Another week down!

This week went really well. I had to make a few on the fly adjustments to my lesson plans because of schedule changes. The first happened because the high school came during one of my classes to register students and then the same class period had a movie party another day. It worked out well in the end though.

Next week, I have my 2nd to last evaluation. I will be so happy to be done with this part! My supervisor is coming Monday, Thursday or Friday. I am kind of hoping for Monday. I am having the students act-out photos from the Civil Rights movement on Monday. They have to play the part of one of the people in a photo, and I am going to be a reporter that interviews them. I think a lot of them will hate this, but it will be a great learning experience. Hopefully they will learn from watching their classmates. Plus I really want to help them overcome their fears of being in front of a group. I've always had horrible anxiety about this, but I am now over this. Thank goodness for that or teaching wouldn't be too great for me.

There are things I need to work on still like classroom management. Mr G. was late today and I was a bit worried about being all alone with the kids. I think it would have been a great experience for me though. Plus the kids would have learned their limits more with me. I think, they think I am going to let them do whatever. Not going to happen, but I guess they could test me.

Another thing I am constantly working on is questioning. I do well with this if I plan it out and then make changes as I go, but I find myself struggling a bit if I don't have it planned out. I am getting better at doing this in the moment though.

Difficulties and frustrations

So I am more than 10 weeks into my student teaching. The teacher I am working with is great, but he annoys me too. First, he says he doesn't need lesson plans or anything, then last week he decides he needs a copy of everything. No problem, but instead of saying he decided to get this, he makes up some lame story about how at the end of each year every teacher has to turn in their daily lesson plans to the district. I know for a fact this is b.s. I honestly don't mind doing this, but I hate lame made up b.s. The truth is better! Second, I am in charge of everything except the things he's made clear that I am not in charge in. The students have to have bellwork everyday. I can see where this is helpful, and he has the students do a current event journal every two weeks. He made it clear without saying so that he wants them to do this. Another thing, I am grading students' work and I know he feels like I am not harsh enough. The thing is, I like to be encouraging. I honestly think grades are all crap. They are so subjective, so maybe I don't dock students the same way he did. It does all work out because students who don't work as hard, don't score well on things that are more straight forward. Anyway we got grades turned in for the quarter and they were evenly distributed. I guess it's hard having someone constantly watching every move and judging. One last thing, I am teaching the civil rights movement, so I ask him how he usually teaches it. His response, "fast, I just show a video Eyes on the Prize." Then he basically told me that I have to rush through it. He doesn't think it's important enough to spend much time on. He just wants to rush through the curriculum, and it's annoying. Anyway I just needed a little vent.