It feels nice to be done with everything at State. I'm excited to have student teaching as the only thing I really have to focus on. I think I can really go back to being the enthusiastic teacher I thought I would be every day, the one that disappeared in mid-february and reappeared on random Thursdays or Fridays. For a really long time, the funnest part about student teaching has been the time before and after class when I was able to talk to students about anything in the world.
I'd like to do something nice for my students at the end of the semester. I remember my history teacher senior year in high school made a cake for all of us. We were the WORST students, though. It was a really nice thing for him to do. I remember when he pulled the cake out of this cabinet with a knife and everything, I didn't really trust the guy. His face kind of resembled Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, but others said he looked more like Patrick Swayze or Stretch Armstrong. But I'll always remember how even though we were monsters in his class, at the end of the year there were no hard feelings. I'm just wondering what I can do other than baking a cake. Ha. Maybe putting together a little personalized book for all of them would be decent. Who knows? All I know is I have enough time now to make it all happen.
The semester at State went by so quickly. I remember being in the basement of Burk Hall for the first time for that interview a year ago. And now there's a whole new crop of credential program folks that are finishing up their first semesters. I just found out the other day one of my master teachers has a new student teacher! I'm being replaced... Alright, gotta get to the park to relax some.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
That Disruptive Student...
That disruptive student I wrote about back in February is a lot less disruptive these days. For the wrong reasons though. Before, he would attend nearly every class although he'd be occasionally tardy. Now there are lots of days when he simply doesn't show up. When he is in class, we've managed to have some productive talks where he could at least explain to me his situation. His basic reasoning for not doing any work in class is that he has to take English in summer school anyway, so he believes it doesn't matter what he does in this last quarter. He actually told me that he wouldn't do any work, but he would "just be quiet" in class. He has managed to drastically improve his classroom behavior, but I feel like there are other factors outside of school that have caused him to be quiet and keep his head down during class.
I asked him to turn in any kind of writing sample to me, and he turned in a story about the carbon cycle that he wrote for a science class. Although his mechanics weren't as polished as other students' writing, he did experiment with complex sentence structures, used dialogue in his story, and showed flashes of being really descriptive. The next day in class I gave him an individualized grammar assignment to work on, and he completed it. I'm starting to see that the more individualized assignments I give to him with his name written on top of the page, the more likely he is to do work.
One day he was willing to participate in a vocabulary drama activity in which he acted out a skit representing the word "effervescent." He was a natural in front of the class, and the class seemed to pay closer attention to his performance. He even shouted out some guesses to other students' skits although he guessed random words that were not on our vocabulary list. I'm going to try to find more ways of getting him engaged in activities like this, perhaps some role playing based on scenes from the book we're reading, Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. There are four weeks left, and I really need to get more creative at getting this student to "be a student." He recently told me that he passed the Exit Exam already and I've seen his writing, so he can't lie and say that he doesn't have the skills. It's just about motivating him to do work.
I asked him to turn in any kind of writing sample to me, and he turned in a story about the carbon cycle that he wrote for a science class. Although his mechanics weren't as polished as other students' writing, he did experiment with complex sentence structures, used dialogue in his story, and showed flashes of being really descriptive. The next day in class I gave him an individualized grammar assignment to work on, and he completed it. I'm starting to see that the more individualized assignments I give to him with his name written on top of the page, the more likely he is to do work.
One day he was willing to participate in a vocabulary drama activity in which he acted out a skit representing the word "effervescent." He was a natural in front of the class, and the class seemed to pay closer attention to his performance. He even shouted out some guesses to other students' skits although he guessed random words that were not on our vocabulary list. I'm going to try to find more ways of getting him engaged in activities like this, perhaps some role playing based on scenes from the book we're reading, Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. There are four weeks left, and I really need to get more creative at getting this student to "be a student." He recently told me that he passed the Exit Exam already and I've seen his writing, so he can't lie and say that he doesn't have the skills. It's just about motivating him to do work.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
The Home Stretch
After looking at my kids' grades for the second grading period, I noticed that the distribution was pretty much the same as the first grading period, except for there were some students whose grades dropped and other students whose grades shot right up. I took the time to email a student immediately after my grades were finished to let her know that she had gone from an F in the first grading period to a B-. I had spoken to her father on the phone late in the first grading period, and he showed a great deal of concern for his daughter's performance, so I wanted to make sure that he would hear about the good news as soon as possible.
In the email I thanked the student for her hard work, told her to be proud, and told her to let her parents know she did well. A few days later I received a really touching email from the student's father. If I were to never teach again after this semester, this one email would be enough to make me feel like I accomplished something as a teacher.
The email was the forwarded exchange of emails between the father and student. Apparently, my student had forward the email I sent her entitled "Second Grading Period," and added "**this should make your day" to the subject line. Typing in all capital letters she told her dad to LOOK AT WHAT HER TEACHER SENT HER! The email I received included the parent's reply to the student as well as a message to me. In his message to me he expressed his appreciation of my taking the time to inform him of his child's performance, which made me feel nice, but it was really nothing compared to seeing what he had said to his daughter. He basically expressed how he knew she could improve her school performance, to keep it up, and that "YES! it did make [his] day.]
Emails are nice. I'm glad that I wasn't able to find this parent's cell phone number and had to resort to the email. If this were all done over the phone I wouldn't have this awesome email. Way better than any emails I've ever received from any ex-girlfriends. So much fun.
In the email I thanked the student for her hard work, told her to be proud, and told her to let her parents know she did well. A few days later I received a really touching email from the student's father. If I were to never teach again after this semester, this one email would be enough to make me feel like I accomplished something as a teacher.
The email was the forwarded exchange of emails between the father and student. Apparently, my student had forward the email I sent her entitled "Second Grading Period," and added "**this should make your day" to the subject line. Typing in all capital letters she told her dad to LOOK AT WHAT HER TEACHER SENT HER! The email I received included the parent's reply to the student as well as a message to me. In his message to me he expressed his appreciation of my taking the time to inform him of his child's performance, which made me feel nice, but it was really nothing compared to seeing what he had said to his daughter. He basically expressed how he knew she could improve her school performance, to keep it up, and that "YES! it did make [his] day.]
Emails are nice. I'm glad that I wasn't able to find this parent's cell phone number and had to resort to the email. If this were all done over the phone I wouldn't have this awesome email. Way better than any emails I've ever received from any ex-girlfriends. So much fun.
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