The teacher I worked with in economics emailed yesterday to tell me that we beat out all of the other traditional high schools in the district with our economics benchmark scores! The only school to beat us in the district was the high school/college hybrid school!
I’m so proud! I taught them half of what they know! Ahhh!
…and then it was finished.
I posted this at the beginning and now I’m at the end. It’s not the official end yet, but I finished student teaching last Thursday and posted a few final assignments today! Now I just have my exit interview on Tuesday and wait for final grades to post.
We administered benchmark exams on Thursday and my guiding teacher gave me the best compliment as I was leaving… He had scanned all the grades in and compared them to the previous semester so he told me that if I had any doubts about what I had accomplished while I was there then I needed to look at the scores… This semester’s classes improved on every single standard over last semester’s classes! My students exceeded my expectations and to say that I am thrilled feels like an understatement. My first thought was “Wow, I didn’t screw them up!”
I can’t even begin to wrap my head around all the learning and experiences that I have had in the last 15 months at USC. I’ve been mentored by some of the greatest educators in the country and made some of the most wonderful friends and colleagues. Grad school has been so difficult, but I’ve grown so much as an individual and as an educator (I can call myself that now!), it has made me cry more than a few times, and it has made me pick myself back up in order to live and learn even more.
Being at the end feels like a long time coming and like a complete whirlwind all at once.
overheard conversations: a vicious cycle
- Guy 1: If the first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about fight club, then aren't you breaking the first rule when you talk about the rules of fight club? You can't even talk about the rules without breaking the rules.
- Guy 2: Dude, I think it's implied.
One of my students told me that she learned a lot today.
I’m so happy! Student teacher for the win!
I’m reflective like a mirror.
Well, for better or worse my PACT assessment has been submitted. Naturally, I don’t feel that it’s my best work, but after 20-30 pages of commentary and reflection I don’t think that anyone could feel good about it!
I would really appreciate your prayers, good vibes, extra good karma, or whatever niceties you’ve got to spare because successfully completing this student teaching rotation and graduating in May are all contingent upon passing. You can also try sending telepathic messages to my assessor. I don’t know who it is, but it’s like the room of requirement… if you think about it hard enough, your message will find him or her.
Anyway, there is literally pain radiating from the fingers on my right hand to my elbow from the carpal tunnel syndrome this has given me. My fashion sense has devolved into believing that leggings are acceptable leg-wear. My diet for the last 72 hours has mainly consisted of waffles, chocolate, and a rotation of diet coke and diet dr. pepper. My constant companions have been a bottle of Advil, a tube of mint Chapstick, Sara Bareilles singing away in my headphones, the pretty scarf my sis bought me to cheer me up, and the knowledge that by this time tonight it would have to be finished because there was no other option.
Now since my brain has short-circuited and I no longer know what I’m typing, I’m going to go to bed where I will sleep forever (but not really) and eventually rejoin the land of the living, non-reflective, normal people.
Things Your Teacher Prep Program Probably Doesn’t Teach You…
Always include a legality clause. As in… When using school computers to search the internet, do not search or comparison shop for illicit goods or activities.
Today I conducted a comparison shopping activity for my economics class. The assignment was to comparison shop for something that you are in the market to buy… like laptops or shoes.
What is more disturbing: That some of my students decided to comparison shop for uranium and hit men or that there are (apparently) at least three places to purchase each of those things on the internet?
They thought they were being funny, naturally, and hell (or the government) has not unleashed its fury yet, but lesson learned… Every assignment will now include a legality clause! :)
Teaching is never boring!
Leggings, hairy legs… They’re kind of the same thing.
back to school
I returned to student teaching last Wednesday for staff development day, during which I spent nearly seven hours sitting on a plastic chair in the windowless, fluorescent-lit LGI (large group instruction) room. I also came to discover that I am the only female in an all male social studies department (advantage: no emotion-centric department meetings; disadvantage: endless conversations about politics and football). Then Thursday was the first day for students and since both economics and contemporary issues are only one semester long we got all new students and spent all day going back and forth across the school to trade in government books for economic books at the library (which, b-t-dubs, you’d think would be an easy task for high school seniors to complete…). Friday I went in for one class period just so I could be there for the first instructional day.
This week it’s back to school (USC & student teaching) full time for the next (and final) eight weeks. On one hand, I can’t even fathom everything that I have to accomplish in two months time without a migraine and an impulse to curl up in the fetal position. On the other, I am eight weeks from being FINISHED with grad school! I finally teach my first lesson on Thursday and I’m still undecided about which is the “best” class period to video. None of them really want to be here so, unfortunately, it’s kind of a lesser of five evils thing going on. That’s the disadvantage to teaching second semester seniors - the senioritis either has or is completely taking hold. I’m ready to be finished so I can relate, but it is SO DIFFICULT to teach.
