I can’t believe it, but it’s over. Student teaching is finite – caput – done, done, done! A lot of people in my group are ecstatic, some are sad, and I think I’m a little in between. I am pretty excited to be done doing all the work for free…and paying for the grad school credits. I won’t lie – there’s also a kid or two I’m ecstatic about getting a break from. But for the most part, I am a little sad. It actually doesn’t feel that real yet though. Maybe it won’t hit me until Monday, when I can wake up whenever I want and not go searching for clean work clothes.
But for now, I think I’ll need the weekend just to recover from my last few days. Not recovering from students – but from the massive amounts of sugar they all brought in and that I ate. My C.I. was amazing enough to plan parties for me in every class on the last two days. (Block scheduling means I would need Thursday and Friday just to see every student) We told all the kids to bring food, and some really took it to heart.
What’s funny is that the AP classes barely brought anything, but my low level – Good Lord they know how to throw a party. I had a girl bring in crab legs. Not just crab legs, but crab legs + old bay + melted butter + a side of tylenol to protect me from the “future headache” she thought all the food would give me. It was awesome. Not to mention the cupcakes, cakes, chips, pizza, dips, sour patch kids (my favorite candy), and Diet coke (my addiction). I may or may not have gained 2 pounds in 24 hours, but I’m not even mad. It was definitely worth it.
My favorite part though was when I got to say goodbye to the kids. For each class I made paper plate awards for all my students, and got to make a big show out of giving them ridiculous awards for things they did through out the semester. Most were jokes, and the best ones were actually in my once atrocious 5th period. I mentioned it previously, but over the course of the semester these kids went from being dreaded, to being my absolute favorite class. Yes, they were chatty and incredibly hard to focus, but they were so good and so funny that it made their bad days bearable. I spent the most time making their awards, from “Most likely to be a lawyer” to “Best impression of Fantasia.” And what was awesome was their reaction.
My other classes liked it, but 5th period acted like I had given them all Grammys. The kids would shush each other while I was talking about each award, and then made a big deal about laughing and clapping when I revealed each winner. I made sure everyone got one too, so by the end they were yelling out names and trying to guess who the winner would be for each. They were also the only class to give me handwritten cards, requested photos with me, and on their way out each and every girl gave me a hug. It was the sweetest and most confidence boosting day I’ve ever had. Any questions of me not being good at this, or not reaching some kids was wiped clean by the end of the day. Especially after 6th and 7/8 pd when two different boys wrote and performed songs about my leaving. (It’s amazing what they can do with the tune of American pie)
The next thing to think about is the job search, but I think for the moment I’m just going to revel in the end of an amazing semester and enjoy the last memories I had with my C.I. and the students. Very rarely do people have a two days that amazing, and I want to enjoy this feeling for as long as it lasts.
So my grad school program has this initiative started about providing a “stress relief” for student teachers. I’m assuming a donor got the idea that we need a break…which we do…and that a good way to get it would be to give us a choice between taking a day off for yoga classes OR mindfulness classes. While very well intentioned, and sweet that they were concerned for us – if you really want to provide a stress relief, maybe make Thanksgiving break come sooner. Sleep > Yoga.
I woke up this morning, and jut going two days without planning, grading, or thinking about all the things I have to do in the upcoming days feels AMAZING. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching – but I also love sleep. And catching up on my tv time. And hanging out with family and not making lists in my head of things to be copied/graded/read. If my grad school really wants to give us a stress free day, a random Friday off would be way more relaxing than any class.
My one plug from this week though – just finished teaching the kids a really cool lesson on the Media and Congress. In our previous unit on Elections, we spent a lot of time focusing on traditional media like newspapers, tv, radio, internet, etc. So for this lesson, I thought I’d take a different stance and focus on how Congress uses new social media like Facebook and Twitter to create their own publicity. I differentiated with Academic and AP, but in both I have to say it was one of the most interesting lessons yet. The kids LOVED it, and even in my lower level classes we had a really great discussion about social media and targeting voters. Essentially all I did was print out copies of two facebook pages – one was Nancy Pelosi’s and the other Senator Mark Warners; and then two twitter pages – Rep. Eric Cantor and Sen. John McCain. Combine the handouts with questions to accompany the lesson and you’re set!
Last post, where I talked about getting into the groove of things and feeling comfortable – totally jinxed myself. Got to school today and dealt with a variety of issues that made me a hot mess come first period.
1. To begin with, my first period AP Human Geography class had a unit test today and I needed to make copies, print their scoresheets, and get ready for what they do after.
2. Went to go print the test and of course – every printer in this school is broken.
3. Ran around to the hidden printer on the opposite end of the school…20 minutes later I have my tests, ready to be copied.
4. Finally get to the copy room, not only is there a line but someone aka a whole department of teachers, had decided to make their copies for what seems like the entire year – and take up all the copy machines. I mean really – do you have no planning period during the day, and actually need 200 copies of 10 different assignments. REALLY?! And all of these truly need to be printed right before 1st period? I mean, yes, I was running late – but come on people!
