Oh, what week! Late September, back in '63! Just kidding. It's the week April 14th, 2013. I have been in the classroom a lot this week and there are so many experiences to choose from! The highlight of my last week would probably be getting to see the students read the play The Crucible. While it is a story that I really enjoy myself, it's great to see the kids starting to get into their roles and really enjoying it as well. At the end of each Act they are going to watch the movie of that act for better understanding. On Tuesday they watched the first Act and one kid was so into the movie, he missed the track bus that was supposed to leave 25 minutes into the period! While I'm sure it wasn't good for him, I was glad to see him getting into the story. And it gave my cooperating teacher and me a good laugh at the end of the day.
Something that made me think differently about school was having a conversation with the history teacher that I hope to work with a little bit this quarter. Hearing his perspective on all of the changes going on in education was extremely interesting. While I don't agree with him on much of his view, he did pose a lot of interesting questions. And pointed out that under all of these new rules he probably would have never been hired as a teacher. His style just would not fit with how we are being taught to teach today. It was just eye opening to get a different perspective on the common core standards.
Something that I have already done and continually see happening in my english placement that I find really effective is doing most of the reading material in class. You can send students home with reading, but the truth is likely less than half will actually do it at the high school level. So taking time to read in class has been extremely valuable. And it also allows for a lot of great question and answer between the students and the teacher. I really do think students get more out of the readings this way.
An issue that I find perplexing on a weekly basis is how to effectively teach and plan a one off lesson that fits well with the current flow of the class. My fear is always that I will try and cover something that has already been talked about or that my lesson will not fit and feel out of place to students. I dont want them to feel like I am wasting their time or that what I am teaching is not important. But planning ahead and good communication with my cooperating teacher has made this fear a little less... fearful?
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