So far
it has been an interesting experience at my placement school. I am still going through the process of
learning students’ names, but my cooperating teacher is helping with this by
having me hand out papers and other comparable activities.
I am
working with an Honor’s English Eighth grade class and it is amazing to see the
difference between the Honor’s classroom I work with at this school and the
classrooms I work with in my Co-Op position.
There are many similarities, but both communities seem to support the
educational process in different ways, but this also may be the difference
between the tracking (either intentional or unintentional) that tends to happen
with “higher level” classes.
The
students seem to be getting used to my presence in the classroom, although they
also seem to forget I am there when I am not walking around the room. It is kind of amazing the different
conversations that I get to eavesdrop on (innocently of course, they just don’t
really have a low volume button, do they?)
I do prefer to actively participate and walk around the room. I get rather antsy when I am not doing
something productive, as we have moved past the days of being able to just sit
and watch our students.
As the
genius that I am, I already showed my students how infallible I am when I chose
to staple my finger while we were posting their relationship-building
activity on the wall. Thankfully,
there was only one student with me when I did it, and she didn’t laugh, or at
least not vocally, but I can almost guarantee everybody knows what happens. Thankfully, if everybody knows already (there
goes my imaginary audience again), they chose to be polite and only laugh while
my back was turned.
For
personal goals, my most immediate one is to learn my student’s names and simply
get to know them better. I am very close
with this goal and am actively working toward it, but it is definitely going to
be an ongoing process. I find that it is
a bit harder for me to memorize names that are unique and not a part of my own
cultural background than it is to memorize typically “WASP”names, but that's a good part of the fun as well: getting exposed to new cultures.
I am
going to start discussing potential unit plan ideas with my cooperating
teacher, but I am placing more of a focus right now on making my presence known
in the classroom. I feel like getting to
know my students is going to be the best way of getting myself ready for next
semester. My cooperating teacher is
really great and seems to already have at least a basic overall plan for the
semester, so it should not be much of a challenge to get my unit plan figured
out.
