Well yesterday was my first day actually teaching the students something. I am teaching math this week and probably for the rest of the time I am at this school. More subjects will be added each week until I reach full-time teaching. The math lesson didn't go as I had hoped yesterday. I felt a little scattered brained as I went through the lesson and confused myself and the students a little bit sometimes. (Not what I wanted for my first time teaching.) However, I have to realize that it was my first time teaching these students and it's been a while since I've taught a whole class. Student teaching is about improving everyday and becoming a better teacher. I can't do this if I already teach 'perfectly'. Even if I felt a little uneasy about my teaching yesterday, my teacher was really supportive and gave me a small list of things she was impressed about during my teaching. She said I was a natural at it and liked how I stated my expectations of the students before we began. I will always be working to make my lessons better and more organized. My teacher is a great help if I feel lost or unsure about something I have to teach.
Today's math lesson went much more smoothly. It probably helped that I had lowered my expectations a little bit after yesterday's lesson. The students are always squirrelly and love to be active which has been tough since there is a lot of note taking to help the students remember their vocabulary. It is difficult to get used to all of the commotion when you are standing in front of the class but part of teaching is learning what to tolerate from the students and them knowing what is and isn't tolerated. It's different for each teacher so I'm sure it will take some getting used to as I start taking over more lessons.
Today we also had a 'lock down' drill for practice if an intruder would ever be in the building. This boggled me at first because the school is designed in such a way that many of the classrooms have no doors and only partial walls (my classroom being one of them). This doesn't seem too secure to me, but it's required by law to practice this. The students are expected to go to a certain corner of the room to avoid being seen by an intruder. Silence is also expected, especially since there are no doors between the classroom and hallway. There are doors that block off sections of the hallway all the way around the school so hopefully that is secure enough. Hopefully this drill will never become reality but it's always good to know what to do.
Tomorrow I am fortunate enough to go along with my teacher to a professional development seminar about strategies for teaching math. This is great, new knowledge for me to learn as I am the one teaching math now. I am excited to learn more but also bummed that I will not be able to teach math to my students since the seminar is during this time. This, however, is an opportunity for me to work on making plans clear enough for a substitute teacher to follow. (I hope they are good enough!) My teacher and other 3rd grade colleague also invited me to go out to lunch with them before the seminar begins. I look forward to this because it was one of my goals going into this semester to build good relationships with my colleagues. This lunch outing is a great time for me to socialize with them outside of school and not always talk about just our students.
Well I think this is long enough for now. I will leave you with a student conversation that made my day today. This was during a health lesson about muscles in our bodies.
JP: I have a 4-pack. For real!
M: I should have a 6-pack right now. I'm surprised I don't!
Who knew 3rd graders had 6-packs?!
Thanks for reading!
Dana
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