My Teaching Experiences

I'm a graduate student at Boise State University just starting to work with the school districts.

This no-frills blog is my account of my experiences in the school setting.

Archives:
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007

 Sunday, September 24, 2006
I realized this week that I was never introduced to the students in my ninth grade classroom. Which makes me feel disjointed and like I don't actually belong there. The kids in the class are starting to recognize my face at least and are all right with me hanging around. Andrew is working on a movie production activity with the kids to get them thinking about the short story they just read. In the middle of teaching them about pitching a film to the people with money he took a moment to talk about male/female wage differences in America. It was a wild tangent that took about ten minutes out of the constructive class time that he had. He said that it was an important topic to him, but I think it was a highly useless time to bring it up because it wasted time that I think the students could have used doing the actual task at hand.

In eighth grade I led a class discussion Wednesday that seemed to go all right. I feel like I do a lot of watching in that class. Tessa always does the "housekeeping" stuff in the beginning of the period, which always seems to go on for half the period. Plus, I watch at least the first two classes and then teach eighth period.

I'm relatively unimpressed with block II in general. It doesn't feel too different from block I - just more free help for the teachers at the school. I realize this is an institutional problem and that my measly complaint on my blog won't change the rules, but I don't see the value in it yet - except that it takes away from the time I would rather be planning my own classes that I do teach and working at getting ahead on my classes that I take. And starting my master's project, which is something weighing heavily on my mind at this point. I have zero buy-in to block II.



Wednesday, September 13, 2006
This week was my first week observing a ninth grade class. The students were working on craft projects so they were able to visit. The only students who spoke to me were three boys - the first students to hit on me. I liked being with the ninth graders; they were a very interesting bunch. In just one period of listening and watching them, they talked about myspace, emo kids who skipped school (this is not a favored group of students, evidently), hockey, varsity selection, varsity jackets, cell phones, concerts, PDA, movies and this quotation: "I was in fourth grade when 9-11 happened."

I spoke with Karen's student teacher, Andrew, about the class, since he is taking over full time this week. He said that West is too conservative for the type of open schooling we've been learning about at BSU (inquiry, groups, drama, etc.). He said that I should enter into this knowing that I'll have to do more direct instruction and teacher-centered stuff. I don't like that. I don't like his cynicism, I don't like the possibility of that being true and I don't like feeling like I have to please someone else by doing things their way when I think my methods are better and I'm far more comfortable with them. We'll see...



Wednesday, September 06, 2006
I decided that I wanted to be present on the first day of school this year. I knew that I wouldn't do a whole lot, but I wanted to see how it was run and get the feel for the turn-around of students. It has been since eighth grade that I've witnessed the first day of middle school so I would much rather be comfortable with it next year than freaking out about not experiencing it in about a decade.

The first day was all right. It was a little boring, since I just sat in the back of Tessa's classroom and listened to her read the same story over and over again, but that was exactly what I had expected. Tessa seems open, nice and communicative; she also seems very receptive to having BSU students in her classroom. I like that I will be working with her this semester but that I will not be participating in any Read Naturally sessions. I think that I will be able to get a lot out of my participation in her class this semester.

My second day the students were in the computer lab taking Star tests so that Tessa knew what reading level everyone was at. She told each class multiple times that this was just so that she had an idea of where they were reading - not to pin them to a specific reading level for the remainder of the year. I like her philosophy on reading. She wants students to read and wants to encourage them to experiment with their reading. Today was also a little boring because it was another non-traditional day, but it was just another part of the learning/schooling process.

On the third day I was finally able to view a more "traditional" class period. Tessa has been working with the students on figuring out their multiple intelligences, whether they're left or right brained and their learning styles. Today we put some of those techniques to use in practical application. Tessa taught sixth and seventh periods and allowed me to teach eighth. During my teaching time she took notes and went over them with me after class - which I loved. I thought it was great that she was so open about teaching methods and willing to give me immediate feedback on how I did and how she saw me interacting with the students. She asked if I would do the same for her sometimes; she said that she can always learn and improve and that that will help me in the metacognitive process as well.

I also think that I have secured a teacher for next semester. Tessa talked to the teacher next door, Karen, and Karen agreed to take me on as a student teacher in the spring. Karen teaches ninth grade English so in the spring she'll do To Kill a Mockingbird, the best book ever written, and Shakespeare - both of which will be fascinating and awesome to teach.