Rest of the week

Tuesday, January 26th

Not a bad day. Exhausting, but not bad. I forgot my lunch box at school yesterday, so I had to grab a bunch of quarters for school lunch today before heading to school. Yesterday, I spent all day practicing the lesson I implemented today during first period. Fortunately, and unfortunately, half of the class was away on field trip, so Mr. Shapiro didn’t get to see my classroom management skills with a full classroom. But that’s okay, he’ll get to see them again, later. According to Mark the lesson was beautiful, but I felt there was a ton of room for improvement. That’s just the way I am, though. Nothing that I do will be good enough for me, I always strive to do better. Mark and I had a long and insightful conversation in the media center after my first period lesson. We talked about the areas that I did well at and, more importantly, the areas that I need to work on. The rest of the day was relatively normal. The students were either working on or finishing up the “Meeting of the Rails” article that I assigned for class work.

Wednesday, January 27th

First and second periods were normal, the students spend the entire period finishing up the previous day’s lesson. Whatever they didn’t finish today will be homework due on Friday. Fourth/fifth period decided that they were going to be a bunch of wild animals on methamphetamines today, so due to their constant defiance and unwillingness to acquiesce to my instructions and Ms. Radcliffe’s instructions, they spent the entire period silent, with their heads on their desks, bored to tears. There is only so much classroom management that can be talked about prior to the internship, but in order to fully understand it, you need to be in a classroom. The theories are just words on a page until you have firsthand knowledge of how to handle a class. Even then, that knowledge is hard to come by because it takes such a long time to develop. I know that I will eventually have my own unique and efficient classroom management strategies, but for now, I’m watching and experimenting. I have to say, I hated sitting there policing the students for talking or having their heads up even more than the students being punished. But, the amount of talking they were doing was completely unacceptable, and a consequence was necessary.

Thursday, January 28th

Because her dissertation is due very soon, Ms. Radcliffe took a four-day weekend to complete it. So today and Friday I get the classes to myself (for legal reasons there needs to be a sub in the room, so I was accompanied by the always delightful and insightful Mrs. Hadley, a former FMS E/LA teacher of 30 years). Today most of the classes started a new topic—compare/contrast. According to the bell ringer activity, the students have a fairly firm grasp of what it means to compare and contrast different items. In order to keep them interested in the activity, I tailored the bell ringer activity to draw from their interests, so the students were comparing and contrasting either two of their favorite musical genres, two of their favorite movies, or two of their favorite foods. I knew most of the foods, and some of the movies, but the only musician this white boy recognized is Lil’ Wayne. I have a sneaking suspicion that as this semester rolls on, I’ll become more acquainted with Rap, Hip-hop and R&B. However, I will not be the only one receiving a cultural education, I won’t consider this internship a success unless I have formed a love for the Beatles, Led Zep, The Who, etc. with at least one of my students. God dammit, I’m going to try my hardest to get all of them to fall in love with, in my opinion, the greatest music this world has ever and will ever hear.

Most of the day went off without a hitch until sixth period. Sixth period today made yesterday’s fourth period seem like tranquilized sloths. The hellions were awfully talkative and completely unresponsive to any direction. Therefore, I imitated Ms. Radcliffe’s handling of fourth period yesterday, and had sixth period lay their heads down and be completely silent for the duration of the period. Unfortunately, the students of sixth period had other plans and viewed this as a social activity. Instead of being a teacher, I was reduced to a kindergarten cop, minus the Austrian accent. There were a few students who were following directions, and I hated to punish them, but in war there are always casualties. I assigned the class homework to make up for the lost class time.

Despite the shenanigans of sixth period, Mrs. Hadley praised me for my teaching, but warned me that I my lesson was geared for students who wanted to learn, not the students who needed to learn how to want to learn. The students who fill my classes, sadly, are the latter. I will be keeping her wise words close to my heart as I begin planning for the next phase of my internship—the takeover.

Friday, January 29th

Today was exactly like yesterday, behaviorally. Every period except for sixth period was on task and accomplished as much as possible (much more than I imagined they would accomplish, especially considering the lesson today was focused around group work—in middle school lingo, group work is synonymous with off-task socialization. However, Mrs. Hadley had the wonderful idea to give each member of the group a title and specific task, so the students looked like miniature corporations getting things accomplished).

Again, sixth period was bad. Worse than yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, and I know that they are extremely capable of the work they are being assigned, but they love to talk and stay off task. Fearful that I was letting them walk all over me by giving them last chance after last chance, I assigned them an in class task that they were to do instead of the lesson (which they would not be able to handle). I did not want them sitting with their heads down and lights off two days in a row, so I told them to write a letter to their parents explaining that sixth period is incapable of getting work done because they don’t know how to be quiet. I told them I wanted all of them to have their parents or guardians sign it and bring it in for me on Monday. This assignment has haunted me all weekend. I’m uncertain whether or not I made the right call, but what’s done is done, and there is no turning back. But I am not going to be trodden upon all semester. I kept a list of all of the students who followed directions and promptly made several phone calls home to praise these few students, but I’m still nervous of what tomorrow will bring in sixth period.

I also had to write two referrals today—one in sixth period for profanity and one in seventh period for profanity and defiance. This week has given me a glimpse of what the near future holds, and I’m extremely excited and a nervous wreck, simultaneously. Despite my shortcomings this week, I know that I have grown as an educator and a person, and I’m excited (not scared) to start next week. I’m especially anxious to see how sixth period goes tomorrow. I’m going to stay optimistic and say that it will go well. Now I’m off to do some grading before turning in for the night.

Your liberal, yet independent idiot,

-T