Beyond the Blackboard

Beyond the Blackboard

     Days ago, we watched a movie called Beyond the Blackboard. The movie presented the story of a teacher who had to face lots of problems in her first job as educator. This problems, instead of making her quit of the job, endured her and help her become an inspiration for her students.

     We have here some questions that will help us understand more the message of the movie.

BEYOND THE BLACKBOARK

-Discuss Stacey’s first week at the school. How were The School with No Name and its students different from what she expected? What was her reaction to these differences?

Stacey's first week was very difficult for her because the place was not what she expected. As a new teacher, she thought she was going to teach in a very fancy school, but she had to go where her superior told her to go. When she got to the "new" school, she realized that the reality of poor school was shacking. The school was not even school; it was some sort of garage with few tables and the walls painted with shady colors. When the children arrived, she noticed that they didn't have work books, notebooks, and anything necessary for good education. At the beginning, she felt so overwhelmed that she wanted to quite. After a long consideration, she decided she was going to make a change.

-In the beginning of the film, Stacey said “school was a safe place with a glimpse of who I wanted to be.” How did her determination change the environment of the shelter school and her students?

We think that since Stacey’s dream was to become a teacher, she would not stop at anything to achieve it. Even in a forgotten school, Stacey kept devoted to teach no matter the problems and the lack of interest the school was facing.

-Stacey tried to relate to her new students by showing them a photo album of her family and talking about her life. The kids could not relate to her pictures and experiences. Why not?

We think the kids could not relate to her because their social context was not the same. While she grew up with everything she wanted in life, those kids grew up in the streets. She also showed photos of her happy family. The kids were not used to seeing a happy family; all they knew was poverty and sadness.

-Discuss some of the life circumstances of the students. What types of adversities did they face physically and emotionally? How did their poverty make learning more difficult?

The kids from the movie faced many problems. Some of them came from broken marriages, and some of them had drug addict parents. One girl and her father was illegal immigrant, and they were always afraid of being caught by immigration police. Another girl had to help mother to work. These problems, together with poverty, made the kid’s learning a difficult task. All they knew was a world of problems; therefore, when their new teacher arrived, everything they knew changed. We think the kids and their parents felt so overwhelmed for all the changes that they were not ready to accept them.

-The classroom initially came with almost no supplies and little support from school board officials and reluctant parents. Despite these challenges, Stacey Bess was able to create a warm, safe place for the children to learn. In addition, she was able to earn the support and respect of parents and administrators. Resourcefulness is the ability to find a way to solve problems in a difficult situation. What creative solutions did Stacey find to transform The School with No Name? How did she overcome the lack of supplies, environmental distractions and other issues?

Stacey changed her attitude. At the beginning she was disappointed of the kind of “school” that she was assigned to teach, but then she thought that if she changed her mind, things would become better for her and her students.

So, she wanted to make the “classroom” look like a real one, beautiful, cleaned, with colorful pictures on the walls. When she realized that the School District Representative wouldn’t help giving her the things that she and the students would need in the classroom, she decided to do it by herself. On weekend, she started to paint the walls of the classroom to make it look better, and she bought and brought new things and materials for the students.

When the parents noticed that she was doing her best for the students to learn, they started to help her too. In that way, everyone in the shelter started to admire her and all her effort.

-Poverty impacts people of all ages, races and backgrounds. The reasons for people being at the shelter are as different as each individual. What are some of the reasons for characters in the film coming to the shelter?

Some of the people were coming to the shelter because they were homeless people. They slept in their cars because they don’t have a house to live. Some of them were in the shelter just for some time, and some kids’ parents were in jail.

-The previous teacher placed “shame names” on the board and played movies all day to keep the kids occupied. The students and parents were initially wary of Stacey because they thought she would be the same as her predecessor.

-What actions did she take to earn their trust? How did trust play a role in the school’s success?

