mpinkava's blog
A NYC PS Teaching Experience (10/1)
Posted October 1st, 2008 by mpinkavaAhoy! So…it's been a few days since I last left a blog up on this site. I'm not sure where I'd like to start since things continue to be fairly overwhelming, but at the same time there are developments that give me hope that at some point things are going to kick in. Then again, I have concerns that extend beyond my control that distract my ability to take things day by day and maintain a belief that I can just take this experience as it comes and live off of hope and hard work. This past Tuesday, my principal informed a small group of faculty, staff, and parents who compose the school leadership team that the physical space of our school is being under-utilized. There already is a high school on the third floor of this school.
read more »A NYC PS Teaching Experience (9/14)
Posted September 14th, 2008 by mpinkavaThe sine curve experience. Up and down, up and down. While I wouldn't say that there were as many upward curves this week, the ones that were certainly were worth celebrating. The downward curves were still very challenging, and they continue to foster significant concern, since I don't want fights and hateful language to be theme of the entire school year; however, I'm hoping my consistency helps. Focusing on the upward curves, the hills, on Thursday I successfully got through a full morning in the classroom with no preparation periods with very complete lessons, active learning, and a decent amount of retention, as many of the students remembered why squares are always rectangles but rectangles are sometimes squares. It was very exciting. I did, as Mr.
read more »A NYC PS Teaching Experience
Posted September 7th, 2008 by mpinkavaWell...I made it through the first week, barely. Exhausted from not sleeping and not eating too much either, Friday afternoon kind of turned into a disaster. While I did plan extensively for the day, albeit the night before since time has been a huge constraint the past few days, my energy and my ability to adjust to where the students were at was not there. With temperatures in the classroom around 90, the students not having had an opportunity to play given that currently there is no recess, and my well-being not where it needed to be, the class fell apart. Several students were at each other and their anger or displacement of their anger, which could be reasonably justified, was not easily extinguished with my assistance.
read more »A New York City Public School Teaching Experience (9/3)
Posted September 2nd, 2008 by mpinkavaWell...it should be no surprise that I haven't written in over a week. The past eight days have been rather full. I've been pretty much spending my time prepping little things here and there that I think I need to do or am not entirely sure I need to do but figure that I will until someone feels like giving me a little bit of direction on the curriculum the school is following and what it should look like. The school I am in seems to be very good at this; however, with the turnover of the principal, the assistant principal, the literacy coach, and the business manager, a lot of pieces don't entirely feel like they have locked in place, and as a result little things like guiding the new teachers is getting overlooked slightly.
read more »A New York City Teaching Experience
Posted August 26th, 2008 by mpinkavaOver the past two years, I've in many ways sat on the outside of the New York City Public Education System looking at it with an observer's lens. As a graduate student in a traditional certification/masters program, I student taught in a variety of New York City schools, with much of the diversity of my experience stemming from fortuitous happenings and personal action rather than my graduate educational program's intention. In my last semester of my masters program, I did not have to student teach, so I took a job as a research assistant working on a study of an intervention program at several inner city schools in Brooklyn and started substitute teaching in several inner city schools in Brooklyn as well.
read more »What is "inclusive education"?
Posted September 18th, 2007 by mpinkavaIn the current moment, I can't give a complete definition of "inclusive education" and I may never be able to. Funny thing is, I am currently finishing a masters in "inclusive elementary education." In addition to studying "inclusive education," I taught for a year in an "inclusive school" in a Washington DC public charter school as well as a semester student teaching in an "inclusive school" in Brooklyn, NY.
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