Week Two...

Institute, Week Two

We’re starting to feel a little tired now. Some of our shininess is wearing off. We’re still excited and looking forward to so many new things and challenges and actually having real students, etc…. but our energy levels are slowly starting to decline. Enthusiasm still reigns, but we’re starting to feel the weight of just how tired a day, then week straight, of Framework sessions can actually make you. The fun part of this is that we got to go to our Student Teaching sites this week, and observe different teachers in action. No lesson plans just yet, no teaching, just watching the pros at work and taking notes and learning as much as we could because before we knew it, the week would be over and we would be ON. I learned sooo much this week. Admin had us on a rotating schedule, so we watched a particular teacher do their thing in their class for awhile, then rotated to another classroom and began a fresh observation with another teacher and set of students.

When all was said and done, we’d had the opportunity to watch all the teachers that we PTs (Practitioner Teachers) would be divvied up to. It was so interesting to watch how different teachers can be. We saw everything from the teachers who were soft-spoken and nice and students who showed no respect to them whatsoever, to those who were really tough and weren’t going to take anything from anyone these next few weeks… and the students knew it and responded accordingly. There were many who were somewhere in the middle, with a healthy mix of a soft-spoken voice but healthy mix of I-mean-business attitude, and their classes so smoothly. This is the kind of teacher I was given.  Awesome teacher. Really nice guy, knows his stuff and is incredible with the creativity he uses to get it across to the students, but never really raises his voice unless making a point in the lesson. Yet, the kids knew he meant business and we hardly ever had a discipline issue in the classroom during the whole summer session. THIS is definitely someone whose style has had a major impression on me over the summer.

 I saw so many instances of OPEN disrespect to teachers (profanity, talking back, outright refusing to do what was asked of them, etc.) over the summer, and not once did I see this stuff show its ugly head in our classroom. Kids were literally getting kicked out of summer school left and right because of behavior (or smoking in the bathroom, or leaving campus during lunch, or bringing in alcohol and trying to play it off in a water bottle… really??)  One day a kid got a little flip with his response to the teacher, and true to form, our CT was able to bring him right back in by using that same soft tone and business-like voice. Loved it.  Learned so, so much from it.  Student teaching for me was an amazing experience, and so helpful to get me ready for teaching actual students of my own.