and stuck up for them.
Next week's episode appears to deal with one of my biggest challenges: Classroom Management.
No comments:
Post a Comment