Midpoint, Yay!

Long time, no blog!  If you don't already know, I've wrapped up my experience in my 2nd grade class and moved onto my special education placement.  I've posted a video for your viewing pleasure to check out how I feel about my new placement!

 

Fun Lunch

Very Important Lesson #1 (for all of you future interns out there):

You want the students to like you, right?  It doesn't matter.  Do not promise anything to your students (good or bad) that you cannot follow through on.  I'm talking about consequences and rewards.

Yesterday the school gave us (my lead teacher and me) six free passes to a school fundraiser at a local rollerskating rink.  Keep in mind that we have thirty students and I have a bleeding heart for each one of them and 80% of our school population comes from low socio-economic backgrounds.  How is that fair?  Anyway, I had to choose six kids but, I love all thirty and couldn't decide.  I decided to play a fair game of "Eny Meny Miny Moe" to choose the six because it just wouldn't be right to simply hand them to six kids who had a good day (that sounds wrong, but they all have bad/good days sometimes!).  Well, the game didn't go so well and we had kids flipping desks, bawling their eyes out, and pouting at their desks.... Not what I expected!

What did I do then?  I offered them a fun lunch, of course.  A fun lunch (I was making it up as I went) is where you get to have your lunch with the teacher (me, duh, because I'm cool) and watch something cool/not exactly what the school would deem "educational."  To qualify for this fun lunch, you had to be a good sport about not getting a pass.  Some kids were like, "I'll be fine, I have my own allowance!" and others were freaking out like the world would end earlier than December 21st.  

Did I look at the school lunch menu before making that promise?  Did I ask my lead teacher if it was okay?  Did I find out if they could even take lunch out of the cafeteria (maybe a strange thing to wonder, but I guess with Title I schools there are some rules about free/reduced lunch)?  Did I plan ahead and pick out something to watch during Fun Lunch before this morning?  Did I think about whether I'd actually want to spend an additional 45 minutes with them in the event that we had a bad day?  The answer to all of those questions: No.  

Luckily, after talking this morning to my lead teacher, she was all for it and helped me get permission from the cafeteria and track down a "special" garbage bag from the friendly janitor.  Then, while my lead teacher was talking to the students this morning, I polled them and asked what they like to watch at home and found some "Funniest Animals" Animal Planet video on Netflix (thank goodness that worked on the district computer, nothing else does!) based on their requests.  Luckily, pulling Fun Lunch together last minute was easy.

Then I saw what they were bringing into the classroom for lunch.

Remember how in elementary school you'd get at least one or two nasty lunches every once in a while?  They smelled like baby poop and looked like grey/off-white slop?  Unfortunately for me, they had my least favorite school lunch EVER; turkey/gravy/mashed potatoes.  It stank up the room and it is almost unbearable, even as I type!  What was ironic was that they were saying that my food smelled bad and was "so stinky" (it was a delicious vermicelli noodle-shrimp-red pepper-garlic-curry-stirfry thing from Tastier Than Takeout).  Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it was my nightmare lunch...  Once the first student walked in, I had visions of "gravy" all over every desk, rubbed into the brand new rug (circle time), smeared on the walls... Although I'm exaggerating, reality wasn't too different from my vision of gravy terror.

The "special" garbage bag had a hole somewhere and of course, being the genius that I am, I let it sit on the doormat while students tossed their half-full milks and trays of mush (apparently, they aren't fans of turkey+gravy+wannabe-potatoes, either!).  There were not enough paper towels in the world to clean up the spilt milk because the rug was being stubborn and absorbing the milk instead of letting the crappy paper towels sop it up!  

Aside from all of that, though, I really liked having the students eat lunch with me.  We all laughed at the silly animals and ate together and I was sad when it was time for them to go to gym (which they call "PE" here and if you refer to it as "gym" they look at you incredulously and say, "HUH?!").  I think we all felt appreciated by one another and I wish I had more time in the classroom so we could do it again!

All Signs Point to...

