Well, I'm a quarter of the way through the summer, and I still feel like I'm learning more about how unprepared I am than how to actually teach. I think that's going to change this week, though. We are going to start having lesson plans due, microteaching in classes, and my Practicum starts in a week. Although I can't say for sure, I think that 25% of my time here may be complete, but much less of the work than that is behind me. I'm expecting things to pick up considerably in the next two weeks.
We are having "community bowling" tomorrow. That should be fun. Unfortunately, I get to start the day tomorrow by taking the Praxis test, which is basically a standardized test to make sure I know enough social studies content to be able to teach it. I took a sample test, and it seemed easy enough. I guess we'll see tomorrow. I've glanced through some world history stuff, and there are some behavioral sciences that I need to glance through really quickly before I head to bed.
Classes finished up OK for the week. I think the most interesting (and entertaining) development happened on Thursday in my social studies content class (which is the last day of the week for that class - it's just Tues-Thurs). Apparently Thursday is "spousal abuse garment" day, and we all go to class wearing wife-beaters (which are those very thin-materialed, thin-strapped undershirts) and then go to Legends (the on-campus bar) afterwards. We also got paired with a mentor teacher in the year older than us. My mentor teacher is teaching middle school social studies at a school in DC. That class is going to be pretty fun, and I think I'm going to learn a lot too - from talking with him and from the class.
By the way, I'm sure you noticed the newest addition to my blog. The countdown at the top of the page is counting down until I have to report to Heart of Mary for the first day of school in August. We will have new teacher orientation and faculty development days, but this countdown is for the morning of August 17 - my first day of school with classes. Because I figured this countdown out, I'm going to stop posting the countdowns in each blog post.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Diversity...Woot Woot!!!
I'll be honest. I've never been one to be very culturally sensitive. Tonight changed that quite a bit. We had a seminar on how to be a culturally aware teacher because studies have shown for a couple decades now that when lessons are geared towards the students' cultural background, they learn more and are higher achievers. Tonight we heard from a nun who is originally from New Jersey but who has been in Mississippi for quite a while in predominantly African-American schools. She talked about her experiences, the culture shock she experienced, and told us how to approach the new experience. I am looking forward to the added challenge with even more excitement and anticipation now. I really hope all this enthusiasm is sustained beyond my first few weeks of school!!
Nothing very earth-shattering in classes today. We had our first community dinner tonight in the dining hall. We have a pretty good community - we all seem to get along (for now - we'll see what happens when we're co-existing in even closer proximity for a longer time). It sounds like last year the community was not very strong. They didn't seem to fight much, but it was from a result of apathy to the rest of the community, not from a genuine love for each other. So, the ACE 16ers in the house have the task over the coming days and weeks of coaxing the stories out of our ACE 15 housemates. I will keep you posted.
Classroom Countdown: 68 days until my first day of school
Nothing very earth-shattering in classes today. We had our first community dinner tonight in the dining hall. We have a pretty good community - we all seem to get along (for now - we'll see what happens when we're co-existing in even closer proximity for a longer time). It sounds like last year the community was not very strong. They didn't seem to fight much, but it was from a result of apathy to the rest of the community, not from a genuine love for each other. So, the ACE 16ers in the house have the task over the coming days and weeks of coaxing the stories out of our ACE 15 housemates. I will keep you posted.
Classroom Countdown: 68 days until my first day of school
Tuesday, June 9th
Well, I've now been introduced to the classes I'll take for the rest of the semester. For this week, my technology in the classroom class (which was 8-10pm last week) is from 10am-12noon. Yesterday afternoon, I had a Practicum meeting in which we got our assignments. Practicum is our practice teaching experience for the summer. After that was "Teaching Religion in Catholic Schools." Today was my Middle School Methods course and my Social Studies Content Area class.
