This week was a lot better than last week. It was more casual and more fun.

I think I need to step up the curriculum though. It's tough because half the kids will pretty much know it and half of them will have no idea. It's also tough because about a third of my students are failing. Ha. Franklin is such an odd school.

I don't know if I would be comfortable working in a public school. I feel like I'm really starting to undestand where that "line" is between student and teacher. Russ says that all of the teachers think that they're amateur counselors. I guess any teacher thinks that though. Sometimes I drive home to Farmington wishing I had kept a comment to myself instead of telling a student. I don't know.



Vacation was not as productive as I had hoped. Of course, vacations never are.

I start my new units this week, and I'm pretty excited. Technology is going to be fun I think. Health is going to be stressful. Haha. Stressful. I'm doing a unit on stress. I actually did a presentation on how stress affects teenagers in my Middle Grades Education class with Grace Ward. I looked over my Brain Based Learning book this past week and I feel okay with the information. It's interesting to research how stress affects people in different ways and then actually feel how stress can affect you in so many ways. I don't understand why I'm this stressed because I generally do very well under pressure. I think that I'm freaked out about being responsible for the education of x numbers of little people. I am their teacher. I am responsible for given them (at least a portion) of the information they need to survive in life. It makes what I teach them feel so small, especially when you think about where they come from–literally. Why would they care about static or dynamic characters.

Hmm

I went to a funeral today. It was interesting. There were about 35 kids, I think. They were very respectful, and even I had a hard time sitting through all that. I don't know how tomorrow will be. I expect a few students to still be in a haze of sorts.

I am still having a hard time planning all of my lessons the night before. There is too much to think about. Lecture, transitions, individual work, group work, hands on activities, project based lessons, worksheets.

The school is a little bit like therapy this week. Sometimes it’s nice, and sometimes it’s a little too much. Russ gives a good dose of reality though.
I talked to him about my lesson planning. He thinks that I am thinking too much, and I think I am thinking too much too, but I also think that I should be thinking more. Those teachers could go to school for a whole year and pull lessons out of their butts. That is some serious skill. I can't lecture the way they can. They have stories and I don't.

There is so much I wish I had done at the beginning of my lesson or middle. So much I feel like I keep forgetting. I am still trying to figure out some kind of short story packetness for period 1. They want individual/project-based work. That is tough because it's so boring to me, but I guess that they would rather do boring stuff.

I feel nauseous in the morning because I'm nervous to go to school. Russ would definitely make fun of me if he knew that. If I just chill out, I should be fine.

I am starting a unit in technology soon. Probably right after vacation. Russ is getting me the info for a unit on Stress too. The students will be making a brochure.

I am starting to think that I would have an easier time teaching if I were going for something more relative to real life.

Crunch Time

Dear Blog,

Today I had a student tell me that I was the only reason he got up this morning to go to school. I like that kid.

There seems to be a huge difference in the way my first period and fifth period classes act. My fifth period class is generally attentive and involved in what's going on. My first period class is asleep and grumpy and unimpressed all-around. They think that everything I do with them is "stupid". There are a lot of boys in that class, and I think that they feed off of each other. It stinks because I can't do many interactive things with them because I don't think they would participate.

I'm done observing all of the other teachers now. I spent two periods downstairs with the middle school English teacher. I went down to see her Friday and check if I could still observe her. I told her about what I've been up to upstairs, and she found me some great resources for my short story unit. She also let me bounce my ideas off her over the weekend via email. I was able to narrow down my unit to 6 stories and also make a list of standards to cover.

I don't think I've really look closely at the reading MLRs or tried to use them in a unit before. There are a lot of things missing. There is nothing about characterization in them. Nothing about plot. I don't know. I plan on incorporating those two elements, but I'm going to have to squeeze them in to the comprehension standards (which is fuzzy as it is).

I gave my student a pre-assessment quiz, which I deemed the short short story quiz, and they did okay on it. They knew some things, they didn't know others. I think my unit is actually going to cover a few 8th grade standards as well. I'm hoping that won't be a problem.

I'm starting to understand why teachers are so frustrated with standards. The 8th grade standards make more sense than the high school ones. It's weird that every grade in middle school has it's own set of standards but then high school is clumped together into one. I guess it doesn't really matter for me because my students are all clumped together into one too, as far as ability that is.

When I was observing Melissa's 7/8th grade class, I'm pretty sure they were more with it than my high schoolers. Sad.


I haven't talked about how cool it is to say "my students". It's nice. I'm starting to really like these kids.


I have tried probably about 10 times to map out my unit and it's not working. My mind is broken. I feel great in the morning on my way to school. On my way home I feel completely helpless and like I'm not teaching these kids anything. Mr. E says that most teachers want to quit at some point during their first year. I would be fine if I could just get ahead in my planning, but I'm still stuck making everything up the night before. I don't make it up, I actually plan it and think about it (I think about it for hours and hours and hours and hours), but I end up doing it the night before. I can't imagine having more than just this one class.

Speaking of other classes, I have started thinking/planning what I'm going to do in technology class. I'm having the students make webpages! Woot. This is probably going to be a big step up from what they usually do in there. Right now, they're finishing up their two-week project on A Trip Around The World. Criteria:

You must visit 14 countries.
You must visit 3 continents.
Your trip must be 30 days long.

The teacher gave them a stapled packet of templates. They needed to find out a bunch stats on the countries, write down which cities/attractions they would visit, and print out some touristy pictures. The only technology they are using is the laptop, to look up information on the internet.

My mentor teacher is a great guy, but he's not so creative. From what I've gathered, he runs his with the lecture-worksheet system. He talks, then they do worksheets. He's not too bad to listen to and the worksheets are certainly informative, but it's very dry, especially if you don't like health and weightlifting. I'm not exactly sure what he did in between photocopies in his English class. I think they did a lot of reading and answering questions.


I think the other teachers do cool stuff in English, but it was great to see Melissa because she went to school for English, so she's up to date on reading strategies and short stories and different writing techniques. I think the other teachers just wing their English classes, and I think she doesn't.

I am most scared right now that I will mess up my unit, but I also think that messing up your first unit is part of being a student teacher.

I haven't finished my CFA. Although, I've been thinking about it. :)