High school week 3

Week three ended with me making an honest attempt to solve a lot of the problems I had from week 2 and I’m honestly really happy with the outcomes of most of it. For starters the power of looking at the floor while walking through the halls has led to complete avoidance of that creepy teacher that I don’t like. On a serious note though I really am starting to feel like I’m making progress their and that I’m being useful and productive

                Part of it came from actually taking initiative, along with Cindy of course, we started forming our own lessons when we couldn’t see them organically coming up in class which ended up working to our favor. We handled a few of the things that the teacher would do, like creating and going over the writer’s notebook prompts, but we also made our own mini lessons. The biggest one was that we had them reflect on parts of the book they’re reading to create their own small one panel comic to explain some way they relate to the main character. This ended up being a good idea because it is something we are going to carry over to one of our whole lessons so it’s good that we brought this into the classroom once to get them accustomed to it.

                The students seemed to respond well to our mini lessons. I mean it was still a struggle to get them to talk but we ended up pushing them towards an interesting discussion about bullying and why people don’t want to get involved in helping those in need. I was happy with how that (the writer’s notebook went) and the mini comic as well. Honestly I would have liked to have had the students share and talk more during that but I’m starting to realize you have to take the little victories. Not everyone shared, but some did, and that’s good. We collected and graded their work and I could tell that they understood what needed to be done and most students executed the assignment well. So while I didn’t have an energetic group of kids I did have students who followed the instructions and did what I asked them, and that’s awesome!

                I think looking forward I want to be less concerned with what I don’t have and try harder to work with what I do. I’m not saying I won’t try and get my students to be outgoing or anything, but the important thing is that they learn. It’s difficult though, standing up there and listening to the quiet of the classroom. Patience is another thing I have to work on. I know if I just wait them out eventually one of them will speak and answer the prompt, but after a while the wait becomes uncomfortable.

                Over all I think I’m making some solid progress their and I’m excited, but mostly nervous, to teach my lessons. Me and Cindy have a game plan and we know what we want from our students so I’m hopeful that it’ll all end well.