This was probably the most exhausting week of student teaching thus far. First, the week felt slightly off since we did not really have school last week and getting back into the swing of things was difficult. On Monday, I started taking over the afternoon class, which I am pretty happy about. I believe I have mentioned a few times how much of a struggle time is and having more time with the students is definitely a good thing. However, behavior is a real problem in the afternoon. When I get them, they have just come from recess, lunch, and specials, meaning they are pretty wound up. Plus, they are not really accustomed to having me in the afternoon and are struggling a bit to remember our expectations are the same for both the morning and afternoon classes.
On Thursday, we took all of the junior high girls to an assembly at the high school called "Tomorrow's Winners." They started this program last year and basically it is all about empowering young girls to become future leaders. I was pretty excited about this because Jodi told me that they were really good last year and the girls really liked them. Plus, this sort of thing is something I am really passionate about would like to be a part of something similar in the future. However, with all of this build up, I was severely disappointed. The first 3/4ths of it was fine; it could have been better, but it was tolerable. However, the last presenter made me want to dig my eyes out with spoons (to borrow a phrase from Jodi). She was the owner of Hickman's Eggs and it, quite literally, was 45 minutes of egg propaganda mixed with support of the Republican party/ideals. The only thing remotely empowering was the fact that company was started by women; I am guessing that this lady has donated money to the organization that hosts Tomorrow's Winners because I do not know why else she would be allowed to present. Plus, Jodi told me that she presented last year as well, meaning my 8th grade girls have heard this lady, not once, but twice.
Friday was, by accident, my first day of teaching all of the classes. The day started with Mrs. Bjorklund moving all of her stuff into our (Jodi and me) classroom. Why would three teachers be sharing a classroom? Well, to make a long story short, Options (the behavior kids that are not in a normal classroom) needed an extra classroom. Since Jodi and I only teach part of the day, it made sense for Mrs. Bjorklund to move in with us and the 8th grade math teacher to move into Mrs. Bjorklund's old classroom. Then, the Options kids get the old math teacher's room. Needless to say, this whole process is pretty frustrating and stressful for everyone involved; I am just glad that Jodi and I did not have to move. She has been teaching 25 years meaning she has a lot of stuff in her classroom.
So, Jodi and I taught our morning class as usual and Mrs. Bjorklund's second class comes in after that. She was feeling pretty stressed with the move and just intended to show them a movie for the day. Jodi offered that I could help her since I was available and I will be teaching this kids eventually anyway. Therefore, we just decided I would teach all the morning classes the same thing I did for my own class. About ten minutes into class number two, Jodi comes back and says she needs to talk to both of us for a minute. As it turns out, Mrs. Bjorklund's son has been puking at pre-school and she needs to go pick him up. Now, I am not just helping with the morning classes, but I am teaching all the classes all day. Wow. I thought I would have a little more notice and more of a plan before I was teaching all day by myself, but you know, it honestly could have gone much worse than it did.
All of the morning classes watched an episode of The Twilight Zone called “Talking Tina.” We stopped the video every few minutes and let the students write predictions about what they thought would happen next in the show. The students were very engaged and really seemed to enjoy it, despite how incredibly creepy the doll is in the show. In the afternoon, all of the classes took their vocabulary test. In the class I normally teach, my students then worked in groups of four writing a paragraph describing a cheeseburger. They were told to describe it as if it was the best burger they ever had; someone else is going to read them and decide which one is best. The winners will receive ding dongs on Monday. In the other two classes, we stared working on adjectives and went over the "helpful hints" handout that we have for each part of speech. Then, they wrote five adjectives describing themselves and the rest of the class guessed who it was. Thankfully, I had already taught my class about adjectives earlier in the week and did the same activity with them, so I did not have to do anything new.
There were definitely behavior problems, but nothing that got too out of control. I also struggled because I only knew a few names in each class, which makes it hard to teach at this point in the year. Overall, I would say it was pretty successful for my first day and without much notice. However, at the end of the day, I was completely exhausted. I was already wiped from the rest of the week and this just took everything I had left. I completely crashed at home after school and basically laid around the house all of Friday night.
Oh, I know I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be going to the high school for a day for observation, but the plans fell through. Hopefully, I will get to go there soon and meet some of the high school students and teachers.
On Saturday, Fred (our principal) had a gathering at his house for all of the teachers and anyone they wanted to bring. I went with Katie and we had a really good time. There was a lot of great food and it was fun socializing outside of school with my co-workers. It is still weird to be on the "teacher" side of things, but I am adjusting. Today, Katie and I went to see Easy A. I definitely recommend it- it was so good. I had really high expectations for it and it exceeded them.
On another note, only three weeks until fall break and I will be back at Cornell for one week. I am really missing my friends and life at Cornell right now. I am learning a lot while being out here, but I am really not ready to give up my college kid life just yet. Looking forward to getting back to "normal" for a little while and not thinking about teaching. I think it will be just what I need to give me the energy for the rest (and most difficult part) of my student teaching.
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