Hitting the Halfway Mark

It’s halfway through my time here at North Kingston High School and I cannot believe how quickly it has gone, and how much fun I have been having, and there is a slew of things on my mind at this point.

I am still continuously impressed with the simplicity of this idea: every day is a new day. As each day progresses, some better than others, I have found that this line has become my mantra all of its own accord. While I may be over-scrutinizing my last lessons blubber about “___________” (fill in the blank), they’ve already forgotten it by the time they walk out the door. And get this; there are mini days all within one day. The next period is a new start, a chance to re-do something I may have not liked, or that hadn’t gone as I’d first planned.

On a daily basis I am inspired throughout the day to be better than I was yesterday, to “always do my best” even though I am tired and slightly stressed. You put on a face and don’t show it. Teachers are truly master performers. An acrobat swinging through the air, we perform a certain “routine.”

I am continuously breaking it down. Each and every day I’m getting better at break dancing. Kidding. But seriously, though every lesson I create I see how it can be better, how adding or subtracting components streamline it to flow better. How when students don’t come back with what I want, it’s because I didn’t give enough direction. How in every lesson I observe I see the outlining “I do, we do, you do” really work its magic.

I am exciting to have hit this point, but even more excited for the time still ahead of me that allows me with the opportunity to ever improve.

Switching Gears

I’m watching the snow fall, building itself higher and higher into snow drifts that would reach my thighs, maybe even my waist. Writing on a piece of paper versus typing on a computer adds to the solitude I am feeling- but not lonely… peaceful.

In my last post I had feared having not completed as much of my unit as I had thought necessary to show as a bench marker for how far I had come- for how far I would be going. I knew that the responses from my peers were both reflective and endearing- but then I saw it in action.

Thursday I had was teaching a lesson I had formed around The Things They Carried and was going to have students start writing their own letters for homework, either to or from someone in the Vietnam War. I had students view a PBS film I had found online showing different wars/battles throughout history while narrators read letters written from the time. After the film, students responded to how they felt after viewing it- they were emotional and moved, many of them speaking from the point of view of the writers- they were in the perfect place to begin composing their own letters. But in my lesson plan, having not foreseen the emotion that would be felt here at this moment, I was planning on switching gears and going over a handout I had made on dialectical responses, a very structured writing format for students to utilize when finally having to write their papers. After all, the letter was supposed to be homework.

I watched the class for a moment, knowing the time I had put in creating the lesson plan for the day, knowing how it would affect the following lesson, and knew in my gut, that it felt plain wrong to switch gears, after all of the emotion they were feeling, to simply shut them down and proceed with the mechanics of the dialectical responses. And so, I made a quick change of plans, and allowed students to proceed with the writing on their letters. Their pieces of writing show the emotions they were feeling and how they truly invested pieces of themselves in the letters. I do not think I would have had the same affect had I moved forward as planned and assigned the letters for homework. So. Here's to being reflective my friends and thank you for being so supportive along the way.

“He that will not reflect is a ruined man.”
Asian Proverb

 

A Concussioned Revelation

I am sitting in the faculty lunch room next to a student teacher from URI. We have been introducing one another and talking about our backgrounds- you know, the small talk. He is quiet but easy to talk to and a comrade in this experience, as he too has a split placement and will be leaving NK after a mere seven weeks. He then goes on to pull out a master binder… it is filled with his unit… already completed and filled with print outs of handouts, I see, as he flips through the stack of pages.

I breathe in. I breathe out. I instantly think I may pass out. I briefly wonder how hard the floor is and if I will I get a concussion. You see, I have 2 lesson plans completed… sort of, the first I spent hours on. And I am not exaggerating. It took my hours to plan it, then to shift it, then to re-shift it. I tell my CT that I realize it should not have taken me this long, but in this place of analyzing and re-analyzing my every move, of asking myself, why am I doing this? Is this necessary? What am I trying to get out of this, for me, for my students? Well, it is necessary.

Ok so moving on, I don’t pass out. I have a mini anxiety attack, and then re-think my situation. And after walking myself through and talking myself off the cliff I calm down. I am not one to be a step ahead of the game- though I try; I work best week to week. And this is good for me, I have sketched out a brief outline of the big picture and so am confident in understanding where I’m heading, and the details are in the works.

From here I move on to a tiny revelation:

We all will have different experiences throughout student teaching, each of us coming to terms with, and discovering the ways in which we best perform. And while the road will be different for each of us, we all will end up in the same place, each one of us walking across the stage this May. And so to all of my comrades out there I say this, In the words of Dr. J. and Dr. C: each of us is an intelligent, capable human being; who love our subjects, who love kids. We wouldn’t have made it this far if we weren’t. We got this.