Adventures in Student Teaching Week 8

You know, I have a much better perspective on how I am doing as a teacher when I am in the classroom. After my melancholy reflective post of last week I feel energized and ready to tackle the last seven weeks of this adventure.

This week was good. I feel so much more comfortable in the classroom than I have in weeks and a lot of that is due to my cooperating teacher.

I have loved working with Ruthie. She has forced me to look outside the box and my normal methods of teaching and become a better teacher. She gave me such a boost of confidence this week. She gave me my midterm review and it was overwhelmingly positive. I asked her about it and she said that if she said in on paper, she could say it too my face. She then sat down and told me that I was the best student teacher she had ever had. She went on to explain that where I am now is the level that her other student teachers had left. Because of this she feels she can push me farther and work on refining what I need too. Ruthie then went on how she wished they could keep me at Highland next year, but staffing currently prevents that. It was a great talk and I walked away feeling better about the job I was doing. Apparently I haven't been the only one that Ruthie talked to. A couple of teachers and some of the administrative staff stopped me this week and talked about what a good job I was doing, it was just the boost I needed.

The students have also been great this week. I have found I am able to joke a little with them now and not have to pull back as I had before. They still work on what they need to and they come to me now for questions and problems on their essays. It has been great to work with them on their papers this week and I have enjoyed seeing them rise to the challenge as I prepare them for the AP class they will all be taking next year.

This week still had it's problems. I have one student I am really worried about. She hadn't been here for two weeks, she ended up with a failing grade last term, and doesn't seem ready to work on what she has missed. I tried to talk to her, but she doesn't want to talk. So for now she knows my door is open. That is all I can do.

I also have one student who just decided he didn't want to write his essay on Thursday. No reason, just didn't want to write it. I have to admit it was discouraging when he only turned in a paragraph. During the class period I kept coming back to him and asking him how I could help and how his thesis was going, but he would just shrug and move on. This is one of the students who I caught coping a paper last term so I find myself second guessing my decision now. I just don't know what to do with him.

We also had a great lesson on the holocaust and the atomic bomb. The students are reading Night and Hiroshima this next week and I wanted to introduce them before they got too far into the books. I had a PowerPoint on both of these subjects and we talked about it before. Then I was impressed at their reactions as we went through the descriptions written and the horrible pictures. It brought about a great conversation on why we read these books and why they were written. They impressed me with their insights and the stories they shared. It was a brilliant class.

So, yes things are getting better. I have rearranged my schedule a bit so I find it a tad more manageable and I have found it is essential, for me, to get to the gym every day and have just that 40 minutes to myself. I know there will still be moments during my last 7 weeks of this adventure where I am ready to cry or tear out my hair- but I think that the good moments will far outweigh the bad.