She started to show them that she was really interested on children’s learning. She wanted a real classroom environment, so she did everything that was possible to improve the place in which children were supposed to lean. Children started to appreciate her effort to teach them and all the things that she did for them to learn. They trusted on her and on her will to help them to be good persons.

Stacey talked to the children about respect. They began to share their experiences of when they encountered a lack of respect – from police, from a parent or from another person. The classroom could only be a safe, calm and quiet place to learn if everyone showed respect for each other.

-Discuss how respect or a lack of respect was shown in the film.

At the first week, when Stacey started to teach in the School with No Name, the children weren’t respectful with her. They were disobedient and annoying, so Stacey went out of her nerves and screamed at them. The next week she asked them to talk about respect, and she apologize because she wasn’t respectful when she was screaming at them. Then they started to share their experiences; one of them said that he saw how a police officer wasn’t respectful with her mother while another student said that she knew a good police officer who helped her and her brother.

-Why is respect important in a school setting?

Stacey said that respecting each other would create a good environment for learning. That’s why they have to be respectful with their classmates.

Stacey encourages the students to think of words to put on the board to describe their feelings. By giving these feelings names, the children were able to express themselves more clearly.

What vocabulary words were used?

When Stacey and the students were talking about respect, she wrote some words that they said were important to create a comfortable and good environment for learning. Some of those words were: Respectful, brave, acceptable, anxious, beautiful, caring, compassionate, interesting, healing, hopeful, eager, hilarious, enthusiastic, polite, handy, kind, comfortable, perplexed, exclusive, friendly, jolly, smile, strong, careful, confident, handsome, clever, witty, polite, able, quiet, happy, outrageous, etc.

-Why were these words so important to the children?

These words were so important to the children because they were written from the experiences that they shared. Also, with that vocabulary children were able to express their feelings in a better way depending on the situation that they were facing.

-Describe Stacy Bess.

Stacey Bess.
She is a very determined teacher who never gives up even if the circumstances are very difficult to cope. She loves her work, and she is always looking to give the best for their students. She is a woman with great determination and courage despite having everything against her. She goes ahead in its work and pursued to the end what she wants to achieve.

-What struck you about the movie?

The film shows us the other side of educational system. It shows the great love that a teacher can reach to develop their work and how far they can get to help their students not only in the classroom but also outside of it. The film shows how a teacher gives all out for their students and how teachers can change the lives of their students and also their parents.

-COOL-SCHOOL MODEL:






What’s in a name?

It is the grouping of several letters of an alphabet, or other symbols, which represent the identification of a person or an object. A name is the identity of something, something that characterizes you; a name can demonstrate how important something and necessary is.

Why do you think the school did not have a name?

I think that was because it was a school that did not matter to anyone and did not have teachers who cared for it. The school was placed where no one wanted to go and less studying or send their children. So I think the school did not have a name for those reasons.

Would the school have had an easier transition to success if it did have a name?

We think the transition would have been easier. At the beginning, the school and the students did not an identity in the community; therefore, there were no resources for the school. With a name, the school could ask for help to organizations to receive some aid.

What would you name the school?

I would name it as the teacher Stacey Bess because thanks to all her effort and dedication, the school could become the school that everyone needed and where everyone could learn in a beautiful place.

Self-assessment of my learning 

By: David Jimenez

     Teaching English to young learners seemed a little scarry to me. At the begining, I felt lost in the classroom teaching my first class, but when the days past, I felt more confident. Thanks to this experience, I have gained a lot of things. First, I learned how to manage children. Working with children is not exactly my forte becuase my patience levels with them were not too high. This leads me to my second achievement: patience. I gained a lot of patience working with children; they alwas want to know something new, ad they like to ask for things even thogh they already know those things. The third goal I achieved is to be responsible. We can not just take teaching as if it is a conversation with friend; we need to know that what we teach is going to cause an impact in our students lives.

     At the end, I can say that teaching has changed my life. I was not sure of me being a teacher, but now I know that I really enjoy teaching. I hope this experience does not end here, and I can continue molding the minds of a new generation.