Practicum is something that is faced with a fair amount of (deserved) trepidation by most first-year teachers. We are placed in Catholic and public schools around the South Bend area in summer school programs. Our students are typically as close to the age we'll be teaching next year as possible, and the subject tends to be related too. The class has a "real" teacher who we observe for a day or two, and then we start to take over bits of the lesson, and maybe the whole thing by the end. Most people's Practicum starts next week. I'm lucky in that I don't start till the following week (which leaves me free next week until 1:15 or so). I was placed in a public middle school that is very supportive of the ACE teachers (which isn't necessarily always the case), and I also have another ACE teacher in the class with me. The downside: I'm in a Language Arts class. Apparently many of the students will also have identified learning disabilities, so that will add an interesting challenge as well.
My Teaching Religion class has me freaked out. I think mainly because I have never taken a religion course in a gradeschool (CCD doesn't count), I don't really know how to approach it at all. Luckily, the class is completely practical, and we'll cover lots of topics, prepare lesson plans for each, and actually teach one of our lessons.
Middle School Methods basically address the unique needs of middle school-aged kids. The class has all the ACE 16 teachers who will be in middle schools (all content areas). It'll be pretty interesting, and it will be where I learn how far I can reasonably push them (I'm still planning on an approaching-high-school-level class), and how to minister to them as people. Apparently it was popular up until the 80s and 90s to think of this age as "miniature high school kids who need to be prepared for that setting." Hence the name "Junior High" rather than "High School." Now the pedagogy recognizes physiological differences as a result of the different stages of development (read: I have to deal with hormones).
The Social Studies content area class is great. It's all middle and high school teachers (both ACE 15 and 16). The 15's are relaxed and funny, our professor is very laid back, and we've just got a great group of people in there. Over half of us are teaching in Texas, so there were lots of jokes about having to teach Texas History. As the only true Texan in the room, I think it's going to fall to me to set them straight from time to time.
Not too much work yet, but I can definitely see the potential to feel really over-worked and stressed at some point of the summer. In at least three classes, I will be preparing lesson plans and giving sample presentations of parts of those plans (not to mention the prep I'll have to do for the Practicum when that starts). Also, my content knowledge test - the Praxis - is this weekend. Basically, I have to take it to prove that I know enough social studies to be able to teach it. It's focused on US History and World History, with other concentrations in geography, economics, government, psychology, and sociology. I'm solid on US history, economics, and government. I'm pretty much going to wing the rest and hope that I have enough knowledge at this point in my life to pass a test geared towards testing mastery of middle school social studies.
Classroom Countdown: 69 days until my first day of school
Practicum is something that is faced with a fair amount of (deserved) trepidation by most first-year teachers. We are placed in Catholic and public schools around the South Bend area in summer school programs. Our students are typically as close to the age we'll be teaching next year as possible, and the subject tends to be related too. The class has a "real" teacher who we observe for a day or two, and then we start to take over bits of the lesson, and maybe the whole thing by the end. Most people's Practicum starts next week. I'm lucky in that I don't start till the following week (which leaves me free next week until 1:15 or so). I was placed in a public middle school that is very supportive of the ACE teachers (which isn't necessarily always the case), and I also have another ACE teacher in the class with me. The downside: I'm in a Language Arts class. Apparently many of the students will also have identified learning disabilities, so that will add an interesting challenge as well.
My Teaching Religion class has me freaked out. I think mainly because I have never taken a religion course in a gradeschool (CCD doesn't count), I don't really know how to approach it at all. Luckily, the class is completely practical, and we'll cover lots of topics, prepare lesson plans for each, and actually teach one of our lessons.
Middle School Methods basically address the unique needs of middle school-aged kids. The class has all the ACE 16 teachers who will be in middle schools (all content areas). It'll be pretty interesting, and it will be where I learn how far I can reasonably push them (I'm still planning on an approaching-high-school-level class), and how to minister to them as people. Apparently it was popular up until the 80s and 90s to think of this age as "miniature high school kids who need to be prepared for that setting." Hence the name "Junior High" rather than "High School." Now the pedagogy recognizes physiological differences as a result of the different stages of development (read: I have to deal with hormones).
The Social Studies content area class is great. It's all middle and high school teachers (both ACE 15 and 16). The 15's are relaxed and funny, our professor is very laid back, and we've just got a great group of people in there. Over half of us are teaching in Texas, so there were lots of jokes about having to teach Texas History. As the only true Texan in the room, I think it's going to fall to me to set them straight from time to time.
