Today was my first teacher workday sans professional development, and I have to say – best thing ever. With all the grading, planning and cleaning that needs to be done before the first quarter ends, I don’t know what I would do without today and tomorrow off.
It did fly by though – it’s odd how 8 hours just flies by, and how much I still feel like I need to work on. What’s funny is that my grad school program has this new focus on handling stress, and are requiring us to take one day off to go to a workshop to get advice/techniques about handling stress. After my workday, I got to say – if they really want to help me with stress, all they need to do is give me another day off like that and let me plan/grade/get things done.
It’s been so hard finding time on weekends/after school to get these things done, since I feel like I need to give myself time too. Personally, I think that if I didn’t give myself time to chill out or have some substance of a personal life, I’d be the worst teacher ever. But with the job, that I’m starting to realize never ends, it’s hard to find the balance of a personal life and getting work done for school. During the week, it’s hard – by the time I get home, all I want to do is be a vegetable/do something relaxing. On the weekends – I want to be outside (the effects of a windowless classroom) doing anything but schoolwork.
Instead of writing the typical post, I think its’ fairly important that I sit and reflect on what I couldn’t do without in student teaching. There are a few things – caffeine, running, Google, my CI – and most importantly – Google. Completely important enough to be mentioned twice.
Why twice?
For one, my subject area is one I haven’t studied in years. I got a major in it undergrad, but it was one of those things that I finished early and then truly never thought about again. I think, in all honesty, this was a combination of being burned out and jaded. After interning in a politician’s office, I’ve never been able to look at politics in the same endearing light I once was. Which means that after ignoring the topic for three years, I’m totally clueless as to the current events of politics now. This is where google comes in. What in the world did people do before they could quickly type in names, dates, questions and terms into a little bar in the top of their computer and get a million answers? I think I use this function at least 15 times a day.
The other integral Google function would be GoogleDocs. Because of the constant switching from personal to school computer, I’ve found that GoogleDocs are the only way to seamlessly transition from device to device. Not to mention that their presentation function makes it incredibly easy to imbed pictures/videos/etc. (Extremely helpful when planning a unit on political campaigning, where I’ve made a show of just various campaign video ads) It makes it a million times easier too to make something on the internet and not have to worry about uploading or crazy downloads to occur – very time saving too.
The last function has gotten me crazy props from the principal whose whole motto is teaching these kids 21st century skills. Google has this awesome function that allows one to create a website tailored to whatever you want the kids to study. So what I did was create a site about political ideologies, embedded videos, pictures and content-specific text, and then had my students do a very scaffolded web quest. It was such a great way to get some of them engaged that I think this could definitely be something that I use more often. Some of these kids know more about the Internet than most teachers, and it was crazy how easy direction giving was for that assignment. The kids took to it so quickly that I ended up finishing the assignment way earlier than I anticipated. Knowing this I can edit my pacing next time, and now know I can also put more information on the site since they handled it so well.
After my last post, I went into teaching 5th period with the mindset that something had to give. My teacher made a comment that really made me think when she told me that “someone is bound to be miserable in this situation – either it’s you from having to work with their behavior, or it’s them having to choose between toning it down or getting referrals.” It sounded so detached, but at the heart of her point, she was right. At the end of the day, I don’t want to have to dread going to school or dealing with a specific class. And if that means cracking down at the expense of their short term happiness – so be it. All of this is fresh in my head until I went into class – and they were uncharacteristically well-behaved.
It’s weird how jarring good behavior can be when you’re not used to it. The entire time I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, since there was just NO way they would be good the whole class. But they were. Not only were they good that class, but they were good for the rest of the week. I’m not sure yet what to attribute it to, but I think it’s due in part to three things.
1. We gave them their interim grades and when some of them saw how bad they were doing, I think/hope it put them in line.
2. Two of the ringleaders have been absent for the past few days…I feel bad reveling in it, but in all honesty – I secretly rejoiced when I saw their name on the absentee list.
3. I stopped getting bogged down with their behavior, and tried just to have fun with the good ones. I had to kick out my first student from that class last week, and instead of letting it be obvious that I was frustrated, I just told myself “I don’t care” and tried to still have fun with it.
I’ll keep tabs as to whether or not this maintains, but I’m starting to think that this might be a class that has their good days and their bad days. In addition to being highly affected by the presence of other students, and my own moods. Who knows, maybe there’s hope for them yet!
This weekend was my school’s homecoming, and truly and honestly – awesome. All the teachers in my department encouraged the student teachers to go to the game and dance, telling us hilarious stories of years past. Promises of epically bad wardrobe decisions, crazy dancing, and a hometown football game was all it took to convince me and my friend “Mike” to go. Both of us have a few football players and cheerleaders in our classes, and it was so cute how excited they were about us going to the game. That whole week I had students asking if I was going, and promising to come over and say “hey” at the game Friday. When we got there, the kids were beyond pumped to see us. It’s funny how different they act around teachers outside of the classroom. There’s definitely an awkwardness for a little bit, almost like they don’t know how to react to seeing the human side of teachers. One kid made a comment about how weird it was to see us in jeans…I guess it’s the little things that surprise them?
Even better than their reactions at seeing us at the game was their reactions at seeing us at the dance. At least 5 groups of girls ran by screaming “Heyyyyy Ms. B,” and almost every student I had stopped by for at least a second or two just to say hey and see if I was enjoying myself. My school has had a reputation in the past for having some wild dancing (think rap video – on crack) and I think every kid that came up to me wanted to know what I thought of the dancing, and what it was like at my own high school homecoming. The response from the students was just so overwhelmingly positive, that I wish the other student teachers had found time to come. Even better, the principle of the school came up to Mike and I repeatedly throughout the night, talking about the dance and how happy he was that we came. Best moment of the night – him telling us that showing up to these events tells him we care, and is step one in getting a job in our county or school after student teaching. Helloooooo opportunity! I think Mike and I freaked out at that comment the second he walked away. Before the night was over, the principle and teachers went out and danced for the last song, which was the ever so appropriate “Love in this club.” There’s a good chance there’s a picture of us on facebook somewhere dancing to it, but it was worth it. I’ve never seen a dance crowd clear out faster or, tragically, any students laugh that hard before. But the kids loved it, and my hope is that come Monday, there will be more of a relationship established with a lot of the students who were there and I really got to talk to.
I do have to say – the clothes and dancing were better than I imagined. Joan Rivers would have had a fashion police field day.
Exhausted.For the past three weeks, I come home from student teaching and sit. I literally just sit on my couch and sit. Doing nothing but sitting and thinking of what kind of caffeine there might be in my house. In every way possible did I underestimate how exhausting standing for 8 hours a day, planning, teaching, grading papers and being a very awake individual can be. Don’t get me wrong – I love it. But I legitimately question how anyone taught before the advent of Redbull.
Someone else mentioned this, but beyond exhaustion – it’s so weird getting used to not seeing daylight for 8 hours. We’re in an older building, and our classroom is sans-windows. Not to mention that old buildings = wack heating systems. I’ve found that layers of clothing is the only way to function for that long.On the bright side – this week I taught my first solo lessons and was observed by my University Supervisor. Luckily, everything went awesomely AND the behavior problems with my problem student were a non-issue. She responded beautifully with positive attention, and has actually been incredibly well behaved ever since. I’ve made a point of going out of my way to say hello to her everyday and ask how she’s doing, and she’s started opening up a lot more while simultaneously behaving better. Proactive behavior management has definitely been effective in these past few weeks!