ANÁLISIS DE LOS COSTOS Y DE LA EXPORTACIÓN

Abstract and orientation. It was the second day of Charly’s first year when Joshua

walked into the school as a new student, and directly into her second period English and

Language Arts (ELA) classroom. “Here’s where your seat is going to be,” she recalls saying as she escorted the “African American” boy to it. Everyone and everything felt new, as they were all “still…getting their feet wet.” With a tired grin she reminisces about her first encounter with Joshua noting, there was nothing obviously “concerning about this particular child” on that day. However, by the end of that first week, Joshua’s true manner would rapidly begin to surface, providing Charly with a foreshadowing of her entire school year.

Complication. Arriving to her class on week one, Joshua would take his seat with

everyone else. However, no sooner did Charly begin to teach, he would rise “onto his chair” and break out in song, “singing” the national anthem “at the top of his lungs.” Charly recalls how students initially appeared “shocked by that type of behavior,” as if thinking, “What’s going on here?” As the days and weeks progressed, standing on a chair turned into additional

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misbehaviors that interfered with learning, teaching and even transitioning between classes. For instance, during transitions Joshua would either shove his peers or “grab something,” taking their belongings. Once he reached over to a girl “wearing a necklace” removing it from her neck, and placing it around his. Charly notes, “he started bothering the kids that were really, really, really quiet that couldn’t speak for themselves.” In class, “he would shout across the room…

targeting” individuals, or wait until instruction began to “get up …and bust out dance routines.” According to Charly, “after a while, the thing you don’t want to have happen” began to

occur…the other students would roar in laughter, thus “empowering him to do even more

optimal crazy things.” She recalls believing that Joshua began to purposefully misbehave to seek attention from the other students. During regular one on one discussion, Charly would advise him that his method was not effective for making friends. However, he would respond, “I don’t need to make friends. I have everything I need. I don’t need it.” Charly anxiously watched as he “pushed back,” not wanting to let people in… to help him feel wanted.” She admittedly states, “I didn’t know” what to do.

Moreover, Joshua “started trying to push boundaries” directly with Charly. At first, “he would refuse to get things …signed by” his parents. Then the passive behavior became more “blatant disrespect,” where she might say, “Hey, bud, I see that your book is not open yet. I want to make sure that you join me on page three,” to which he would respond back with a “firing retort.” She recalls that his attendance and academics began “suffering.” Charly immediately found that calling his parents was of no use, as “no one answered the phone.” This, along with his inability to get anything signed, made her feel as though “he would not allow for any sort of parent-teacher interaction.” Despite his troublesome behaviors, she recalls acknowledging the

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presence of the problem only when she began to feel “I just couldn’t teach.” He was “taking my right to teach, taking other’s right to learn as his own.”

Action toward resolution. Charly resorted to having him “pulled out time and time

again” when his behavior erupted. “First, we started trying to get my assistant principal involved with him because he’s a male and we’re thinking this kid probably needs a male role model.” However, she calls the action “counterproductive,” as he began “causing more trouble in the class” in an effort to be removed. Charly assumes he considered, “What can I do to leave here to go spend time with this guy?” In addition, constant calls to the office for help to manage his disruptive outbursts, left her feeling innately fearful that she would appear to both students and administration as the “teacher that can’t handle” her kids. She began wondering, “When am I going to get in trouble because people have to keep intercepting this child?” “Every time the kid was taken out, I think I lost ground,” she admits believing. She felt that it threatened her stance “as the authority figure” in her own classroom.

The day arrived when Joshua, in his typical rant, started “screaming” at other children “across the room” in the middle of her lesson. Some students laughed loudly while others joined Charly’s stern face of “frustration.” “Please call the office to get him out of here!” she heard some beg. “Lack of better results with anything” previously tried led her to say out loud, “You know guys, I’ve tried that. It’s just not working.” She then, in the heat of the moment, decides to “step back, stand there and actually watch what was happening.” Charly recalls “trying to get out of [her] body to…look at it from an outsider’s perspective.” After all, she says “I had 22 other people in my room other than myself. Their perspectives mattered more than my own…” She began to examine herself, her students, and then Joshua, recognizing “it’s hard to see what’s really going on when I’m the one that’s trying to stop what’s happening. I needed to see it from

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their perspective.” And what she saw was disheartening. She describes the vision as “a train wreck” unfolding. She could hear him shouting, others laughingly joining the raucous, and still others “advocating” for themselves. Charly interpreted the few upset faces as “Man, you’re interrupting my chance to try to get this,” and states “it hurt me to my soul to see that frustration and despair.” Charly realized while she had felt all along this was only her problem, it had also become the class’s problem. This was the moment she acknowledged a need to stop herself from “being so quick to…just react…instantaneously.”