5. Luckily grab a copy machine…that didn’t jam – a first, I might add….and get to class in time with the tests and bubble sheets. But oh wait, I’m not done.6. Pass out the test, which my CI had made for me, and realize that some of the questions didn’t cover content from the book. And I missed them in my lectures. Enter my major apology to the kids & having to look at the data this afternoon and figure out which questions to take off.
My CI sent me an email telling me to not worry, it happens and take this as a learning experience – isn’t she awesome? It’s just embarrassing messing up so stupidly in front of the class/her. Plus I probably looked frazzled from my morning adventure in discovering how important it is to make copies the day before.
Lesson learned – make copies the day before, and look at the assessment ALOT while planning. Ugghh Backwards Design, I thought you were just a theory until today.
So in the past few weeks, I definitely feel as though I’ve gotten into the groove of teaching. And the funny thing is that my 5th period class – once the bane of my existence, is now my favorite.
As prepared as I am starting to feel, there’s definitely one situation I still don’t feel 100% ready for. I had a student recently transfer into my class, and ummm. Well, to begin with “RJ” is a male transgender in the process of becoming a female. No biggie in of itself – except, oh wait, he’s extremely confrontational with male students. And he’s got an IEP for being emotionally disturbed. And included in that IEP is his ADHD. And he’s emancipated. And he’s homeless.
This poor child has so many things working against him outside of my classroom, that it’s hard to control the catastrophes he creates inside of it. My CI and I are working very closely with the SPED educators and his caseworkers, but there are times where his behavior is so out of control I’m legitimately at a loss. Yet, you can’t help but sympathize with him, knowing that his outbursts could easily be a result of him not having a place to sleep the night before, or his hormones, or the lack of ANY support system outside of school.
We are lucky in the fact that he likes us – and so his outbursts are far less in number than other teachers’ rooms. However, that doesn’t limit them to 0. Guidance is considering putting him in an online class instead, but I worry how the lack of social interaction could effect him. But maybe if it’s for the good of the class, it’s something to be considered.
So the query is – anyone have experience with this one? Considering that his outbursts tend to be offensive towards males, sexual in nature, and highly disruptive – I’m clueless.
ps – On the bright side, a non-profit here in town thinks he will have an apartment provided for him in a week or two, so we’ll see what affect that has.
They never tell you in grad school how to handle bomb threats to your school. Yesterday we had a bomb threat at our school, causing them to evacuate the school for three hours. Cops were called in, and I have to say – they really did thoroughly check the school. Once the teachers were allowed back in, all the cabinets and doors in our classroom were left open from the search.
The whole ordeal was crazy though. The threat was called towards the end of the school day, which meant that AT FIRST – the kids thought it was awesome. An excuse to miss class? Few of them are upset about that. It wasn’t until the school day was over, and the police still wouldn’t let anyone leave that they got mad. Since the parking lot for students and teachers were so close to the building, no one was allowed to get their car and leave until the whole thing was cleared, which was about 5pm.
Talking about it with my students today, it was so funny to hear their reactions. The consensus was “that sucked,” especially the ones who had to leave their backpacks and belongings in the school overnight. (Kids who left before the building was re-opened had to leave everything in the classroom they were in when the evacuation alarm went off) I personally was freaking out since I had left car keys and my cell in the class, not realizing that it was a real alarm and not just a practice drill.
The one crazy thing though was how quickly the news spread outside of the school. For the most part, the kids are inseparable from their phones – meaning that unlike me, they were smart enough to have their phones when the alarm went off. So when the administrators evacuated us to the football field, the kids were on their phones calling parents, updating their facebook statuses, and texting everyone and their mom about it. Phones have come a long way since I was in high school, and it was such a start contrast from any similar drills I went through. It’s both really cool and scary how much technology connects people now.
The other day we had parent teacher conferences – 8 solid hours of mania. So much happened, I really don’t know where to begin… Going into the event, everyone, including my CI, warned me that none of the parents we wanted to see would come. My reaction? There’s no way. The day before I personally called 24 different sets of parents/guardians/family members, and after hearing several “of course I’ll be there’s,” I figured I would prove them all wrong. The day of, we sat at our little booth, and I patiently waited to prove everyone wrong. Parents did come by – AP Parents that is. Hours were spent talking to parents whose students had 98’s, 99’s and even the occasional 89 in our classes. But the parents I called? Not a single one showed up. Out of all our classes, only one student showed up from a non-AP class – and that wasn’t even a student who really needed to come. The rest were all parents from AP’s, who coincidentally all had kids acing our classes.
