Today really feels like I'm a teacher. I don't know if it's because it's the first Monday I've been in a classroom, or if I'm starting to take over more responsibilities, but it's starting to feel real. And I love it. I just finished entering student grades into the gradebook for the first time.
It's been a bit of a struggle with a few students who are challenging my authority/role in the classroom, but I'm sure that by the end of the semester I'll have won most, if not all of them over. One student in particular is challenging, not necessarily behavior-wise, but more in a defiance to do any work.
Because periods one and two are the same section and end up doing the same thing each day, I observed Mrs. H during period one for part of the lesson plan, then I was able to teach that part of the lesson plan during second period without feeling like I was overwhelmed. Even though I was working on the second part of the lesson plan while Mrs. H was teaching, I was listening to her teach the poem to the students, which gave me an idea of how to teach the poem to the period two folks. After Mrs. H taught the poem to the students, I took over and taught them a little bit about catacombs and Carnival, then had them start a word sort. Period one was a bit of a dry one, but considering that, I think it went well.
Period two felt like it went much smoother, even though it was a bit more challenging because some of the students in the class know how to push buttons, and they like to do it as much as possible. It's certainly a multi-ability level class, and because of that, Mrs. H and I did things a little differently than with period one. I felt totally comfortable teaching the poem to the students, so I did that, then I had them do the next two activities. Because of their different ability levels, some students finished the activities sooner than others, so instead of teaching the entire class about the catacombs we just pushed them along onto the next section as they finished. This was a little chaotic, because we had students constantly asking for help, not on task, etc., but I think it's important to experience the classroom this way, especially since I'm interested in customized learning. While this isn't exactly a model of customized learning, it's a model of differentiation in regards to pacing. It also gives me more opportunities to work with individual students, and since I'm still getting to know them, I find this incredibly helpful. The students aren't all fans of it, but I think they'll get used to it. And as I learn their work ethic and ability levels better, I'll be able to leave them alone more instead of constantly pacing and checking in with each individual student several times.
Seniors today were...challenging. I got a lot of resistance from most of the seniors I worked with, some were more frustrated with actually having to do work than they were frustrated with me, but a few of the seniors actually shut down when I tried to help them. This is the area I struggle with the most right now, knowing how to handle each situation. And every student is different, so there's a different answer each time. Sometimes there isn't an answer at all. When a student shuts down on me, my instincts are to keep pushing them, but I know that won't work, so I tend to just walk away and not go back to check on them, but I'm afraid that if I don't go back to check on them, they're going to feel as though I don't care about them/I'm ignoring them, when that really isn't the case. Again, I think that as I get to know them, things will improve, but it's still a transition period so I need to just be patient!
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