Charly began reflecting on her “teaching” and what she had learned in “preparation for teaching,” alongside the ways she was responding to Joshua and the situation at hand. She began questioning herself by thinking, “is it my classroom management? Is it me? What’s going on here?” Charly admits feeling “challenged” to identify the problem. She considered “it wasn’t everyone” she was struggling with, but rather an “isolated” situation, and subsequently reasoned it couldn’t be a classroom management problem. In her thinking, Charly recognized that “Where there’s one problem, there’s always going to be more” and if she honed in on only Joshua, the groups’ “reactions” to future misbehavior would only “empower more bad choices” in others. Because she had many thoughts but no understanding of the actual problem, Charly decided to turn to her “own data to try to figure out what was maybe going on…” Pulling out prior

administrative evaluations, she found that while she had scored “accomplished” in management areas, her student “engagement” demonstrated “progressing” ratings. “It’s my job to make sure they’re engaged,” she said. Based on Joshua’s misbehaviors, her students’ reactions and her evaluations, she determined she had a problem of “engagement.” Reminiscing, she notes:

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I started thinking about my engagement in the classroom, and maybe there’s just something that he’s not being able to connect to. He’s not feeling that want or need or desire to be engaged in whatever it is that we’re doing.

While she primarily thought about Joshua, the evaluative data along with her observations led her to ask a personal question that would in fact address all students. She wondered, “What is it that I could be doing differently that could make my kids want to learn and be doing what they need to be doing in the classroom?”

Believing she had “enough reasons” to identify her problem of practice, Charly reached out to the school administrator. “After all,” she says, “I figure there’s always something or someone that knows more than me or has been through more than I have, and I need to get some piece of advice to learn.” The principal felt “challenged” by Charly’s felt need, believing she was doing well and didn’t have a problem. She thus responded, “I’ll see what I can try to come up with for you.” Unfortunately, Charly found she was too “busy” and never responded to her query.

Still having this unresolved problem, she turned to her district assigned mentor for guidance. Ms. Trust, reminded Charly of her “college of education supervisor.” She served as “another set of eyes” in the classroom, focusing on what the novice teacher needed and meeting with her for a minimum of 30 minutes weekly. Charly specified, “I really wanted to focus on…engaging students…so that I could improve my practice and increase student learning.” The mentor taught her how to break down the evaluation rubric and access district literature to know “exactly what it looked like for a teacher at the different levels that they were scored on.” Charly asserts, the resource allowed “me to pinpoint what it was I was actually doing, and then see where it was that I ultimately wanted to be, and try to start thinking about different strategies

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to get myself there.” Ms. Trust would also brainstorm strategies with her for increasing engagement, and offer ideas she had used in her days as a classroom teacher. As Charly

employed strategies, the mentor would complete the district rubric during informal observations to assess her students’ engagement.

Despite teaching 5th grade, Charly also turned to the primary teachers at her school. Because of their experience there, she regarded them as a tremendous “resource.” The teachers were “really big on conscious discipline,” as a method for “focusing students on “positive things” over negative behaviors. While Charly did not know a lot about it, she understood conscious discipline strategies could be integrated throughout instruction and within the curriculum guidelines, ensuring it “didn’t take too much away from the curriculum.” Charly gratefully notes “they [the teachers] stayed sometimes with me after school,” teaching her several strategies.

One strategy in particular made a notable difference in her problem. Using “the Mystery Student,” she gave everyone a number that matched a peer at the start of class. Students spied on their assigned classmate throughout the period, briefly jotting down “something great” they had done. While Joshua remained conscious to not let his “guard down” ensuring he would maintain a “tough guy” persona, Charly began to notice the “sparkle in his eye” and “half smile” when peers noted positive performance on his part. She states, “kids became more forgiving of things” he and others would do, focusing on each other’s positive attributes and remaining on task. Charly identified the strategy as “effective” when Joshua’s “outbursts started to be a little bit further in between.” However, admittedly on days when the district would be on school

premises, she would not apply the technique, causing “setbacks” in his behavior. Identifying the rationale for not using the strategy on those days, she says, “I didn’t want to have to defend what

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it was that I was doing.” She lived in fear that they would disapprove, stating, “I just wanted to try to make everyone happy and try to keep the job, doing what I’m supposed to be doing…”

While tips from Ms. Trust and other teachers were the “biggest” resource, Charly says she “researched” strategies and “tried them out.” Specifically, she explored “Kagan Structures.” Having attended “extensive training” on them during her final internship, she says, “It’s all about engagement.” To her disappointment, students did not respond to them and she continued to “get marked down on engagement” by her mentor. Charly questioned the practice, stating, “…What is going on?" I was told, "This is what you do. This is how they’re engaged."

To reflect on what worked, Charly notes, “I definitely journaled.” In the journal she would write, “this is what I tried on this day…what could I try the next day?” On days that were “really rough,” journal entries were “really, really long.” At first, she says, it was “an outlet” used therapeutically to get “different feelings and frustrations on paper.” Consequently, on days that were great, Charly would write less, but read more. She started reflecting on her “tough day” entries to see them from “a different lens.” She would tell herself, “Oh, you know, if I wasn’t so frustrated that moment, maybe I could have done this.” Envisioning “different ways to solve different problems,” she also “made lists of different things that [she] could try.” The journal, she notes, served as a strategy to help her understand the problem.

