I know that this is probably boring for about 90% of you to read, but I use it as my weekly reflection paper for class (give or take a few snarky comments) plus it helps me gather my thoughts about the week and how I just might succeed as a teacher.
It amazes me how fast the weeks go by. I remember, like it was just a few short hours ago, staring into the endless abyss that was Monday, now here we are on Friday and another week is over.
Okay, let's start with Monday when my supervisor came to observe me (no warning), showed up late (which I found rude), stayed for about 30 mins (good thing I didn't have them write first), gave me a satisfactory on my dress (I was in slacks and a blouse for heaven sakes!), and then left with about 50 mins still left in class. Yes, I am sure she got a great idea how I was teaching.
All in all it was a good week. It had its up and downs but nothing too shocking. We are in the final wrap up of Gatsby, in fact we just have to finish the movie and they have to write their final essay. It has been a good learning experience for me. See, I know this book inside out. I have been preparing to teach it for about a year now, well I put things in action the past few weeks and found what worked and what didn’t. There are times that I felt we rushed the novel, but I also know that if we dragged it out anymore that it would have been too much. There is so much about that book, or any piece of literature, that can’t be gleaned in one reading. Maybe I was trying to get them to see too much- I don’t know.
One thing I did learn this week is that movie days were made for teachers, not students in mind. I had avoided showing them the movie, but finally decided that they needed the extra help to understand the whole novel. Well let’s just say in the past two days I have gotten more accomplished than I ever hoped and got a jump start on our next unit. The kids seem to finally get it, it is like the movie is filling in the last piece of the puzzle.
I am tired of cell phones in class. The school has a rather strict policy of no cell phones in school- well no one seems to follow that. It doesn’t matter how many times I ask for the phone to be put away it always seems to come back out. Yet another illustration on how far I still have to come on classroom management. You know it is funny, up to this experience I would have said I had classroom management down. It had always been a strong point for me when I taught before, but now I feel like I am back at the starting gate. I asked my cooperating teacher about it and she mentioned that all her classes are like this right now, she even has a hard time trying to get them to behave. We went over some new ideas and I hope that they might work. The kids were good today, so maybe that is a good sign. We shall see.
I am finally learning all their names. This has been a struggle for me, but day by day I learn a new name. I am developing relations with them too, which has been nice. It is like they are finally seeing me as their teacher. After four weeks I am glad that has come.
I did have one setback this week, well a few actually. We had been preparing for a test on figurative language for quite a while. They had been studying it since September, we had done activities each week focusing on identifying it, and the day before the test I handed out one more activity to work on. The test is difficult, with that in mind I allowed them to use their notes and the worksheet we had done previously. I was saddened to see that about 70% off the students failed the test. I don’t know what we could have done differently. Needless to say, we rearranged grading on that test and most of the students ended up being okay, but it was still hard.
I also had a student accuse me of loosing her paper. She couldn’t find it in the basket where their work is stored (we don’t return work to the student because of situations like this) or among my no name papers. She was quite rude when I mentioned that she would have to rewrite it. She had insisted that she was in class that day and that she had written the paper. I finally had to show her my records and pointed out that she was absence because of cheerleading that day and that I had not received a paper from her.
1 comment:
I understand your frustratation. Here are a couple of things I do that may help you out. I won't be offended if you don't do what I do.
My school also has a strict no cell phone policy. The reason it works here is because administration totally backs us up. Any time I catch a student with a cell phone I take it away and give it to their vice principal. They keep a log of each time this happens with any teacher. At a students first offense they get a warning. Second offense, a parent has to come get the phone. Third offense is a suspension.
Now I know as a student teacher you cannot change administration. But maybe you could try something similar, minus the suspension, in your own classroom.
There is also a teacher next to me who records "cell phone" as a students' score any day they are caught using their phone. It counts as a zero.
As far as returning papers, I don't want to be responsible for keeping all their stuff. So I stamp every assignment before returning it. That shows it has been turned in and recorded. Then it is their responsibility to hold on to their work and let me know if I'm made a mistake in recording. That has been very helpful to me.
I promise, it does get easier. Bad days still come, but with more experience you learn how to deal with them. Most of the time.
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