----->  Depressing

1. I keep making simple mistakes while completing a job application process and I feel that it makes me look like a sloppy and hasty candidate.  All mistakes are unintentional, but I still feel embarrassed.
2. I had to look up my loan information while filling out a funding application for the job mentioned above (which has to do with #1)... It's not pretty, folks.  I'm looking at about $60,000 worth of debt!  
3. A death in my education cohort has really made me think about how much time I've spent in class and not getting a chance to really do something or make an impact in the classroom.  We're so close and I'm disappointed that someone will not get that opportunity.

----->  Hopeful

1. I am really getting along with my lead teacher; we had a serious chat one morning last week and we have both changed for the better.  I'm sure she is feeling great, too!
2. It's my last week of "full control" in my first placement, which is sad, but exciting!  I cannot wait to completely finish and start my career!  I love teaching and I know it is what I'm meant to do.
3. The weather has been beautiful since Friday and it's supposed to stay that way all week!
4. I'm looking forward to events I've planned for the weekend (I wish there were little smiley faces for me to post here, but blogger doesn't have that option, I guess!).
5. I recently did something for myself (outside of the classroom) that I'm hoping will have a positive impact on my future!

I ended on a positive note because I truly am feeling positive.  Yeah, it's scary to think that when I get hired, it will take two years of an average teacher's salary to pay back my loans, but I'm okay with saving and living simple for a little while!  My education was worth it.  

I've really started to think about how much I'll miss my current students and I'm happy that I've had this experience; ups and downs.

An Update!

I've been a bad, bad blogger.  According to my page views, it doesn't matter much, so I don't feel that bad!  

I hope that everyone in my cohort is enjoying their placements; I'm currently in my 2nd week of "full control" and I'm ready to move on to my next placement.  Time has passed so quickly and I cannot believe that I only have 17 days left in second grade!  After having this experience, I cannot wait to have my own classroom and I am disappointed I will have to wait until at least mid-January to make that a possibility!

My first placement has been kinda rocky at times and I've been trying to stay calm, cool, and collected.  Ironically, I have received a lot of compliments about how calm I am (seriously!) and a lot of staff say that they're surprised about how easy going I seem to be.  I personally have a lot of confidence in how I'm performing/teaching and my supervisor is providing so much positive encouragement and advice when I need improvement- I'll have to send her a huge thank you card when this is all over! 

Unfortunately, my lead teacher and I do not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, so our relationship is strained.  She tells me each day what to teach and how to teach it, no creativity allowed.  Each time I have an idea that is shot down, I write it in a journal to save it for when I have my own classroom because even if my ideas really are bad, I'd hate to lose them before getting a chance to try them!  I'm not truly gaining "full-control" experience, so I'm just trying to stay positive and hope that things will be better in my next classroom.  If you're wondering, yes, I have had discussions with her (and my supervisor) about how I'm feeling, but I feel obligated to keep my mouth shut because this is a learning experience and it is ultimately her classroom. 

I'm staying positive and enjoying my students!  Believe it or not, I like lesson planning- I've been trying so hard to write all of my lessons on the weekend so I can have more time during the week to adjust them after teaching each lesson.  Plus, if I get it done on the weekend, I can relax a little at home after school.

Time to grade the math tests from earlier today!

On Explaining Tragedy

In other words, a second grade teacher's guide to explaining 9/11.   

This morning when I walked into class, my teacher said, "the math lesson is ready, right?  And you're ready to explain 9/11 to the children?"  Uh, what?


I'm student teaching on the west coast, but I grew up in Southwestern Ohio (should "southwestern" be capitalized?).  On the morning of the attack on the twin towers and pentagon, I was in my seventh grade history class when the principal asked teachers to turn on the televisions over the intercom.  I didn't really understand what was happening, but I was pretty nervous when people started spreading the possibility of random attacks on towns throughout the U.S.  You know, the corn fields of Morrow are an obvious target...  Anyway, I started to really understand when I went to Papaw's house and tried watching TRL, but instead found only 9/11 coverage/tributes.  

I have heard from my friend that grew up in California that 9/11 wasn't as scary for him because of location and awareness.  A lot of his classmates weren't in the loop immediately about 9/11 because they hadn't watched the news before leaving for school.  In his experience, Northern Californians were a little nervous that San Francisco was a potential target.

