A Hectic Day Indeed

Wow, what a day this has been. In my meeting with my coordinator, I talked with her about how things were starting to look up a little bit with me and my CT. I felt like we were making strides to increase the time we spend planning and the amount of support and guidance she gives me in my journey through student teaching. No sooner than I had this talk with my coordinator did things go completely down hill. First off, her husband and daughter showed up 30 minutes before the end of the day, completely disrupting the class, of course. She was totally disengaged from what was going on in the classroom because she was totally immersed in conversation with her family.

At the end of the day, one of my students punched another student in the back. As this was the second time I talked to this students about keeping her hands to herself (not to mention the fact that the principal spent the entire lunch recess talking to all fifth graders about respecting each other), I immediately wrote her up for a level 2, which requires intervention by the principal. While all of the commotion was going on, my CT did absolutely nothing to intervene. So I walked the rest of the class down to go home, came back to get the girl who hit another student, and took her straight to the principal. All the while, my CT did not intervene once to see what was going on. I was all alone in this process and it was my first time every doing it.

I needed her support and she wasn’t there. She left soon after I got back to the room (not sitting down with me like we had planned to discuss my writing unit or my science plans like we had discussed). Then she tells me “Don’t stay here all night”. Easy for her to say and she doesn’t even stay the time she is required to be here! Some of the teachers talk about how I am always the first to arrive and the last to leave each day, but what other alternative do I have? If I don’t come early and stay late, things won’t get done. I cannot count on her to support me and pick up the slack as I transition into “the teacher” in the room. I know this was a huge venting session for me but it feels good to release it all. One of my goals for next week was to find something outside of school to engage in to release stress. After today, I need to find something!

Homework

One task that seems simple but has proved to be a great challenge for me is checking in/grading homework. In fifth grade, the students get so much homework each night that it is very difficult to check it all in, grade it and get it back. I see homework as a way to practice the concepts learned in class. So, there is not point in students spending time doing the practice incorrectly and not having an opportunity to go over it and adjust any misconceptions they may have had. My CT collects homework by calling individual students over to check it off. I prefer to collect everyone’s homework at the same time and check them in. I feel like my method allows me to look at the homework with a finer eye. The problem is that when I collect the homework, I have very little time to look over it, grade it, and get it back to students. My CT’s method allows her to get it all checked in, but she does not check over the work a meticulously as I would like to. I have to find a way to get homework checked in and give feedback to students so they know how to do the concept.

Goal: My goal is to check in homework using my CT’s method, but rather than looking over every single detail of the homework, I will glance through them to get a general understanding of commonly missed questions, pass back the homework the next day and go over those misunderstandings whole-class as a quick review of the material. I also will try to adjust my lessons so that I give students 3-4 minutes at the end of the lesson to get started on homework. This will also give me time to look over some of the homework that was turned in that day and make notes about what to review the next day.

A New Approach

I am ending this week feeling like I am standing on unleveled ground with a subject that I actually felt very comfortable teaching. Reading has been such a pleasure to teach because it is my favorite subject and it lends itself to using great instructional methods. It took a while to get used using the basal and learning the structure of the teacher guide and the flow of the week, but now that I’ve got it down, it is a source of comfort because I know what I need to do each day because it is prescribed for me. I have, of course, incorporated my own activities that add diversity to the learning experience and give students opportunities to creatively apply the strategies and skills they have learned. Nonetheless, I have felt secure in using the basal because I know what I need to teach and many suggestions on how to teach it.

Now that the pendulum has started swinging back to a more holistic approach to reading instruction other than the currently prescribed curriculum, I am a little nervous about how I can effectively stray from the basal while still teaching the content and priority standards required by the district. I am excited that I can be a part of this new wave because it will give me more depth to reading instruction abilities. I know that I have what it takes to successfully give my students meaningful experiences with authentic literature and with ‘Just Right’ books. I think that I will begin to feel less stressed about it all by thinking more deliberately about how to change the face of the literacy block in my classroom.

I Shall Return

Wow...this has been the craziest week and a half of my life!!!! I have been super busy since I am planning for completely taking over my second subject. I started with Reading and now I'm on to Math! I have to have all of my lesson submitted the Friday before the week I'm going to teach them. I don't think I realized how busy this would make my life during the week! I plan on posting this weekend about the lows and highs of the week. I hope everyone is having an incredible week...the weekend is almost here!

Fighting Words

I witnessed my first fight in my classroom today. It was by no means the first one of the year, but it was the first one for which I was actually present. It was a skirmish (using one of our vocab words this week!) between two students that have had an altercation before. After talking to parents and working with the pair to resolve their issues, we didn’t see any real problems. We put them in the same group when we rearranged desks and we didn’t have any problems to begin with. Recently they had been going at it a little and we decided to move them. We wanted them to try to work it out, but given their history it wasn’t worth it. Today at lunch, there was an issue with one of the boys throwing crayons at the other one. I intervened and told both parties to stop throwing things and if they didn’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all. This seemed to do the trick, but boy was I wrong!! We were lining up for recess and I purposely called groups to line up in a way that would not put those two students together. Somehow, unknown to me, they were standing right next to each other in line. I turned around, saw them, and attempted to tell them to separate, but before I could, D. turned and shoved P. with full force-even knocking another student in his path to the ground. I was so flustered in that instance and had no clue what to do. I immediately moved D. out of the room and called for the principal who happened to be standing in the hallway at the time. I then asked P. if he was okay and sent him to my CT. We had to send the other girl who was collateral damage to the nurse for a bruised nose. I’ve always wondered what I would do if a fight broke out in the classroom….now I know.

Shooting Stars

On Friday, I requested an announcement be made wishing our basketball team good look at their game. I felt so bad, because the secretary add libbed "good luck boys" at the end of the announcement....we have 1 girl on the team. I made sure to clarify this statement in my class with "good luck boys and girl".

This morning I went out to support some of my students playing in their first basketball game. I told them that I was coming, but I don't think many of them believed me. So, I showed up, all decked out in the school colors and ready to lose my voice cheering them on! I had never seen a kid basketball game before, so it took a while for me to get used to the double dribbles and traveling that happened with just about each pass! By the second half, the team got into a rhythm and put down some nice shots. So who won.......WE DID!! GO STARS!! It was really great to see kids shine on the court, who do not shine as much in the classroom. Everyone is good at something...it's amazing when they actually have a chance to show it. The looks on their faces at the end of the game were priceless! I'm glad I got to see those faces instead of ones of disappointment. I would say about 85% of the team is comprised of pouters, whiners, and sore losers. I hope they keep on winning...but I hope if they do lose a game, it can be a teachable moment about how to lose graciously. The game next Saturday is at 8:30am...I may just be there in spirit because my flesh will probably be snoozing!

Desk Arrangement Disaster

Attempting to try something new, we put our students in groups of 4 to give them an opportunity to work more collaboratively with assignments and to motivate some students who have had some behavioral and academic challenges by grouping them with some students who are positive role models in both areas. This was such a challenge because we had more people who needed role models than we had role models to group them with. We have quite a few students who cannot be paired with almost half the class because they are easily distracted by those students. I have come to the conclusion today that our current arrangements WILL NOT WORK!!! There were two of four groups that were off task just about all day. It was only when their groups were broken up and dispersed throughout the room that we saw even a hint of change in behavior. I really don't know if I want go from groups to maybe pairs or just try a new set of 4-person groups...gotta figure something out for Monday!