Not too much work yet, but I can definitely see the potential to feel really over-worked and stressed at some point of the summer. In at least three classes, I will be preparing lesson plans and giving sample presentations of parts of those plans (not to mention the prep I'll have to do for the Practicum when that starts). Also, my content knowledge test - the Praxis - is this weekend. Basically, I have to take it to prove that I know enough social studies to be able to teach it. It's focused on US History and World History, with other concentrations in geography, economics, government, psychology, and sociology. I'm solid on US history, economics, and government. I'm pretty much going to wing the rest and hope that I have enough knowledge at this point in my life to pass a test geared towards testing mastery of middle school social studies.
Classroom Countdown: 69 days until my first day of school
Sunday, June 7, 2009
First Weekend
Friday night = Backer. It is possibly the grossest dive bar ever, but it's really fun, and the ACErs basically took it over Friday night.
Tonight I stayed in and played some board games with some people. Taboo is lots of fun, and one of my housemates owns it, so that's promising. I also went out and played some sand volleyball with a bunch of people I didn't really know too well (non-ACE people). All-in-all a fun day.
Didn't do too much work (oops!), but I did piece together and revise most of my classroom management plan. There are just a couple sections of that that I need to clean up and finish up tomorrow. I also have a paper due Monday that I am about to bang out right now. It's not really that long of an assignment, and it's mostly going to be regurgitation of a bunch of information that we were taught in class last week.
A lot of ACE 15 got here yesterday and today. The rest of them get here Sunday (ACE 15 is the group who just finished up their first year of teaching and are getting back for their second summer of classes). I was told by one of my friends in ACE 15 today that I need to prepare to hear some pretty cynical and jaded stories about ACE. They all say it's worth it and nobody really regrets it...it's just rough. I'm not really surprised about that - I won't pretend that I'm ready for my first year of teaching, but I do know it's going to be really hard.
Guess that's it for now. Week 2 is approaching...
Classroom Countdown: 73 days until my first day of school
Tonight I stayed in and played some board games with some people. Taboo is lots of fun, and one of my housemates owns it, so that's promising. I also went out and played some sand volleyball with a bunch of people I didn't really know too well (non-ACE people). All-in-all a fun day.
Didn't do too much work (oops!), but I did piece together and revise most of my classroom management plan. There are just a couple sections of that that I need to clean up and finish up tomorrow. I also have a paper due Monday that I am about to bang out right now. It's not really that long of an assignment, and it's mostly going to be regurgitation of a bunch of information that we were taught in class last week.
A lot of ACE 15 got here yesterday and today. The rest of them get here Sunday (ACE 15 is the group who just finished up their first year of teaching and are getting back for their second summer of classes). I was told by one of my friends in ACE 15 today that I need to prepare to hear some pretty cynical and jaded stories about ACE. They all say it's worth it and nobody really regrets it...it's just rough. I'm not really surprised about that - I won't pretend that I'm ready for my first year of teaching, but I do know it's going to be really hard.
Guess that's it for now. Week 2 is approaching...
Classroom Countdown: 73 days until my first day of school
Friday, June 5, 2009
Another Day Down...
The week has been pretty long so far. I just finished my first lesson plan - as homework due tomorrow. I came up with a pretty cool project (I think so, anyway). Towards the end of my government class, I will introduce the Westminster system (Parliamentary system) of democracy. I am going to lecture about the topic and have them fill in a blank graphic organizer that sorts out all the offices and positions, etc. At the end, I will split them into groups of four. Each group is going to take a baggie that has the filled-in pieces of the graphic organizer that they just made themselves, except the completed one I give them is going to have each piece cut out. They are going to put each piece into a blank graphic organizer of the Presidential system (the one we have). So, for example, the Queen (Head of State) and the Prime Minister (Chief Executive) would both be placed in the President's place since he fulfills both roles in our system.
