I miss her..

So today marks the 3rd of 4 days in a row that my teacher is out of the room for various things and I really miss her. I need her guidance, I need her to be there as a stable figure, I just need to not be around subs who think I haven't stepped foot in a school in my life. Ugh, I absolutely know that I am low man on the totem pole in this situation as I believe I have mentioned in this blog before but I have actually written a couple of lesson plans and taught in a couple of classrooms in 3 and 1/2 years of college and 3 years of summer internship teaching middle school students I do know how to take attendance. The kids were great today I just feel kind of icky and miss my teacher. Sorry for such a whiny post I think I just have a case of the Mondays :-)

-The girl on the half desk

Citizenship in Action

Today continued our quest through Washington's Presidency and I really got to see my kids get excited about something! The same citizenship activity that was called into question by some kids yesterday was loved by another group today. I have a group of students in one of my blocks that has a tendency to be pretty chatty and not real concerned with completing work or learning anything about history, however, today when talking through the activity they got really actively involved in it and really enjoyed looking through city laws and finding something to become passionate about. Even my student who honestly could care less about absolutely everything was a participant. It's such a breakthrough when the kids make a connection! These are the days I need to remember when the kids are squirrly! Have a great day!

-The girl on the half desk!

Living in the MS Rollercoaster

Ah hump day, so it should be a downhill slide from here?!? We began section 2 continuing to talk about Washington's Presidency today. However, I had two of my best students tell me they thought my activity was pointless. Now I being the teacher knew that they were only in the middle of the activity and sometimes filling in the prior knowledge you need to finish the activity can seem a little bit meaningless but I was really taken a back. I simply explained the history connection quickly but left some of the main activity details out as I didn't want their opinions to become skewed. I checked back in with these students at the end of the block and asked if they could see the connection and they explained it to me in their terms. They had really learned something even when they didn't want to and I didn't freak out!! I think I am really growing as a teacher because I firmly believe not but a couple of months eariler I would have gotten flustered with their comment, taken it personally (let's face it 8th graders not liking a worksheet is not the personal attack on my character I once thought it was!) and probably over-explained the exercise ruining the purpose for those two students and everyone else. It's nice to see myself continuing to learn and improve my student rapport. I hope to continue to see my students make these connections even when things aren't all tied up at the beginning. Happy Wednesday!

Finally things are back to normal...sort of?

So finally after a week out of school and other such madness it appears I have finally arrived! I began yesterday teaching all 6 blocks on the schedule without teacher support. In fact, my teacher has been outside or at the library for most of the past two days working on her doctorate classes. I feel incredibly fortunate that she has that much faith in me even when I don't always have that in myself. For the most part these two days have gone very, very well. I introduced a new unit, new seating chart, and a new person in front of a class fill of eighth graders with eight-gradeitis (very similar to senioritis yet with slightly more drama!) I do however have a couple of students Im already concerned about. How do you catch up a student that was just promoted at half year to the eighth grade and could absolutely care less about you? I believe this individual will be a struggle but I hope to find a way to connect. I also have a few female students who are entirely more concerned with boys, looks, etc. than they could ever be concerned about their grades? How do I as a female try to instill a sense of self-importance for these girls to see that they themselves and life is so much bigger than boys? We are facing big changes at our middle school next year and I honestly believe they will be an excellent change for our students. However, how do you get staff members who have taught nothing but eighth grade history for many years get on board with an block of something else? As a young teacher it's becomes hard to learn all the amazing things that I know these seasoned professionals have to learn when its hard to get past this negative attitude. Well I think these are all the thoughts I have this evening. Hope all is well for those of you out there in teacher land! Thanks for reading and commenting with your thoughts and support!

-The girl on the half desk

I don't imagine that I have gained many loyal readers yet but if you are attempting to keep up with me this semester, it has been put on hold by ice! We haven't been in school since last Friday at my district so please don't think I've forgotten to post and I promise to have more to say when I begin actually teaching on Monday!

We're up and running!?!?!

Greetings from student teacher land! So after some minor technical difficulties (minor is an understatement!) we are up and running here! I've been on the job 6 whole days and I already feel like I'm at a dead sprint most of the time. Since I haven't blogged everyday I decided to wrap these first 6 days into a top 4 list of events that have happened since I've started and to include some words of wisdom I might have picked up since the beginning.

1. I have the greatest co-op teacher! She is super fun and one of those teachers who is always looking at new ways to get kids to learn the material. We are teaching with a couple of others who are no where near like this...working on pulling their sticks out of the mud should be of great enjoyment to us both this 8 weeks :)

2. The second day on the job I attended one of those teacher gripe sessions I had heard rumors about otherwise known as a classroom discipline professional development session. I don't begin to know what it is like to have some of our little "angels" on my own day in and day out but it doesn't seem to develop much professionalism or even accomplish much if all we do is gang up on the presenter and tell her all our problems... maybe I'm being too idealistic about this teaching thing.

3. I've attended my first middle school basketball game at my student teaching site and I continue to be amazed at parents. We receive numerous parent notes and e-mails each week full of frustration as to why their student isn't behaving in class, isn't being respectful at home and yada yada, yet these are the same parents who got into a screaming match with parents from the opposing school as the clock wound down on a close game. How could we possibly expect things from our kids (like respect, sportsmanship, positive attitudes) that we don't model for them. Also, if you are a parent at my student teaching site trying to dress like a hip 14 year old yourself, please get new clothes...you are creeping me out with the juicy on the butt sweatpants:)

4. I have been given my own little half desk area that I have been keeping all my things in. However, the paraprofessional slams her books onto my area and moves all my stuff around when she comes in. I guess it's always good to be humble and remember that I'm at the bottom of the totem pole....seriously, even at the bottom it would be nice if she didn't bend up all my nice green post-its!

Well obviously this isn't anything too earth shattering yet but I'll be beginning my own unit next Tuesday on Washington's presidency and I'm sure that will prove to bring more exciting events and challenges. I'll be blogging all semester so please drop me a line of encouragement, suggestion, critique, or just a general hi there if you enjoy or don't enjoy what you are reading!

From the girl on the half desk:)

The First Step

I just found out that I will be student teaching at my first choice spot at a suburban middle school south of Kansas City, MO. Look for more blogging coming your way when I start actually student teaching in January!