Self-assessment of our learning

By: Humerto Escalante

     For me, the experience of teaching helped me a lot in many ways.

• It helped me become more responsible. Working with children is a hard task that needs to be taken seriously. We can not just walk inside of a classroom to teach what we want. We need to plan everything.
• It helped me organize my time. As said before, we need to plan everything. Time is one the most precious treasures we have as teachers. We need to take care of it.
• I helped me worry about the others and be awere of other's doubts and difficulties. Every child is a word, and we need to take special atention to every single one of them.  

    For all these reasons and perhaps more, I enjoyed this experience a lot, and I hope I can have the opportunity of continuing teaching in the future. I hope one day I can become a great teacher to create a big impact in young learners minds. 

Self-assessment and evaluation of our own learning

By: Luis Linares

    
     Taking this subject has been a great experience to me because we have learned how to become good teachers to face real problems that might occur in the classroom. I learned how to interact with children though it is not too difficult to me to stablish good relationships with them. I also learned how to deal with the particular behavior that every children have in the classroom. I consider I made a good job with my students because they seemed to learn everything I thought them. Sometimes, I was surprised of the potential they have even though they get easily distracted. Teaching English to young learners was a nice experience to me because no matter how good or bad teacher you are, children will love you and learn from you.

Self-assessment and evaluation of our own learning

By: Andrea Zaldivar

     For me this course has been really important. I think I have learned a lot of new things related to the teaching-learning processes. I really enjoyed the course because it was aimed not only for us to learn theory, but also to experience in a real teaching-learning environment. Talking about my own learning, I can say that I feel satisfy with the things that I have learned. Now, I know several things that I can apply and develop in the classroom, and I feel able to handle a real class with real students. Of course I’m conscious that there are a lot of things that I have to learn and improve, but I hope I will do it step by step and through new experiences.

     In my opinion, one of the best parts of this course has been the teaching practicum with kindergarten students. I could face the real part of teaching. It wasn’t that easy at the beginning because it was like meeting a new world, but then I started to enjoy my role as a teacher. This course gave me the opportunity to know new people, to interact with other people, and I’m really thankful because of that.

Traditional teaching vs. 21st century teaching

     This are the top ten traits of the 21st century teachers ELT practicioner that we chose.


1. Use of technology

2. More approachment to the children’s needs

3. Use of visual aids

4. Learning by doing

5. Mistakes as part of the learning process

6. Teachers as guides

7. Learners as the center of the learning process

8. Use of the internet to get more information

9. Use of warm-up activities

10. Giving feedback after classes

     The salient traits between NESTs and non-NESTs

     NESTs and non-NESTs are all over the word, and there is always the big question: who is a better teacher? There are many differences between this two types of teachers. We are going to take some of those differences, and we are going to develope some of them. Note that we are not saying which teacher is better than the other. We are just making a comparison to point that even with those differences, both teachers play an important role in teaching English.

Academic vocabulary vs day-to-day vocabulary

     Non-NESTs try to teach vocabulary found in books in order to communicate in controled situations. On the other hand, NESTs focus their lectures on vocabulary used every day in real life situations.

Fluency vs accuracy

     Non-NESTs teachers are focused on developing students pronunciation. For non-NESTs teachers, fluency is the most important skill to develop for student while for NESTs teachers, accuracy (producing language with minimun effort) is what students need the most. 

Focus on form vs focus on forms

     Non-NESTs teachers focus their classes on the instruction of grammar rules while NESTs teachers focus their classes on developing communication skills.

     As we can see every teacher has a different way to teach the language, but at the end, there is not such thing as "the best teacher."

THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

     In every class, we need to use as many tools as we can. Some of the most important tools are visual aids. Here we have some of the visual aids and activities we use while doing our teaching practices.

   

 

 

This is a small display of photos that were taken from the first clotheline presentation