Not sure if that makes much sense, or if it works, but I guess we'll see. I got my classroom rules back. They were not quite as well-done as the procedures, apparently. I am a bit frustrated with the feedback I've gotten so far - it is pretty clear that no procedure is perfect and no set of 3-5 rules is going to capture everything. I guess I just don't like that the comments coming back act like there is a way to be all-encompassing and perfectly efficient. I know it's just their trying to be sure I've thought of every angle and considered every possible consequence of my rules and procedures, but my gut reaction is that I have a long way to go to perfect them even though I know perfect is not practically possible. I'm going to have quite a job ahead of me this weekend to revamp all those assignments and streamline them a bit nonetheless. We also have a project for my technology in the classroom class that I want to get finished up this weekend, and a paper to write for another class.
This weekend is Reunion Weekend at ND (all the multiple of 5 classes are here - those whose 5th, 10th, 15th, etc reunions are this year), and each class make a contribution to a program or department on campus at the 50-year mark. The class of '59 chose to donate to ACE, so we had a lunch with them today. After our afternoon class, we met up for mass with them. It was a very powerful mass - between those of us who were spending our first week in training and those of us who were returning to ND after graduating 50 years ago, there was a lot of energy in the room. Then, after my night class tonight, a fellow Fisher RA and I went over to our old dorm and had mass with Father Rob and Father Warner. It was very satisfying to have such a small, intimate group of people gather at the end of the day.
Another revelation: the discussion I had at home last week about ground turkey meat instead of hamburger in dishes seems providential. One of my housemates does not eat any kind of red meat, so it looks like we're heading to turkeytown for the next two years!!!! (I figured it would easier to make that considerable concession than to try to re-learn a whole new set of dishes...everything I can cook - which isn't too much - involves ground beef or steak!)
The ACE 15 teachers (the ones entering their second summer of classes this summer) are beginning to move in. They start class Monday. It's going to be weird to have twice as many ACErs around - we're just starting to get comfortable with our group of 90.
Classroom Countdown: 74 days until my first day of school
Not sure if that makes much sense, or if it works, but I guess we'll see. I got my classroom rules back. They were not quite as well-done as the procedures, apparently. I am a bit frustrated with the feedback I've gotten so far - it is pretty clear that no procedure is perfect and no set of 3-5 rules is going to capture everything. I guess I just don't like that the comments coming back act like there is a way to be all-encompassing and perfectly efficient. I know it's just their trying to be sure I've thought of every angle and considered every possible consequence of my rules and procedures, but my gut reaction is that I have a long way to go to perfect them even though I know perfect is not practically possible. I'm going to have quite a job ahead of me this weekend to revamp all those assignments and streamline them a bit nonetheless. We also have a project for my technology in the classroom class that I want to get finished up this weekend, and a paper to write for another class.
This weekend is Reunion Weekend at ND (all the multiple of 5 classes are here - those whose 5th, 10th, 15th, etc reunions are this year), and each class make a contribution to a program or department on campus at the 50-year mark. The class of '59 chose to donate to ACE, so we had a lunch with them today. After our afternoon class, we met up for mass with them. It was a very powerful mass - between those of us who were spending our first week in training and those of us who were returning to ND after graduating 50 years ago, there was a lot of energy in the room. Then, after my night class tonight, a fellow Fisher RA and I went over to our old dorm and had mass with Father Rob and Father Warner. It was very satisfying to have such a small, intimate group of people gather at the end of the day.
Another revelation: the discussion I had at home last week about ground turkey meat instead of hamburger in dishes seems providential. One of my housemates does not eat any kind of red meat, so it looks like we're heading to turkeytown for the next two years!!!! (I figured it would easier to make that considerable concession than to try to re-learn a whole new set of dishes...everything I can cook - which isn't too much - involves ground beef or steak!)
The ACE 15 teachers (the ones entering their second summer of classes this summer) are beginning to move in. They start class Monday. It's going to be weird to have twice as many ACErs around - we're just starting to get comfortable with our group of 90.
