One down, eleven to go

Weeks that is. I survived my first week of student teaching and now have only eleven left to go.

After Monday's rough start, Tuesday I was able to really get going. I did some observing with a little interaction with the students. Besides spending a ridiculous amount of time at the hospital pharmacy after finding out that the baby has a double ear infection, Wednesday went well; I started lecturing. It felt so nice to be back in the swing of things. I really do have some attention seeking issues b/c I really do get a thrill out of being the center of attention and knowing that there is a classroom full of people listening to me! Ah and the anecdotes I can tell. DH once observed that I always had a story about every possible situation. Any time someone commented on something, I had a story to go along with that theme. (I don't think at the time it was a compliment.) What can I say? I've packed a lot into my relatively short life. But just like any good antique, there is value under the surface. This is perfect since I'm teaching history. I have little nuggets and gems to try and keep the students' interest---or at least break up the monotony.

I have two host teachers with two periods of US History and two periods of World History. The school is in a suburban setting but with an extremely urban feel. The minorities are the majority. There are a lot of students who are English Lanuage Deficient meaning that they are barely proficient or less than fluent in English. Most of these students do not have a lot of interest or support from their families. As a result, test results, homework completion, and general motivation is very low. At the same time, there is a high enrollment in the AP histories. This school has an open enrollment policy that allows any student to take the course. However, they must take the exam. Surprisingly, there is a remarkably high pass rate--and not just passing but a lot of 4s and 5s (the highest score is a 5). My US history sections are the students who couldn't handle or didn't want to take AP. Which means some of them are barely conscious. My World History are mostly freshman--that's explanation enough! So you can see there are two extremes at work in this school. If I were offered a job here at the end of my time here, I would probably take it. A jobs a job, it pays the bills. And it's always easier to find another job when you already have one. But I can definitely tell you, I don't want to be here permanently. It would be a great stepping stone to something else because I really want to be somewhere that is far more academically rigorous. As I've already been told several times, if I want that, I need to go to a rich white school. I really couldn't care less what race my students are, I just would like to be somewhere a D- is a 60 not a 35! Yeah, you read that right! That's how this department grades otherwise no one would pass. There are students who don't even get that. There are students who only got a 2 or 3%. No joke, no exageration. They're the ones I mentioned above. I get it if this were AP Physics but no, it's mainstream history. I absolutely would never send my boys to this school.

My US history teacher has been giving me larger and larger sections to lecture on each day but hasn't handed over the entire lecture to me yet. My World History teacher has barely let me lecture yet (mostly just vocab--but I did draft and administer a quiz for him) and I have my first solo lecture on Monday. Go figure on that break down... I'm really excited to have an entire lecture to myself so that I can set my own tone and style rather than just jumping in on someone else's bandwagon. Having subbed for two years, I never had another teacher to follow (except in pre-k or kindergarten classes when I co taught--but that doesn't count) so it'll be nice to do things my way again. I've always liked to do things my way...

I also have my first of six observations by my clinical supervisor (a third party observer) a week from this Monday. I'm going to have him observe two periods--one US and one Wld--kill two birds with one stone. It'll be nice to get a set under my belt so that I know exactly what he is looking for.

And somewhere in all this I still have the course work that I have to do for this part of my Masters and I'd like to start my Research Fundamentals for my capstone (or Master's thesis). So I'm just a little busy. And don't forget that somewhere in there, I have to raise two children and help prepare my family for the transition from military to civilian. Oh and most importantly, I have twenty pounds to lose by the beginning of April so that I can accomplish my goal of being back to my premarital weight by the baby's first birthday. That would be a 100lbs in a year, btw.

This will be my schedule as of next week:
5:00 Wake up
5:15 Out the door on a run
5:45-6:45 Get myself and the boys ready and out the door.
7:00 Drop off the boys and head to work.
7:15-2:45 Teach
3:00 Pick up the boys
3:30-6:00 Play at the kids gym
6:00-8:30 Dinner, playtime, bath, bedtime for the kids
8:30-11:00 Homework
Rinse and repeat!
Let's see how long this lasts! Wish me luck!