student teaching....really hitting the ground running, with a few bruises
So much has happened this week. Since last weekend, I feel like my work has only been piling up, no matter how much work I accomplish. Moreover, I have been spending about 10 hours a day at school, coming home and continuing to do more work. I know I am a bit behind on lesson planning, but I feel like I can never catch up. I am beginning to get stressed and feel very bogged down by work. I am seriously considering using one my personal days in the near future, once I feel that I am all caught up. Either way, I hope that this weekend will be an opportunity to get myself up to speed on everything.
Tuesday and Wednesday was the first day teaching my lesson and for the most part, being in the classroom by myself. Ms. Tempesta was in the room on the first day to help me where needed (per my request), but by A2 she left and did work in the other room. For the most part, students were very good and very receptive to me authority. I really did not experience any discrepancy in their behavior as I had in the past (while subbing). I will say that even though I taught the whole lesson with Ms. Tempesta in the room, there is so much more pressure when I am with the kids on my own. It takes so much more out of me to know that these students are my responsibility, and anything that happens, I need to handle.
There have been many points during this week that I have questioned teaching. I have asked myself “is this really something I want to do for the rest of my life?” or “Is this really worth it?” or “why am I here?” Answers to these questions came not once, but twice this week. Last Wednesday, I had just completed the second day of Founding Fathers material. After my last class, I was feeling extremely fatigued and questioning how well the lesson went. One of my students came up to me and said something to the effect of “Ms. Korman, I really like the way class ran today. I loved how you were constantly asking us questions. It made it fun because Derrick and I were having a competition to see who could answer them first. Plus it really made me feel like I knew a lot!” Now, something I have been working on is getting students to infer information, rather than just give it to them. This comment came at such a perfect time, because I had been wondering how I was doing with that. I was overjoyed to hear such a positive response from a student, especially since the lesson was basically just taking notes.
The other moment that made me realize that this is the profession I desire to pursue came this morning. First, a quick back story: Every day students are instructed to look at the smartboard for their directions (where to turn their homework in, their daily assignment to complete, etc). On test days, I like to have an inspirational quote on there for students. On their last test, I had a quote from Vince Lombardy; “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. The students Colby/student come up after class.”
This morning one of our students left his agenda book in class. He is one of our special education students who tries extremely hard in class to keep up. When Ms. Tempesta found the agenda book, she opened it to see who it belonged to. What she found written with Sharpe on the inside of the front cover (and shared with me) was that quote. These two scenarios made me realize that everything I am doing is so worth it.
On Wednesday I video taped myself teaching during B6. I must say that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I was very pleased to see how much of my lesson was not so much giving information, but rather asking questions to have students infer the information. Most of what they learned came from them answering questions. I never realized the extent to which students can “construct their own knowledge” until I watched this in action. I would say that at least 50 to perhaps 60% of the “lecture,” was the students answering questions (not including all the movies and questions they answered on their own), and the other part was me giving them information most of my lesson was asking questions.
One thing that I noticed in my video as well as was commented on by another student teacher is my use of verbal clutter. I use the words “okay” and “umm” and “alright” and “so….” a lot. Ms. Tempesta told me to instead stop and think about what I am going to talk about next. A little pause is good, both for students to clear their minds to hear the next thing, as well as let them digest already learned material. Another area for improvement I noticed in the video was to make sure I am responding to students when they answer a question. Meaning I should take what they said, paraphrase it so that a) the thought might be clearer to all students and b) to make sure I fully understand what the student is trying to get across. I noticed a few times when a student would answer, I would just go onto the next thing. Granted, I do believe some of the times was due to the fact that I didn’t really understand what the student was saying, even after having them repeat themselves. Still, it an area for improvement.
Today I learned how important those first five minutes of class are firsthand. I had to be out of B8 at the beginning to take of some business in the office (story to follow). Because my CT was gone for the day, I had the student teacher who was there to observe me start the class off with their daily assignment. Those first five minutes where I am giving instructions on what to do with their homework, helping students who were absent, getting in late work, answering questions, taking attendance were lost. I figured I would handle all that at the end of class (they could just turn everything in then). However, it was amazing how much that lost time effected the dynamic of the rest of class. I stopped several times while teaching for questions such as “I have my vocabulary, can I turn it in?” and “what do I do with my homework?” at least five times and “I don’t have this worksheet.” I even had students turning in homework while I was teaching, which normally NEVER happens. I was so flabbergasted I did not say anything to the student. I knew that if we had those standard first five minutes of class, all these disruptions would not have happened.