Anyway, back to school mode means I’ve already hit my limit for the day - it’s only 6:45 and I think I could probably go ahead and say goodnight and sleep blissfully for eleven hours before I have to get up, rinse, and repeat.
The Little Things
Today I stopped by the middle school to see my first and favorite students before break. I planned it so I could see both 7th and 1st period classes (1st is also advisory so they return at the end of the day). The first student I saw ran to hug me and proclaimed, “Ms. G! You’re the best Christmas present ever!”
Fifty kids all wanting to fill me in on everything they’ve done since they last saw me and hugs galore. In all sincerity, I can say that I can’t remember the last time I felt so loved. Heart = melted.
Now when I’m having a bad day and second-guessing myself or someone’s asking me for the millionth time why I want to teach, I’m going to think of those faces and name fifty reasons.
We’re officially at that point in the semester when everyone starts looking very haggard in night class and when someone is talking to or at you all you hear is blah blah blah.
The USC placement office called me this afternoon and it would appear that I’m going from 6th grade world history to high school economics:
Now I have to learn economics…
It’s the only placement I can get. Darn living in a college town with a big education program! This is going to be fun!
Notes from a Student Teacher [7 - A Day Off]
I’m needed at school on Friday so I got to take today off instead. I woke up at my regular 5-something and checked my email and played on my phone long enough that I fell back asleep until 9:45. Then I went to Target and bought a hanging shoe organizer so maybe my floor will stop collecting piles of shoes. Then I recycled my recyclables like a good human being, organized one bookcase, and now it’s almost 4:30 and I still haven’t done anything I actually needed to do today, but it was so nice to have the day off!
All that randomness to say that I realized it’s November 1st! I only have three more weeks at this student teaching placement and that makes me sad because I don’t want to leave my kids and start over with a new group in December. As trying as it can be at times, I’m really attached to them!
On the brighter side of things this means that I technically only have 13 weeks of grad school left (even though I finish the first week of March)! Exciting! Six and a half months until California and graduation!
Notes from a Student Teacher [6]
I think the universe may be completely out of sync this week or something because according to my experiences (as well as my colleagues and fellow tumblr teachers) the 5-18 demographic has been …well, what’s a nice way to say it… incredibly challenging?
This week brought: a few near-tears experiences early in the week, a sore throat from having to raise my voice, then two hour “dead to the world” naps every single afternoon, begrudgingly having to wake up to do my own homework or go to class, going back to bed around 11, and getting up in the five o’clock hour every morning to repeat the cycle.
I love teaching and I love my students, but there seriously needs to be some kind of vaccination against CRAZY.
1st Period
Me: Just because I am occupied with something else does not give you a license to talk.
Boy: Ms. G, how much is a license to talk?
Me: I’m going to say a million dollars per class period. No IOU’s.
…Then a few minutes later he brings me exhibit A.
Boy: Can you give me a license now?
7th Period: during our benchmark review game
Me: What is a four-sided pillar that meets at a point on top?
Girl: (yells out) A basilisk!
Me: (after I composed myself) How about an obelisk? A basilisk is the creature from Harry Potter.
I absolutely died laughing.
Then as one boy was walking out the door he stealthily hands me this tiny crumpled up piece of paper… Exhibit B… “He’s distacting.”
Yesterday was crap and today was hilarious. Go figure. ;)Notes from a Student Teacher [5 - 5 Down, 5 To Go]
This student teaching/grad school combo thing is no joke. I only thought the first two semesters were difficult. I feel like I’m at the mercy of four different masters – my guiding teacher & my three professors… and all four want something different and there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Today I’ve felt like that scene in Cinderella (my childhood favorite) where all of those d*** bells are ringing at once and everyone is yelling for her.
USC is requiring that I teach different types of lessons (and I understand the logic in that) so today I was trying my hardest to incorporate a group investigation into my lesson. In a group investigation you present some sort of motivator/puzzlement (a painting, a quote, etc.) and let the students ask questions about it and then research those questions. I was really excited about it when I first developed my idea because I was going to use India’s caste system. Then I found out this week that they were broadcasting a video and we had to do a graphic organizer of the caste system today (the only day I could do it) so I had to fit in a small group investigation during the first period. Then my G.T. basically told me that from now on I can “sacrifice” one class period when I need to film, but then to go back to the way that I’m “supposed” to do things. The team of 6th grade social studies teachers plans together so I have to go with whatever they decide to teach. I love the students but I can see why a third of teachers leave the profession after 1-5 years. I’m not even in my first year, but already, teaching at a private school is sounding more and more appealing. ;) No, I’m a true Trojan so I’ll fight on in the drudges of public education, but I am so looking forward to my own classroom …and I’ve never been so excited for a Thanksgiving in my entire life!
