Another Week Down

1/28/11
Well, it’s the end of another week and we still haven’t had an entire week of school. This week Wednesday was our snow day. Maybe next week we’ll go to school all 5 days. I won’t though. Thursday I’ll be completing my Substitute Orientation to officially become a Substitute Teacher! Hopefully this will come in very useful once student teaching is over.
On that note, I only have 4 more weeks at my 5th grade placement. Time flies! Monday I start half-time teaching. I’ll be teaching the afternoon class mostly. I have to admit, these 5th graders are growing on me. It’s very different than teaching 1st grade, obviously, but I’m beginning to see some perks to it. And I have to admit, I don’t hate it! I might even actually like it (The grade level. I’ve liked the kids from the start.)
This week I have learned everyday that flexibility is the key to being a successful teacher. Everyday is different and comes with its own surprises. Sometimes these surprises are welcome and sometimes they change the course of the whole day. However, the key to maintaining a learning environment, and your sanity, is to go with it. For me, this has been a bit challenging. I like order, plans, checklists, and a plan. I am the person who has to use White Out in planner when things change so I can rewrite it and then cross it off. This week, I learned just to use a pencil Plans change constantly and I have to learn to adjust on the fly and go with it! I’m getting better at this since it happens everyday now.
This week I got to teach a lot more. I had to make some adjustments to some lessons because I discovered some things just weren’t working After the lesson Tuesday afternoon, I felt like I had just been been on some kind of prank show where they told the kids to do anything they could think of to disrupt I know they were just pushing the limit b/c I was new to them and trying to see what they could get away with but wow. I felt like I was in the midst of pure chaos. Today went much better though! I felt like it went extremely well, even if there were things that could still be tweaked. The way I look at it is this : Every lesson could be better. Every activity could be improved. As long as the kids are engaged, learning, and not killing each other, then I’m happy. Today they were engaged, asking questions, being creative, and even enjoying themselves so I considered that a small victory. It’s not much in the scheme of things but it lets me build relationships with these kids and invest in them.
Getting to know the kids better has been the highlight of my week. I always try to find at least one positive thing about the day on my drive home. It’s easy to find the negative and harp on it but I challenge myself to find something positive. Almost every day this week, the positive has had something to do with the kids. Whether it was making progress in a relationship that has been struggling, having a child finally turn in his homework after days of “forgetting”, having a child finally respect you enough to behave and engage in class, having a child ask you how your day is going and really mean it, or just seeing the smiles and bright eyes of childhood, these kids have made the difference in my week.
Well I’m off for date night! I’m sure I’ll have more to say tomorrow