One day down. Some crazy odd number of days left to go.
It wasn't a terrible day. I survived. And I'll try it all over again tomorrow.
I feel like I got very blindsided today. I guess I didn't really know exactly what to expect. My mentor teacher had told me that I wouldn't really need to know Spanish in her class. SOOOO not true. None of the parents speak English! All of the students walked in this morning and my teacher begins greeting them in Spanish and giving them instructions in Spanish and then talking to their parents in Spanish. I just smiled and nodded at all the kids as they walked in. I didn't want to be the odd one out.
But in the classroom I suppose Spanish isn't really used. A couple of times my mentor teacher would give directions in both languages when she wanted to make sure each kid completely understood what she was saying.
There is one boy, we will call him Josue. I'm not really sure how much English he knows or if he is just acting like he doesn't know much English. I couldn't get him to say anything to me in English today but if I asked him a question in English he would respond to it in Spanish. Sooo, I just don't know about him.
The day was pretty slow. Like I said, my mentor teacher hasn't assigned any roles to me yet, so I basically just sat there as she explained the classroom rules and expectations. Every once in a while I would get to hand out papers or books. I spent around 30 minutes making copies of some math review practice. And after the students had taken a math assessment I was the lucky one who got to grade them. I feel like I spent the majority of today as a teacher's aide and that is not what I'm supposed to be doing in the classroom. I'm hoping it changes into something more significant from here. We will see.
We did have an impromptu 3rd grade staff meeting after lunch. Because my school only goes to 3rd grade they only have to worry about 3rd grade MEAP vs. 3-5th grade. So the meeting was to discuss how to get better scores on the MEAP test. Some interesting points were brought up. At first we were going to look at last year's 3rd grade testing scores and teach more heavily on the areas that needed attention. Then my softball coach (aka science teacher for the school) mentioned that the students that took the MEAP last year are gone and that we need to look at the needs of the students who are the current 3rd graders. That to me is a very important observation. There's no reason to teach based on previous student's scores because each class is completely different from the next and has different strengths and weaknesses.
Overall though, I was really tired from not doing anything engaging all day and can't really remember what the meeting was all about. Boo.
Also today, my teacher said she had a class and left school an hour early. I was stuck doing pretty boring alphabetizing worksheets with the class. Josue kept talking to me in Spanish and I kept talking to him in English and telling him to say it in English. It was pretty hopeless. I had to figure out through trial and error exactly how dismissal goes to leave school. I think I have a better grip on it now.
It was just a silly day it seems. I didn't do anything fantastic. I wanted to do something fantastic.
And then, to top it off, I went to get my oil changed and the stupid guys were totally trying to take advantage of my ignorance pertaining to cars. I wanted to kick them in their faces. But I didn't. I got my oil changed and ignored all their pleas to fix a million other things on my car.
Being home has been refreshing. I talked to Alex on the phone. I played with Zeke and Emily. I ate dinner. I cleaned my room. I did laundry. Yes, productive and refreshing indeed. It really is true what they say about absolutely needing a hobby if you're going to be a teacher. I need to find a gym pronto to hook up with and escape to after school is over. Google search, here I come.
Adios! Buenas Noches.
No comments:
Post a Comment