They could duct tape you to the chair if they wanted...

So, maybe I lied about that whole "posting tomorrow thing." But, whatev. I'm posting now right? I am currently in week three of student teaching, but this post is about week two (aka last week). This weekend (I might be lying again), I will post about the week I am in the middle of right now. Then, we will be all caught up and life will be happy!

Last week was the first full week of school for the students. Jodi had meetings both Thursday and Friday so I was left to lead teach. I was terribly nervous to be in front of the students and attempt to teach them something. Standing in front of a room of 25 eighth graders that could (as Jodi kindly reminded me) duct tape you to a chair if they wanted to, is terrifying. It is much easier to talk about teaching from a theoretical perspective (i.e. in education classes at Cornell), but it is an entirely different ball game to actually do it.

Thursday went really well. The students were well behaved and my lesson seemed to be effective. First, we played a game with nouns. Students worked in pairs to see who could list the most nouns in five minutes and the winning pair received candy. Unfortunately, two students lied about how many words they came up with. The things students will do for a piece of candy... After that, we went over their vocabulary sentences. Each week, they get ten new vocabulary words and have a test over them every Friday. In order to learn them, they write sentences using the words each week. We were also supposed to work on their writing assignment, but we ran out of time. It is funny how 50 minutes can feel like forever as a student, but it goes by so quickly as a teacher.

Friday was a bit of a different story. The students were not horrible, but they were not as good as the day before. First, we had their vocabulary test (which many of them did very well on, thankfully). After that, we worked on their persuasive paragraphs. I gave them about half an hour in class to work on their assignment so they would not have as much to do over the weekend. Instead of working though, many of them just socialized. I trained to reign them back in, but I could not manage to do it. What I should have done is switched the noun game to Friday and worked on their writing on Thursday. Unstructured time on Friday does not seem to be very effective, particularly when it is at the end of their first full week.

I will be lead teaching even more lessons during the third week- even a few of my own creation (ah!). Plus, Kerry Bostwick, my education adviser at Cornell, will be visiting Wednesday-Saturday. She is planning on observing me on Friday. I am excited for her to be here and meet Jodi! I am also nervous for her to observe me teaching, but I think the feedback will be very helpful. Student teaching is all about learning and more people I have to learn from, the better.

Over the weekend, I spent a large amount of time by myself because Katie works a second job on Friday and Saturday night. This is not nearly as depressing as it sounds, however. I successfully ordered a large pizza for myself and have been eating it for lunch all week. Plus, I skyped with a bunch of Cornellians, which is nice. Sunday, Katie and I went to lunch with my principal, Fred Lugo, which was also fun. Then, we went to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This is not really Katie's type of movie, but I liked it a lot. All in all, life is good in Arizona!