A Real Teacher Someday...

Wow it has been quite a year. Subbing is absolutely rediculous. You don't know when you show up to the school what grade you will be teaching, if there are any problems in the room, if the teacher left any plans for you that day, if you will have to stand outside in -8 windchill and snow for recess duty. I need to plan!! I am so ready to have a classroom of my own. Subbing has taught me some helpful skills to use in the classroom though. I think my management skills are much better and I also have some different techniques to use. I also know that someday when I need a sub, I will be much better prepared!
I need a teaching job!

So I'm a sub now...

SO! I have finished student teaching and completed my degree...wow. What a feeling! However now I am hanging out until the new school year begins and I can hopefully have my own classroom. As of now I am a substitute. If I thought that I had adventures in student teaching man oh man! Subbing is quite a life. Some days are great and I wish they were my very own class. Some days I want to tell a kid what I really think...which would probably get me fired. I am just hoping and praying that I will land a job for next year and not have to do this anymore!

The end is in sight!

I cannot believe how busy I have been! Ordinarily for student teaching I would have two weeks where I was planning and teaching all of the subjects within the classroom. However, I was doing that by about the second week. So I have been teaching the full load for about eight weeks. Let me tell you...I am exhausted. It is especially hard now that I am not teaching all of the time. I don't have much to plan (just finishing things up) and my teacher is so far ahead that she doesn't have much for me to do either. So here I am blogging again!

I have been looking toward the next step. I am in the process of applying for a substitute position within the district for the remainder of the school year. I am also applying for Teach for America for next year. Monday I find out if I made it through the second round. Cross your fingers!

I need a secretary

So I have officially begun working on reading/literacy centers with my students. The first few days were a little chaotic (which is to be expected) but it is getting better. However, I need more time! What else is new? There is never enough time in the day, but with centers, students who do not finish with their work in that short 10 minutes are still way behind and everyone who can keep up is bored waiting for them to finish, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I don't think they are getting enough whole-group instruction now. Right now I have a group working on reading with me. I think I need to do more circulating because they are not quite advanced enough to actually read the directions and do the activity. grr. I also wish that I could get them away from the worksheets that go along with the curriculum, but still feel confident that they will succeed by the end of the week. Hmm...

Plantistic

I would just like to send out a heart-felt thank you to every teacher I have every had. I know that teaching was going to be work. I expected that. But there are so many details that most are not aware of, unless they themselves are a teacher. Not only do you need to plan the activities for the day, you need to ensure that each child feels a part of the classroom community, has a chance to succeed, learns manners, appreciates others, make sure that each student succeeds in each standard (there are about 800 different standards for each grade), they are expected to continue their professional development with meetings, classes, and conferences, they need to make copies, run overheads, read their 50 emails a day, and then do it all again the next day!! Plus I know that with conferences and unit tests (even with two of us in the room) if I were a real teacher I would have worked about 10-15 unpaid hours for this week. Wow. Actually, I have to pay the school for this experience (don't even get me started on that part) but what other profession do you know of that someone would spend hours outside of their workday to prepare for the little minds that will be there tomorrow??

At this moment I am planning a social studies unit. This task has proven to be very exciting, yet fun. I have never really thought about all the work and planning that goes into just 30 minutes of student learning. Not only that, but I have never had the experience of writing even a single lesson plan in social studies, and here I am about to embark on a monumental endeavor of teaching 8 year olds about the ancient civilizations of Egypt and China. I think the students will really enjoy it. I also appreciate the subject for really lending itself to my own creativity. I am just thankful that there are actually other people out there to do this job!!

busy bees, er butterflies

Wow! I cannot even believe the last two weeks that we have had. Last week we tested the bejesus out of these little brains. They did a unit test in reading, a benchmark assessment in reading, spelling tests, math quiz, ule screening, and on and on. They did so well though. This week has been crazy because of no school on Monday and then we went to the Butterfly House yesterday afternoon. It was an awesome time! I was a little worried about our kids and their behavior (I am sure every teacher worries about that with field trips) but they were great! We had a very good afternoon.
However, with our new reading series every day is laid out for each week. It makes it very difficult if we have no school on one day to accomodate and get everything in. It is just one of the thousands of decisions I am getting used to making on a daily basis.
Since my cooperating teacher is so crazy organized, I had been prepared in advance and keeping up. However that long weekend got me a little too relaxed and I do not seem to have anything ready to go for next week yet. Looks like it will be a late night at school.

New arrangement!

This may not seem like a huge deal to anyone not involved in education, but last night after school I got to move the desks! The students have always sat in boring old rows. It is too difficult to work in groups or pairs when all the desks are in neat rows. So after school last night my cooperating teacher said that she was open to me rearranging whatever I wanted to. So I got to seat the kids in the way that I would like to and by whom I think would work well with. It is a small guesture made by my cooperating teacher to make me feel like I actually have my own class. It is very exciting.
I got to meet some parents this morning. Interesting...a few of them were crazies (as suspected). The one that I just knew would be nice as can be (and normal) absolutely was. I did feel a little awkward though because my cooperating teacher had to go outside for morning duty so I was in there with the kids and their parents. I felt like I should be entertaining them. I didn't know what to talk about or what to say. It was strange. Next week we get to schedule student conferences and begin report cards. Should be quite a learning experience. I will also be sitting in on an IEP (individualized education plan) meeting for a special needs student in our room. I will be learning so much!