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| Congratulations to me! |
I spent the morning in two Spanish I classes and two English 10 classes, and I'm still processing all the information I gleaned from just today. The Spanish I classes are both mixtures of freshmen and sophomores which turned out to be quite the spectacle. It's particularly interesting because the department does not have textbooks. Instead the students create their own vocabulary dictionaries which through my coursework is exactly what I've learned helps students learn authentically! It's exciting to see something I've read about in theory actually put into practice! This also means that there is a much broader curriculum that the teachers can pick and choose from. I'll most likely be teaching how to conjugate verbs (exciting stuff, I know). I found it particularly interesting to note the students' behavior towards me as it was our first day together. All of these morning classes cast furtive glances my way and tried not to maintain eye contact. They also didn't address me in any way after I introduced myself. Though I suppose I should share that last time I introduced myself to a class of 11th graders, one boy asked for my phone number (and no, he did not receive it for those of you who were wondering)!
The English 10 classes are "regular" for lack of a better word. In both English classes there are several students with various special needs which is something wholly new to me (I've never been in or taught a class that had any students with special needs). For one of the class periods I'll actually have to speak into a microphone as a modification. The majority of the other modifications are for assessments only, which will be good practice for me. My particular unit of planning and implementation will be Elie Wiesel's Night (go and get it right now- great book)!
Now to debunk a popular education myth! I've heard from a number of people in the education field that student teachers should avoid the teacher's lounge at all costs. MYTH. During my (quite late) 6th period lunch class, I met a whole new group of teachers that were both welcoming and kind to me. They also made a point to include me in conversations and ask me about my experiences. Moral of the story? Brave the teacher's lounge!
My afternoon sped by with two sections of Honors 10 English. Right away I noticed a difference in demeanor in these classes. While the morning classes were hesitant to exchange glances with me and waited to have me introduced, the honors students walked right up to me and asked what I was doing there! The students had no trouble cracking jokes and staying on task all at the same time. Now that's a class that I can relate to! The majority of my classes in high school were accelerated, and it was remarkable to see the similarities between my own classes and the classes right in front of me. In these sections my unit will be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a book I've read a handful of times and come to love! The real surprise for this afternoon was how these students interacted with me. Even before the bell had rung and class had begun, students were unabashedly coming up to my desk and asking who I was, what I was doing there, if I was a student teacher, where I'm from, and what I'll be teaching them!!! Talk about a 180 degree flip! Though I have no clinical psychology experience, comparing these two very different reactions immediately made me think of the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (another GREAT read) which focuses on what it means to be successful and how one achieves success. There's an interesting section in that book about how children are raised and how that affects how they judge and address others which is what sparked the connection in my brain.
Though my two cups of coffee barely helped me make it through the day, the students and teachers' energy sure did! I'm looking forward to what promises to be both a challenging and rewarding semester!
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