October 9, 2007

Today started as if there was really school on Monday. We dove right into the unit for the day. There were new vocabulary words on the board, (due to the copier being broken I had to improvise and go "old school"). Once we reviewed the vocabulary, I handed out the story for the day "Charles" by Shirley Jackson. As we read through there were a couple of questions to ask and things to correct such as the word "rubbers" which students mistook for protection when in reality the author was referring to sneakers. I just laughed in my head as I saw some of the students smirk and giggle at the thought they had in their head. Throughout the story I found that some of the students were laughing because they found the character's actions to be funny (Charles was a 5 year old kindergarten student, his actions were out of ordinary). In any case I found that the students were able to relate to the main character, some even considered themselves a "Charles", the student who always gets into trouble and is disruptive. I think this was the first story many of the students found personal connections and could laugh at themselves for being so silly. There was a student today in class 5th period that put her head down once the story began. She was asked to pick her head up and refused so she was sent to in- house suspension by my C.T. and will not be returning to class tomorrow. There was another student in 3rd period that was also sent to in-house suspension but was brought back to class and sat by herself due to her lack of concentration with the other grouped students. Many of the students participated when asked what were the bad things that Charles did in class. Third period, the inclusion class, had their stories collected before the question was asked and I was more than surprised to get many of them participating anf throwing out different "bad things" Charles had done. This was encouraging because like I said before, the students were able to make some kind of personal connection and wanted to be engaged with the reading. The discipline technique I had used on Friday did not work as well with the students today and I really need to find some kind of order when I need the students to pay attention and not be easily distracted. I don't want to treat them like children but I also need to keep them focused and quiet. There has to be some kind of common ground/ or balance to make this work. I noticed today that there is a dire need to move seats around for some students and while it seems late in my time as a student teacher, I think it will really better the student's chances of passing the class. There has already been a number of moved seats and the behavior has subsided. I also noticed that a student who is usally focused on her classwork, was chit chatting with her neighbor and while I had to ask her to stop, it was nice to see her chatting with a friend. Students need to have a life outside of studying and I realize that now because when I was a student thats all my focus was on. And now while the outcome is rewarding, I still feel that a piece of that "life" is missing because I did not incorporate it into my personal life style.

Overall it was a good day and I had the opportunity to recieve some nice compliments about my performance and attitude as a teacher. I left school happy and positive. One more thing that I thought about today was the decision to really teach in middle school rather than high school. I have not student taught at the h.s but I have grown to really appreciate the middle school and have second thoughts on where I want to teach, middle or high school?