Given my different experience with 9/11 (considering my teacher was an adult at the time of the attack), I really didn't think I would be an appropriate candidate for explaining 9/11.  Did I mention she didn't want me to really talk about the terrorist attack/death aspect of the events?  Don't get me wrong, as a teacher, no matter my background I should be able to represent an unbiased view of historical events, but having no time to research appropriate presentation methods along with NO IDEA HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT TRAGEDY to students who are seven or eight year olds...  I just think that this would have been a great "modeling" opportunity for my lead teacher.

So what did I do?  I illegally hopped on the computer and researched "9/11 for kids."  The best link that I found was a link to watch the Nickelodeon video "What Happened? The Story of September 11, 2001" which I watched a little bit of.  I have to say it's pretty good, so you should check it out.  Unfortunately, a twenty minute video is unacceptable for a brief discussion (there was no extra time allotted for this discussion, thank you) so I wrote down a few tidbits by watching the beginning and end.  I started out by asking students if they knew what day it was ("Tuesday!").  I then explained that it was 9/11 (a.k.a. Patriot Day, if you haven't heard) and asked if they knew what 9/11 was ("it's when the war started and the soldiers went away to fight!").  Eventually, I explained the Twin Towers, terrorists, and the memorial.  Then I explained that it is important to remember events like this because we want to come together as a community to protect each other.  We "remembered" 9/11 by singing Grand Old Flag, Star Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle Boy, This Land is Your Land, and God Bless America.  We didn't really have much of a discussion, now that I think back on this morning, it was more like an "info session."  Even though some students do not eat breakfast before school, at least they had a large helping of American patriotism to start their day!

Next time, I'll definitely take care to come up with more of a discussion and structure some in-depth understanding- I'm sure there is at least ONE picture book out there explaining 9/11... (September 11, 2001: Then and Now, A Place of Remembrance: Official Book of the National September 11 Memorial... Sorry they're all informational, I can't find any "cheap" picture books)

I havae a ErasRe in my malpfe. Srooy"!

Today marks the beginning of my fourth week in my general education placement!  This is the week before "mid-point" since there 10 weeks in each placement (special education and general) and there are a lot of assignments that I'm working on.  I have to put up 2 bulletin boards, create a substitute binder, write about three classroom procedures/routines.  There is probably more that I'm forgetting, but oh well!  Maybe next time!  In the last week I recently picked up Math along with Shared Reading and Read-Alouds.

Math is not so bad, but I haven't quite mastered think-alouds to my lead teacher's liking.  She usually interrupts my lesson (before I've even moved on!) and will provide more examples.   Sometimes this is annoying, but honestly I've thought about it and I'm just being grumpy- obviously she knows what the kids need and I'm learning!  We teach math out of a Houghton Mifflan book- chapter by chapter (we also teach reading/phonics with Houghton Mifflan...).  The kids seem to get it, mostly.  There are of course, some obvious strugglers, but they receive extra help from aides and the teacher.

Shared Reading is this daily activity where the kids sit on the carpet and learn a song, poem, or read a big book.  They come with pre-made lessons that create goals like learning how to question the author, making inferences, and using pictures or headings to interpret the text.  It's not bad and the kids like the songs.  We usually do read-alouds first thing in the morning, so they're either really interested, or, really NOT!  

For Read-alouds, we have to select books from a list of "mentor texts" which are boring and terrible books pre-selected by some "expert" in the district because they model certain styles or genres of writing (example: personal narrative, descriptive writing, etc.).  So far the worst book that I've read was My Mother Has a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray....LAME!!!!  Sorry, it could be the best children's book ever, but in my opinion it was the most terrible book I had ever read ("it has rhythm," my lead teacher said).  They really like authors like Donald Crews, Cynthia Rylant, and others are frequent flyers of this "mentor text" thing.  If I can't be interested, how could the kids possibly love this stuff- FYI they hated that book, too. 

*In case you were wondering, the title of this entry was determined by a letter a student wrote to their mother after my lead teacher caught him chewing a pencil eraser.  Gross!  

**Another gross thing:  another kid can almost move his front tooth a full 360 degrees!  It creeped me out!!!

Word Vomit!

If you're a student teacher, you understand!  Nothing personal towards anyone I work with, just a whole lot of junk I need to get out of my system because of how hectic and fast-paced everything is.