Full Immersion Begins
Okay. It is very likely that I will NOT continue this, so I hesitate to put it online if I’m only going to have time to write it once.
This week was brutal. It was the start of the new semester which for me equals a number of things:
1) My first time introducing myself to a class on the first day as their teacher. This was hard! I debated between how much to tell them about myself and what to say about why I was only going to be there for a few months (they tell us to take ownership over the classroom, but if the students know you are just the student teacher who is only going to be there for a limited time then they will walk all over you!)
2) I realized how much I still do not know about the school that I work in. So many students had questions about what to do in certain situations and I had no idea what to tell them, I didn’t even know the names of some of the staff members that they should talk to. I know their faces, and I talk with them but when put on the spot I could NOT identify for the students who they were. That was rough.
3) This was my first experience with younger grades. Last semester I only had grade 12 students in my two blocks of Law and they were awesome. Well - by the end of last semester they were awesome, I had to earn my way with them as well and they brought different challenges (attitude, engagement levels, etc). Grade 9 and 10s are SIGNIFICANTLY different. I knew this going in, in my head I knew that they would be different - but knowing something and experiencing it are two very different things. I took it hard. I had trouble keeping them focused, keeping their attention, keeping them quiet, asserting myself. In my grade 10 class I had to kick TWO boys out to have chats with them. On the first day! Though I’ve developed decent relationships with both of them since then.
4) Planning has consumed every second of every day. I have been sitting doing only things I enjoy for the last hour and it’s the first time I’ve taken a break (it’s been incredible).
I had a lot of success last semester with my classes and methods, I was doing well on a consistent basis and feeling good at the end of the day - and I had free time! The point of this is not to broadcast my personal successes but to say that this week has been hard on me. It has been hard for me to struggle through each class period. I left the house on Wednesday just feeling awful - my roommates even commented on how down I looked. I’ve had some minor successes since then, the last two days have been medium, but I still have a LOT of work to do this weekend to make sure that next week my students are actually LEARNING something. One week down - and many more to go.
Also a bitch ass hoe lady just came and yelled at us for parking in the visitor parking spots all the time. She has a point because we do park there probably more often than some other people but NONE of us are parked there right now and she’s yelling at us for taking up all the spots. Idiot. Also she sounded like she might be mentally disabled. I hate her. I never park there so it isn’t an issue…but I still hate her. B.A.H.
This week was brutal. It was the start of the new semester which for me equals a number of things:
1) My first time introducing myself to a class on the first day as their teacher. This was hard! I debated between how much to tell them about myself and what to say about why I was only going to be there for a few months (they tell us to take ownership over the classroom, but if the students know you are just the student teacher who is only going to be there for a limited time then they will walk all over you!)
2) I realized how much I still do not know about the school that I work in. So many students had questions about what to do in certain situations and I had no idea what to tell them, I didn’t even know the names of some of the staff members that they should talk to. I know their faces, and I talk with them but when put on the spot I could NOT identify for the students who they were. That was rough.
3) This was my first experience with younger grades. Last semester I only had grade 12 students in my two blocks of Law and they were awesome. Well - by the end of last semester they were awesome, I had to earn my way with them as well and they brought different challenges (attitude, engagement levels, etc). Grade 9 and 10s are SIGNIFICANTLY different. I knew this going in, in my head I knew that they would be different - but knowing something and experiencing it are two very different things. I took it hard. I had trouble keeping them focused, keeping their attention, keeping them quiet, asserting myself. In my grade 10 class I had to kick TWO boys out to have chats with them. On the first day! Though I’ve developed decent relationships with both of them since then.
4) Planning has consumed every second of every day. I have been sitting doing only things I enjoy for the last hour and it’s the first time I’ve taken a break (it’s been incredible).
I had a lot of success last semester with my classes and methods, I was doing well on a consistent basis and feeling good at the end of the day - and I had free time! The point of this is not to broadcast my personal successes but to say that this week has been hard on me. It has been hard for me to struggle through each class period. I left the house on Wednesday just feeling awful - my roommates even commented on how down I looked. I’ve had some minor successes since then, the last two days have been medium, but I still have a LOT of work to do this weekend to make sure that next week my students are actually LEARNING something. One week down - and many more to go.
Also a bitch ass hoe lady just came and yelled at us for parking in the visitor parking spots all the time. She has a point because we do park there probably more often than some other people but NONE of us are parked there right now and she’s yelling at us for taking up all the spots. Idiot. Also she sounded like she might be mentally disabled. I hate her. I never park there so it isn’t an issue…but I still hate her. B.A.H.