Classroom Countdown: 74 days until my first day of school
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Day 2
Finished up the second day of classes. Same class schedule as yesterday. In the morning we discussed what message we wanted to send in our classroom. I came up with "Strive to always see the good in others." After personal reflection on that, we split into groups to discuss how we would handle a range of difficult situations that ACE teachers have faced over the past 15 years. One was funny, difficult, and eye-opening: How to handle a student with a crush on you who drops a note on your desk declaring her love for you. Apparently that happened once.
This afternoon we turned in our class procedures (homework from last night) and discussed creating rules and consequences (positive and negative) for breaking the rules. I'm going to turn that in tomorrow and hopefully get the procedures back. I have no idea if I'm going about these things in the right way, but I guess that's what we're working on them now for!!! During my break today, I completed my rules and consequences along with my short response to a question about the most significant stressor that the Catholic School System in this country has faced over the past 200 years. Since I'm doing my work during the day (where was that for the past 17 years???), I was able to go for a little jog tonight. Little is the operative word. I'm planning to build from tonight though - the goal is to be in good enough shape to be taken seriously by my basketball team next year.
I'm off to finish moving in and then to bed!
Classroom Countdown: 76 days until my first day of school
This afternoon we turned in our class procedures (homework from last night) and discussed creating rules and consequences (positive and negative) for breaking the rules. I'm going to turn that in tomorrow and hopefully get the procedures back. I have no idea if I'm going about these things in the right way, but I guess that's what we're working on them now for!!! During my break today, I completed my rules and consequences along with my short response to a question about the most significant stressor that the Catholic School System in this country has faced over the past 200 years. Since I'm doing my work during the day (where was that for the past 17 years???), I was able to go for a little jog tonight. Little is the operative word. I'm planning to build from tonight though - the goal is to be in good enough shape to be taken seriously by my basketball team next year.
I'm off to finish moving in and then to bed!
Classroom Countdown: 76 days until my first day of school
Monday, June 1, 2009
First Day of Summer Classes
Was up at 7:15 this morning to get ready for class (including breakfast!) at 8:30. Was in class until lunchtime, and then was in class again in the afternoon from 1:30-4:45 and from 8-10. Luckily (somehow), I managed to force myself to do all of my homework (except the reading) during my dinner break. I just finished reviewing that homework assignment and doing my reading for tomorrow.
The classes were not too bad today, but the pace at which things are assigned is a bit startling at first. Since the classes this week are finishing on Friday, we have a short essay due tomorrow at midnight, another longer one due next Monday (based on all the classes this week), and my classroom management plan is also due next Monday. Even though it's a lot of work piling up, it is all constructive and useful. For example, today's assignment was to write up all the classroom procedures that I plan to have in my classroom. I turn in the (4-page single spaced) rough draft tomorrow, and will get feedback on it before I have to turn in my final draft on Monday (we are doing a rough draft version of each section of the management plan this week).
The work, while not the most stimulating or interesting, is engaging because (1) I will use what I am working on (not the theory or the practice making procedures, but the actual procedures) when I start teaching in less than two months, and (2) it is making me get into an "adult," "teacher," or "real person" mindset rather than the attitude of an undergrad who will be making this transition some time in the future.
Classroom Countdown: 77 days until my first day of school
The classes were not too bad today, but the pace at which things are assigned is a bit startling at first. Since the classes this week are finishing on Friday, we have a short essay due tomorrow at midnight, another longer one due next Monday (based on all the classes this week), and my classroom management plan is also due next Monday. Even though it's a lot of work piling up, it is all constructive and useful. For example, today's assignment was to write up all the classroom procedures that I plan to have in my classroom. I turn in the (4-page single spaced) rough draft tomorrow, and will get feedback on it before I have to turn in my final draft on Monday (we are doing a rough draft version of each section of the management plan this week).
The work, while not the most stimulating or interesting, is engaging because (1) I will use what I am working on (not the theory or the practice making procedures, but the actual procedures) when I start teaching in less than two months, and (2) it is making me get into an "adult," "teacher," or "real person" mindset rather than the attitude of an undergrad who will be making this transition some time in the future.
Classroom Countdown: 77 days until my first day of school
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