Week 9: Corndogs and Hormones

Week Nine! Here it is! Woo hoo! The final countdown! The last stretch! So close to done I can almost taste it! Or... maybe that's just the spaghetti I am currently eating. Either way, this quarter as has been madness (both good and bad) and this is my second to the last post for the quarter. And, needless to say, I am ready for a break! Anyway. This week was again pretty light on class time as Friday there was no school. But I do have a few lessons from Thursday to discuss and I had my observed lesson on Tuesday which I will also talk about. Also, kind of at a cross roads with that I need to do for my placement next year...

Thursday was a bit of a fiasco to be honest... It was a half day for the students, so after lunch there was an assembly and then after that students had a free day in the school to just hang out, play games, watch movies, or go chill out on the football field. This was all fine. I was looking forward to getting to get to know some of my students better. But, the problem was an epic miscommunication had happened with my observer. While I thought he was talking about Thursday the 30th, he was talking about this Thursday. So he showed up right before the assembly was supposed to start. Which was fantastic. If it had been any other normal day, we would have made it work. I could thrown together my lesson pretty quickly. But being as there would be no students in the classroom, it was kind of impossible. And while we got it all figured out, that was probably the most stressful few minutes of my life.

Tuesday was a completely different story! I was teaching and getting observed as planned! And, as far as I'm concerned, it went great. Especially for the maturity level of the material and the fact that they have one week of school left. They were more wild than they usually are, but it was kind of challenging and kind of fun also. I think it was a good experience, especially in front of a supervisor to see how I managed the class. While it was far from perfect, I am still just a student! So, I feel I did pretty well considering the circumstances.

Also, there is a possibility that I may need to change my placement next year, but that will hopefully be resolved soon. My cooperating teacher has two sections of AP English Composition and is concerned about me doing my student teaching in those classes. But I think we may be able to work out a co-teaching situation for those two classes and I will take on her Juniors and Seniors on my own. So, should be interesting!

I learned that I need to be on top of things myself this week. I can't rely on others and I need to make sure to clarity, in all situations, rather than just assume we are always on the same page. And a teaching technique that I need to learn to apply is a few re-directing skills. And hopefully they will become more apparent and clear to students as I teach more.