Now, about the reason why I could not be in the classroom to start class. During B7, a self-contained history class is in our room during my planning. I was out of the room for most of the class, printing and working on some things downstairs in the workroom. When I came back up to the classroom , the self-contained class had already left for lunch (the door was closed and the light was off). One of my students was waiting for me outside the door, working on her homework. We got into the classroom and for whatever reason I started digging through my purse and noticed my cell phone was missing. I kind of muttered to myself “that’s weird, I thought I put that in here.” Then my student informed me that one of the students from self-contained had come back after everyone left, went into the dark classroom, and left again. I had an idea of which student that was (the same one who tried to steal one of my student’s jackets). I asked for a description of him and sure enough it was the student I suspected. Just to make sure I wasn’t about to falsely accuse anyone of stealing, I searched my purse again, asked my students (there were two now in my room) to look in my purse and see if they saw anything, then flew out to my car just to make sure I did not leave it there. After checking my car with no luck, I went to the vice principal and reported it stolen and told him the student I had reason to believe did it. He said he knew the name and asked me to wait in the office while he went and got him. I had to run and get the student teacher ready to start my class, and then came back to the office. When I returned I saw the vice principal and another administrator standing there waiting for me with the student. Sure enough, he had stolen my cell phone. We went into Mr. Wright’s office, the student returned the cell phone and apologized after the administrator told him to. I asked him if he did anything with my phone such as text message or call anyone, and the student said “no, I don’t even know how to use those things.” The thought crossed my mind if he was going to go ahead and steal from me, why not take my keys, or my credit card, or my check book, or my money. Or, if he did take my cell phone, why not text and make my life miserable (particularly because I do not have a text messaging service). Either which way, Mr. Wright had me step outside of the office, and informed me that they take this very seriously, and he will have at least three days out of school suspension and will be charged for theft (so I will probably need to go to court with this kid). I now have to research the worth of my cell phone to determine how serious this offense was.
Overall, this has been a very tough, very trying week on many levels. My patience has certainly been tested, and my energy has been worn thin. However, little things throughout the week, like the two I wrote about, have truly made this a worthwhile experience, and I look forward to having a classroom of my own.
Tuesday and Wednesday was the first day teaching my lesson and for the most part, being in the classroom by myself. Ms. Tempesta was in the room on the first day to help me where needed (per my request), but by A2 she left and did work in the other room. For the most part, students were very good and very receptive to me authority. I really did not experience any discrepancy in their behavior as I had in the past (while subbing). I will say that even though I taught the whole lesson with Ms. Tempesta in the room, there is so much more pressure when I am with the kids on my own. It takes so much more out of me to know that these students are my responsibility, and anything that happens, I need to handle.
There have been many points during this week that I have questioned teaching. I have asked myself “is this really something I want to do for the rest of my life?” or “Is this really worth it?” or “why am I here?” Answers to these questions came not once, but twice this week. Last Wednesday, I had just completed the second day of Founding Fathers material. After my last class, I was feeling extremely fatigued and questioning how well the lesson went. One of my students came up to me and said something to the effect of “Ms. Korman, I really like the way class ran today. I loved how you were constantly asking us questions. It made it fun because Derrick and I were having a competition to see who could answer them first. Plus it really made me feel like I knew a lot!” Now, something I have been working on is getting students to infer information, rather than just give it to them. This comment came at such a perfect time, because I had been wondering how I was doing with that. I was overjoyed to hear such a positive response from a student, especially since the lesson was basically just taking notes.
The other moment that made me realize that this is the profession I desire to pursue came this morning. First, a quick back story: Every day students are instructed to look at the smartboard for their directions (where to turn their homework in, their daily assignment to complete, etc). On test days, I like to have an inspirational quote on there for students. On their last test, I had a quote from Vince Lombardy; “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. The students Colby/student come up after class.”
This morning one of our students left his agenda book in class. He is one of our special education students who tries extremely hard in class to keep up. When Ms. Tempesta found the agenda book, she opened it to see who it belonged to. What she found written with Sharpe on the inside of the front cover (and shared with me) was that quote. These two scenarios made me realize that everything I am doing is so worth it.