I don’t particularly enjoy being proven wrong, but this instance was even more exacerbating. Every parent I called had a student who had either an F or a D in the class. Since government is a class that students HAVE to pass in order to graduate, I thought there might be a little motivation there for parents to want to help there kids succeed. Yet, no one showed. I understand that some people have to work, or maybe lack transportation – but there are ways around it. Call, email, send a note in – help us out here! I’ve got several kids who are emancipated, or even homeless and I think that situation is one where I can understand that odds are no one can, or will come in for them. But come on, parents who are there and able to come in – at some point, the responsibility is on them. As a teacher, I can effect what’s going on in the confines of my classroom, but I can’t make your kid do homework, or study, or anything outside of it. Success in school is something that extends out of the classroom, and getting parents cooperation makes that easier for teachers and students. With these parents that won’t come in, or return calls, I’m at a loss. My teacher is used to teaching in this school system, and has gotten pretty used to it, but my skin just isn’t tough enough for it yet. It does bother me, and as she so eloquently told me while trying to convince me to let it go, “Beyond knocking on their doors, what else can we do?” We have done everything in our power to contact them, and I guess the ball is in their court. But even now, thinking of how unfair it is to those kids, it still does bother me. Is there a way to encourage their involvement, or is it really something I just need to give up on?
Oh, and the other non-frustrating thought – it is so weird seeing how much kids and their parents look alike. Yes, that sounds obvious, but it really is the weirdest thing when a parent walks up and you feel like you’re looking at an older version of your student. It’s like living in Benjamin Button world.
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.
So going to extracurricular events for students is more than paying off. For one, the kids love it. I went to a senior night for some of my girls who played field hockey, and they were so excited. I went in with my teacher, and the girls cheered for us from the sidelines and some of the other students who were spectators even came over to say hello. Plus, and this is the really awesome part, the principal came over to talk to my teacher and I and dropped the “what are you doing after graduation” question. And when I told him I was moving, but hoped to move back he smiled and said “well I’ll make sure and keep that job open for you.” SO AWESOME!!! Our principal has made comments through out the year about how important it is to show the kids we’re there for them on multiple levels, and I think going to their games and performances was something tangible he could look at. Yes, I guess I’ll never know if he would ever offer me something now, but I’m going to take the hints as a sign that he thinks I’m doing a good job.
The other good thing: totes pumped about my lesson plan tomorrow on George Washington’s Farewell Address. I know it’s nerdy, but I was able to incorporate one of my new favorite sites, wordle.net (Link leads to a good TeachersFirst review on how to use it) Because some of the low reading levels in my class don’t allow me to let the kids loose on the entire farewell address and expect understanding, I first created a paraphrased version of the speech, making it easier for them to understand. We’ll read the modified address aloud popcorn style, and then fill out a analysis sheet as a class. (for the analysis I’ll be using APPARTS) We’ll go through the analysis as a class, and then the kids will write their own “farewell address.” The students will write a letter to younger grades at the high school, telling them what legacy they think they’re leaving behind and then focusing on major advice they want everyone to know. Here’s where the wordle comes in – I made a wordle of the Farewell Address, and the kids need to incorporate at least 5 words from the wordle into their own work. Hopefully this will get the kids into it, and engagement levels will be up!
Ugggghhhh Teacher inservice days. Professional development can be a really awesome thing, but there are times where it can be a very bad, horrible, no good thing. For example, our school district gave the kids Columbus day off and reserved it as a day for professional development for the staff. Up to date, our school’s track record is awesome. Our last ones had the interesting tech stuff I talked about a while back, and I left feeling like I got a lot of really great resources out of that one. This past workday started with potential. To start, we had a guest speaker come in and talk about formative assessments – which was actually pretty good. (As a student teacher who JUST took a class on formative assessments, some was repetitive, but I get that this is for the collective whole…plus it really was pretty good) The speaker had a lot of info, good examples, and I left feeling like I got something out of it.
Then, came lunch, which is always my favorite time. Sidebar – the people in my social studies department are awesome. I only hope that when I get a job, i’ll be lucky enough to find a team like this. It’s so funny how commiserating with people can make everything better.Back to the point – after lunch came misery.
The next three hours of my life was filled with workshop training on how to use the new macbook pros all the teachers got. Yes – quite aware at how incredibly LUCKY they are to have gotten brand new laptops in this economy. The problem was just there was no way out for people who already know how to work a macs, or anything productive for them to do. Yes – I’m a mac snob, BUT instead of forcing me to go through the same training as people who’ve never touched them, why not provide more in-depth training on how to incorporate mac technologies…i.e. Garageband and imovie…into the classroom? OR, even better – let me help people who don’t understand during the workshop. I think the tech gurus were a little hesitant to let anyone besides themselves trouble start or help people perform basic functions, but those of us familiar with it could have helped! I mean come on, the student teachers are all mid 20’s and have grown up with computers. If anyone could assist, it’d be us. (Plus all the student teachers had to take a tech class in grad school and conveniently all have macs)
I’m noting how bitter I sound in this post, but I think my hang up is just that if I’m going to be there and can’t plan – I really want to learn something, and I felt like our time could have been better used. I wish there was a way to poll teachers and ask around to see what workshops they do and don’t want. Do some schools do that or is that unheard of?