This year, I wanted to blog more. And journal! And read for pleasure. Those were some of my resolutions. I also wanted to go to bed at a reasonable hour. This year, maybe it will happen. But in the next three months? Grad school is laughing right in the face of all my resolutions. (And it has bad breath).
I have started student teaching full time and it's exciting, exhilarating and overwhelming. Every hour is filled with a million and one decisions to make and I find myself wishing I could just pause everything and have a good think.
When half the kids are all wandering aimlessly around the room as I'm teaching, what do I do? It sounds like a simple answer, but I wonder, on a deeper level, how fair it is to expect them to respect me and the institution of school itself when they haven't been respected or challenged? I want to interest them and challenge them and to empower them. But how do I even begin to do that when I can't get them to sit down?
SL had her head down all hour, I asked her if she was okay and she said no, I asked her if she wanted to go to the office if she wasn't feeling well and she said no. I had to teach so I didn't know what else to do, then. How do you address something like that in the middle of class?
NH went and wrote on the board, "La profesora is muy bonita." which I initially ignored and then he went and wrote on the board (when he was supposed to be working! It's a madhouse in there...) "LOOK OVER YON -->" pointing to what he'd originally wrote. I said, Hey, N, that's very sweet but you're not getting any extra credit or anything and you're supposed to be working right now so please take your seat." But then I forgot to erase it!
I've got a hand full of kids who seem perpetually annoyed at the slow pace of the class and their fellow classmates, and another hand full who never seem to be caught up. We are in desperate need of some differentiation, but I'm finding it a challenge to think of ways to do that with the curriculum that we have. This is definitely an area I want to explore and be more educated about.
I'm also so tired and I miss my man, my friends, my family and MY CHILDREN. There are days that I don't see them at all. That is really hard, and I get emotional sometimes. But as M reminded me (us) recently--it's just a few short months and then we'll be TEACHERS. And we'll have the same schedule as our children for the rest of their school careers.
Also, my daughter watched me editing a video I was doing last semester and she was transfixed. When she sighed, "Mommy, I want to be a teacher just like you..." that reminded me that this is all worth it.
I don't want at all to give the impression that I'm not enjoying this, because the truth is that I'm loving it! I'm absolutely crazy about the kids, am learning so much about them, and I am really enjoying how our relationships are developing.
I also am finding that this experience is putting me face to face with my personal philosophy of teaching and learning, and causing me to think about exactly how that philosophy plays out in the classroom. I have done a lot of work around thinking about myself as a teacher (in my methods class in particular, but also just in general this year), but I'm finally confronting those ideals on the ground, as it were, and thinking about what it means to live those ideals in the classroom.
I do indeed hope to keep blogging as a way of reflecting on the endlessly unfolding experiences of this year (the beginning of what I hope is a long lifetime of teaching experiences!).
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