Week One at Pinewood!

I have successfully completed my first week of student teaching at Pinewood--American International School of Thessaloniki! I am exhausted and more than excited about beginning it all again next week!

Pinewood American International School

Pinewood American International School of Thessaloniki was founded in 1950 as a school for students from the United States. Some years later it was granted permission from the Greek government to admit students from Greece and countries across the globe.  Now it serves over 200 students from

Pre-K through the 12th grade from about 35 different countries. Curriculum is taught in English in addition to Greek for all students and German, French, and Spanish for the upper grades. English as a Second Language services are provided to all non-English speaking students as well. Class sizes are very small by American standards. Some classes only have 3 students. In the elementary division, there is only one classroom per grade level. What I have noticed just in this week is commitment to each other translates into their relationships with their students.  If you want more information about the school, go to www.pinewood.gr.

Emily and I went to Pinewood on Monday and Tuesday to meet the director, the staff, and to help put our classrooms and lessons together. The first day for students was on Wednesday. For the first six weeks on my placement I am working with Dimetra Bentoulis in the fourth grade. Together we have 18 students (a very large class for Pinewood) from Greece, Estonia, Moldova, Russia, Romania, England, China, Holland, Spain, Sweden, the United States, and Turkey. I believe that only three of the students are native English speakers. Although many of the students have been attending Pinewood for years and have excellent language abilities, it is incredibly difficult to give instruction when so many students are speaking in different languages. I have to borrow a student that is fluent in English, Russian, and Greek to translate when I give instructions to a new student from Russia. For my Turkish student, I have to use a lot of hand gestures and pictures to communicate with her.  These are challenges that I faced in small doses when working with Spanish-speaking children but never on this scale or with so many different languages and customs in a single classroom. I feel that this experience alone has been the most valuable lesson I could learn as a future classroom teacher.  The empathy and patience necessary to build a relationship with such a diverse group of children is priceless.

Because of the language barriers, the first thing I taught my students was the SLANT strategy--an attention signal with visual cues to get students on task. Using pictures and modeling, I taught the students the acronym meaning that they needed to Sit up, Lean forward, give their Attention, Nod their heads, and Track the speaker with their eyes. It's hysterical. I had the students practice the strategy and allowed them to slouch and put their heads down. When I yelled, "SLANT!" every child jumped up, leaned in to me, and began to vigorously nod their heads and follow me with their eyes. Most of these children don't know half of the things I tell them but when I say "SLANT" the fear of God strikes them and they are sitting up ready to learn! (Mrs. Probst would be so proud!)

I also implemented a new way to track positive and negative behaviors in the classroom this week. Mrs. Bentoulis asked me if I had any ideas other than just putting stickers on a behavior chart to monitor and rewards behavior. I suggested using ClassDojo on the computer and with my iPad. For those of you that are educators and have not become familiar with ClassDojo, I highly recommend looking into it. There are how to videos and blogs about the best ways to introduce the program on the ClassDojo website. I feel that it is best for grades 2 through 5. I think that it tracks too many behaviors and is too complex for kindergarten or first grade.  ClassDojo creates an avatar or "dojo" for each student in a class for students to see on the projector or an iPad. It allows the teacher to give points to students immediately for good behavior (being on task, helping others, participating during class) or to take away points for being late, disrespectful, or not being on task. (I don't know I feel about the "taking away" part about ClassDojo but I haven't had any issues with that in my experiences using it. Thoughts?) The instructor can add or change behaviors based on class rules and the needs of the students. Students and parents can go home and look (and play!) with ClassDojo. Its a wonderful way to collect data about students and communicate patterns to parents ("Kimmy has not turned in her homework in five days...look at the ClassDojo data."). The site creates a pie chart that shows all of the points earned and taken away according to each behavior. Plus the kids LOVE it!  They can have the option to change their dojo and, if the teacher allows it, to let them give themselves dojo when they are on task or doing good work. I walk around the class with my iPad and when I see students doing good things I let them give themselves the point. I have never seen children so excited about a behavior chart in my life! This was even before I told them that a certain number of points each week would allow them to choose a prize!

In the coming weeks, Mrs. Bentoulis and I will be conducting informal and formal assessments on students' language and math abilities. Many of the new students have transferred schools four or five times all over Europe and the United States. It is hard to gauge their writing, English, and math abilities with a single assessment. Most of the children are more advanced than they can demonstrate due to the language barrier. It is our task to make assessments and then put students into reading groups appropriate for their reading level and English abilities.

All in all, I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to teach at Pinewood. I could not   ask for a better place to complete my student teaching. I am looking forward to the challenges and fun to come and for the chance to teach my students about Kentucky and where I come from!