Week 10! We did it!!!

I'm starting to feel like I have less and less to write about. As the school year winds down, so do the activities in the classroom. But, here it goes!

Highlight: Reading! Literally. On Thursday of last week I spent 45 of the 55 minute period reading to the juniors from The True Confessions of a Part-Time Indian. This fit into the end of their unit exploring Alexie's different perspective of settling in the West. The reason I spent most of the period reading is that is the best way to get the students attention. Never has the junior class been quieter or more attentive than when I read to them. They were putty in my hands. It's true: no one ever gets sick of getting read to. This was a great experience for me and the students loved it as well. We got about a quarter into the book before I had to stop and they were responding very well to it. I hope some of them will search out the book on their own and finish it.

Something that made me think differently about teaching was a short conversation I had with the long-term sub I have been working with this quarter. She has had a career before getting her masters in teaching. After this long term sub position is finished, she isn't sure she wants a full time teaching job. I personally love teaching. Yes it has been difficult at times and students can be a pain, but I KNOW this is what I want to be doing. It just feels right. So it was interesting to see a different perspective where I don't think her heart is fully in it. It makes me question her decision to become a teacher in the first place.

An approach I plan to use in the future is reading to the class. I will have these juniors again next year as seniors during my student teaching. I am glad that I learned this about them now. While it may extend the time needed in class for reading, at least this way I will know they have read it because I read it to them! When we do Beowulf next year I plan to do most of the reading in class as well as incorporate a graphic novel version of the book. This should hopefully be enough to keep all the students up to speed and engaged in the book.

A perplexing situation I had this week is dealing with one student in particular. He is hard to handle to say the least. I am hoping over the summer he will mature a bit more, but in the case that he doesn't I need to think of way to get him to be less disruptive of the class. He's big and he is loud. I have tried talking to him one on one a few times this year, but that usually doesn't even last to the end of the period. The teacher I am working with will often just send him out of the classroom, but honestly, that seems like what he wants. So, I may try talking to him again at the beginning of the year to try and set him up to be better in the classroom. I am hoping that creating a personal connection and trying to work with him on this issue will help the situation.