On Wednesday I video taped myself teaching during B6. I must say that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I was very pleased to see how much of my lesson was not so much giving information, but rather asking questions to have students infer the information. Most of what they learned came from them answering questions. I never realized the extent to which students can “construct their own knowledge” until I watched this in action. I would say that at least 50 to perhaps 60% of the “lecture,” was the students answering questions (not including all the movies and questions they answered on their own), and the other part was me giving them information most of my lesson was asking questions.
One thing that I noticed in my video as well as was commented on by another student teacher is my use of verbal clutter. I use the words “okay” and “umm” and “alright” and “so….” a lot. Ms. Tempesta told me to instead stop and think about what I am going to talk about next. A little pause is good, both for students to clear their minds to hear the next thing, as well as let them digest already learned material. Another area for improvement I noticed in the video was to make sure I am responding to students when they answer a question. Meaning I should take what they said, paraphrase it so that a) the thought might be clearer to all students and b) to make sure I fully understand what the student is trying to get across. I noticed a few times when a student would answer, I would just go onto the next thing. Granted, I do believe some of the times was due to the fact that I didn’t really understand what the student was saying, even after having them repeat themselves. Still, it an area for improvement.
Today I learned how important those first five minutes of class are firsthand. I had to be out of B8 at the beginning to take of some business in the office (story to follow). Because my CT was gone for the day, I had the student teacher who was there to observe me start the class off with their daily assignment. Those first five minutes where I am giving instructions on what to do with their homework, helping students who were absent, getting in late work, answering questions, taking attendance were lost. I figured I would handle all that at the end of class (they could just turn everything in then). However, it was amazing how much that lost time effected the dynamic of the rest of class. I stopped several times while teaching for questions such as “I have my vocabulary, can I turn it in?” and “what do I do with my homework?” at least five times and “I don’t have this worksheet.” I even had students turning in homework while I was teaching, which normally NEVER happens. I was so flabbergasted I did not say anything to the student. I knew that if we had those standard first five minutes of class, all these disruptions would not have happened.
Now, about the reason why I could not be in the classroom to start class. During B7, a self-contained history class is in our room during my planning. I was out of the room for most of the class, printing and working on some things downstairs in the workroom. When I came back up to the classroom , the self-contained class had already left for lunch (the door was closed and the light was off). One of my students was waiting for me outside the door, working on her homework. We got into the classroom and for whatever reason I started digging through my purse and noticed my cell phone was missing. I kind of muttered to myself “that’s weird, I thought I put that in here.” Then my student informed me that one of the students from self-contained had come back after everyone left, went into the dark classroom, and left again. I had an idea of which student that was (the same one who tried to steal one of my student’s jackets). I asked for a description of him and sure enough it was the student I suspected. Just to make sure I wasn’t about to falsely accuse anyone of stealing, I searched my purse again, asked my students (there were two now in my room) to look in my purse and see if they saw anything, then flew out to my car just to make sure I did not leave it there. After checking my car with no luck, I went to the vice principal and reported it stolen and told him the student I had reason to believe did it. He said he knew the name and asked me to wait in the office while he went and got him. I had to run and get the student teacher ready to start my class, and then came back to the office. When I returned I saw the vice principal and another administrator standing there waiting for me with the student. Sure enough, he had stolen my cell phone. We went into Mr. Wright’s office, the student returned the cell phone and apologized after the administrator told him to. I asked him if he did anything with my phone such as text message or call anyone, and the student said “no, I don’t even know how to use those things.” The thought crossed my mind if he was going to go ahead and steal from me, why not take my keys, or my credit card, or my check book, or my money. Or, if he did take my cell phone, why not text and make my life miserable (particularly because I do not have a text messaging service). Either which way, Mr. Wright had me step outside of the office, and informed me that they take this very seriously, and he will have at least three days out of school suspension and will be charged for theft (so I will probably need to go to court with this kid). I now have to research the worth of my cell phone to determine how serious this offense was.
Overall, this has been a very tough, very trying week on many levels. My patience has certainly been tested, and my energy has been worn thin. However, little things throughout the week, like the two I wrote about, have truly made this a worthwhile experience, and I look forward to having a classroom of my own.