Time flies when you're having fun
Where has the time gone? So many things have transpired since my last entry. Allow me to divulge but a few:
-I chose a student and spent a day last week following him around to all his classes for three reasons. First, I wanted to see how he acted in other classes compared to how he acts in English. Second, I wanted to see other teachers' styles. Last, I wanted to experience a day in the shoes of my students. Going from class to class, dealing with different personalities and trying to retain all the information given is a taxing experience. In order to give you a better picture of what that day was like I will have to expand it and make it its own entry though.
-Yesterday I used a classroom discipline technique I learned in my methods course. Two girls were passing notes during class (quite openly as well, they sat right in the front and made no attempt to have some sort of tact in their communications) and I was faced with a question. How should I deal with this situation? Should I quietly take the note from them and then speak to them about it after class? Perhaps, but that leaves me open for an encounter should one of the girls protest the fact that I am taking their note, which would slow down the class as a whole and that doesn't seem fair. Another option was to just ignore it, but I did not want that kind of behavior to go unaddressed. So, I decided the best option was to ignore it while I was directly instructing and saying something while they were working in groups. Once they were in groups I went up to the girls and said, "I love to write as much as anyone, but we do not pass notes during class. It is disrespectful." They then shot right back a whole mess of words that I was not even trying to hear. I just repeated, in a calm and even manner, "We do not pass notes in class." Again, a barrage of excuses. Again, I repeated "We do not pass notes in class." Finally, after realizing I was not going to back down, they conceded. Victory.
There are more, which I will be inserting from time to time, but that's enough for now.
As for how my life has been so far, after 5 1/2 weeks of student teaching, I can say with confidence: fufilling.
The days fly by so fast that it's difficult to keep track of where I am what I am doing. However, there is one observation that I have made that seems to make a difference in how much students look forward to being in a specific class and how much grief they give the teacher. So much of this job is working with people of all ages, especially young people. Doing this job well requires an incredible amount of people skills in order to keep yourself and others motivated. In order to be certified to teach I need to take three state mandated tests, complete my undergraduate degree and complete a plethora of tasks and requirements. All of these assessments measure your proficiency in your content area, pedagogy and content-specific pedagogy. Somehow, though, I wish that in between my "HIV/AIDS Workshop" and my Methods course there was a "How to be Nice Workshop." Granted, I am an extreme novice. As green as broccoli. But if you treat students nicely, with a warm smile and a genuine 'hello', it changes learning from a chore to an enjoyable experience.
-I chose a student and spent a day last week following him around to all his classes for three reasons. First, I wanted to see how he acted in other classes compared to how he acts in English. Second, I wanted to see other teachers' styles. Last, I wanted to experience a day in the shoes of my students. Going from class to class, dealing with different personalities and trying to retain all the information given is a taxing experience. In order to give you a better picture of what that day was like I will have to expand it and make it its own entry though.
-Yesterday I used a classroom discipline technique I learned in my methods course. Two girls were passing notes during class (quite openly as well, they sat right in the front and made no attempt to have some sort of tact in their communications) and I was faced with a question. How should I deal with this situation? Should I quietly take the note from them and then speak to them about it after class? Perhaps, but that leaves me open for an encounter should one of the girls protest the fact that I am taking their note, which would slow down the class as a whole and that doesn't seem fair. Another option was to just ignore it, but I did not want that kind of behavior to go unaddressed. So, I decided the best option was to ignore it while I was directly instructing and saying something while they were working in groups. Once they were in groups I went up to the girls and said, "I love to write as much as anyone, but we do not pass notes during class. It is disrespectful." They then shot right back a whole mess of words that I was not even trying to hear. I just repeated, in a calm and even manner, "We do not pass notes in class." Again, a barrage of excuses. Again, I repeated "We do not pass notes in class." Finally, after realizing I was not going to back down, they conceded. Victory.
There are more, which I will be inserting from time to time, but that's enough for now.
As for how my life has been so far, after 5 1/2 weeks of student teaching, I can say with confidence: fufilling.
The days fly by so fast that it's difficult to keep track of where I am what I am doing. However, there is one observation that I have made that seems to make a difference in how much students look forward to being in a specific class and how much grief they give the teacher. So much of this job is working with people of all ages, especially young people. Doing this job well requires an incredible amount of people skills in order to keep yourself and others motivated. In order to be certified to teach I need to take three state mandated tests, complete my undergraduate degree and complete a plethora of tasks and requirements. All of these assessments measure your proficiency in your content area, pedagogy and content-specific pedagogy. Somehow, though, I wish that in between my "HIV/AIDS Workshop" and my Methods course there was a "How to be Nice Workshop." Granted, I am an extreme novice. As green as broccoli. But if you treat students nicely, with a warm smile and a genuine 'hello', it changes learning from a chore to an enjoyable experience.
posted by A Neophyte English Teacher at
5:37 AM
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