Unfortunately once the farmer has carefully cultivated and fertilized the land and planted his seeds, he often meets with disappointment and despair as he monitors the growth of his crops. The rain that is so crucial to the vitality of the plants does not arrive. He does not give up on his crop and admit defeat, but rather assesses the situation and determines that he must utilize his irrigation pump in order to artificially pump water to the land until it naturally falls.
Much like the farmer I encountered some frustration during my journey. I saw no rain clouds on the horizon, just a blazing hot sun scorching the earth. My initial disappointments came from my own unrealistic expectations. The second lesson I taught during the Fall semester (Age of Absolutism Lesson) within my early field placement left me feeling disillusioned and deflated. I had overestimated my students' ability to read and analyze text-based sources. Their skills of analysis had not been developed within their educational careers and I had just dove right in. I had provided guiding questions to facilitate their analysis and had structured the groups so that students of varying abilities and strengths were working together so I thought I had provided what was necessary for my seeds to grow. Instead, my students focused on irrelevant, superfluous details provided in the reading and missed the main points almost completely. I realized that I had to take a step back, re-evaluate my approach, and bring in the irrigation pipes. Until my students developed their skills of analysis further I would have to pump the water artificially. I would need to put in additional structures including giving smaller chunks of reading material written in a simpler form and provide a longer window of time for the analysis. I did not abandon my crop I just brought in the pipes until the rain came. For the first group assignment in the Spring, on the "Causes of the Cold War," I gave each group much less information to read (example of Group A's Reading) and process and a longer time to analyze. I also gave each student a concept web so that they could visually see how each of the tensions we explored helped lead to the Cold War. The students did much better with their analysis as I believe they were more aware of my expectations and were not overwhelmed since each group had less material to read. The rain did come, my students' ability to analyze both text and non-text sources had increased greatly. In addition, the bumper stickers that my students created enlivened me as it showed that students were able to pull ideas together from the material they explored. The bumper stickers highlighted their understanding of the causes of the Cold War, as they evaluated if, after exploring the early tensions, the Cold War should be deemed a war.
Another source of discontent for me within my journey was my students' resistance to change. As I incorporated processing assignments that tapped into their multiple intelligences and required them to synthesize the material gained in class they were hesitant to give up the worksheets that had only required skimming of the textbook chapter. In addition, the variety of instructional strategies that I utilized welcomed some students in, while alienating others who had become accustomed to my cooperating teacher's instructional style. I was disappointed that they were not more enthusiastic about the variety that had come to their educational diet, but again I remained resolute and allowed the first unit test scores to bolster students' confidence in the success of both the homework assignments and the instructional styles I was implementing. I waited for the natural rain to come and it did. It was finally time for the harvest , the most hectic season of all as the farmer finally finds out if his diligence has paid off.