Charly attended several required district trainings throughout the year, including reading and science trainings, as well as CHAMPS for classroom management. Despite the fact she felt they were not directly aligned with her needs, she could strive to “weave different ideas” into addressing her “engagement type” problem. Excitedly she says, “Sometimes these trainings would lead into other things. Even if it was a reading training, it might offer me results in one way or another!” However, upon returning to school to share learnings with colleagues, they

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often would say, “Oh, we don’t ever do that here.” Disappointedly, she would think, “Man, back to the drawing board because I can’t do this.” A particular CHAMPS strategy she applied was giving students food when they worked. Assuming they came from an “impoverished situation” Charly says, “It’s amazing what they would do to try to earn that skittle or that animal

cracker…” During an in-school, district-led PLC focused on student engagement, she found herself continuously raising her hand to “ask questions.” She recalls, “trying to latch on to anything that they were saying,” believing “I needed to make sure that my kids got the best possible instruction, and… that I’m meeting my own goals for myself.”

Charly did not “want to rock the boat too much and do anything too crazy before testing,” because she felt she didn’t “really know what’s allowed and what’s not.” She obediently

adhered to the ELA “sliding scale” criteria of “independent reading, shared reading, guided reading and writing,” using required sources to guide instruction within the “certain timeframe.” One day, Charly was reminded of an instructional strategy teachers had used when she was an elementary student. The method had drastically increased her engagement as a learner, and thus, she felt it could increase her students’ engagement as well. If only she could stray from

curriculum resources to read books such as Number the Stars and Charlotte’s Web, she thought. With a soften expression, she recalls, “Teachers would sit there and have us all listen… I loved that. As a kid, I loved that.” She similarly considered reading the texts aloud, but knew all too well that the daily read-aloud time was most often sacrificed for remediating or reinforcing concepts students found challenging. As such, Charly chose to disregard the idea. She recalls telling herself, “Oh man, I’m tired of this,” but could not allow herself to stray from district and school guidelines.

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The fourth quarter of the year finally arrived and testing ended. Charly had continuously tried and tried strategies to no consistent avail, still asking Ms. Trust to observe for student engagement and her improvement using the district rubric. But now Charly needed change. The curriculum calendar specified “historical fiction” as the new genre of focus in reading. She decided to abandon the school’s curriculum text and adopt an entirely new perspective, thinking:

All right, this testing is done. I’m going to do whatever it is I need to do to get these kids engaged and Joshua is going to find himself through literature…I don’t care how I’m going to make this happen, but I’m going to make this happen. After reading aloud the first chapter of Number the Stars, her conscience forced her to halt. She feared disapproval once again, thinking students would take out copies of the book in front of Ms. Trust and she had not consulted anyone on the decision. Seeking consent, Charly asks Ms. Trust, “What do you think about me using another platform to meet the standards of our fifth grade ELA block?” Her “permission” to use a book study was all Charly needed to make her feel unstoppable.

Result. From day one of reading the text, Charly began to experience a different class.

They arrived daily, asking “Are we going to read Number the Stars today? What’s the plan?” Per the mentors’ documentation, the novice observed “the engagement of the kids” began to increase. Charly, however, was challenged by the fact that she didn’t have enough copies of the book for the entire group. As the book study proceeded she says, the students began “wanting to be right with me, and…moving their desks a little bit closer” until eventually, they had formed a close “circle around” her. It was “amazing to see all of them.” Particularly amazing however, was Joshua who began “raising his hand to answer questions” for the first time in the school year.

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One day, Charly lost her voice. Still planning to read the book, she asked, “Who can I get to read this out loud for me?” Looking at Joshua, she says, “Hey, buddy! Do you want to read this chapter out loud today?” In disbelief, Joshua responds, “You want me to do that?” Charly asked him if he felt “comfortable to stand and read.” “I feel great about that!” he replies. Class enthusiasm was at an all-time high, and she felt motivated to teach “across the curriculum” geography and social studies. Students began taking out books on World War II and asking the librarian for “copies of Number the Stars to read it” with her. While “observation” served as her primary form of data to assess increase in the students’ engagement, changes began to surface in their assignments as well. Joshua in particular, started to make a change in this area. He no longer stood “on chairs, dancing and singing” and arguing with Charly, “I’m not doing that. That doesn’t matter. I don’t care about that.” Rather, he would “just start doing” his

assignments, and turning them in “partially complete,” but nonetheless, showing effort. Charly could not believe how “crazy” their response to the strategy was. She says, “They didn’t want to change classes and could sit there and talk about this forever.”

To her dismay, the book study ended on a Friday. With three weeks left to the school year, Charly scrambled, wondering how she could ever “beat this.” She states, “I knew that the