3:4

I honestly am not at all sure what to think of today. It was picture day, and I was still feeling a little icky (or maybe a lot icky). I did everything in my power to stay upbeat and alive today, just in case! Be on my toes, as Miss M put it, just in case someone showed up to watch how I was doing. That information is something that I knew before, I had just never really thought about it much. Even though I am battling a headache, and cold-like symptoms (its not H1N1, as far as I know, I checked my symptoms), its quite rough to have a bad day, even though all I wanted to do was crawl back into bed and sleep for ages. Other than that, today was picture day (I was almost forced into taking a picture for the yearbook, they did get me to take one). Students were excited, Miss M wasn’t very excited at all, but we were flexible (on more than one occasion- they kept calling and changing our picture time, as well as scheduling it during library, and things just kept getting jumbled up). She doesn’t like pictures at all, but has told me that you can try to get out of taking one, but they will find you… no matter what you do, they always find you! As for the flexible thing, I have learned this entire time how flexible a teacher can be, and how flexible a teacher can make themselves. If you are willing to be flexible to get an assignment finished, or to take more time with students so that you are helping them understand what is going on, or taking time to explain every little detail about how the classroom works, you may be using other periods time slot. I also think that if you are on the opposite end of things, what do you do when students don’t understand a concept, do you drop it and move on the next day like you had planned, or do you pick it up tomorrow. I would probably either take a little more time (depending on frustration level with students) or give it a little more time, plus tomorrow. We have yet to follow the entire schedule, and have yet to complete the schedule. It bothers me because the students are not getting in their social studies, science hours, and sometimes even their English time is cut short. It really bugs me… keeping track of time isn’t really that hard, not in my opinion anyway. It’s hard, and I should say something to Miss M about it, but the one time that I did, she kind of snipped at me and that was the end of that (she wanted to finish what she was doing and wasn’t ready to move on yet).
Onto what happened today. Today was my first day of teaching an actual math class lesson. I thought I was prepared, extremely ready, knew exactly what I was going to do, had stuff run off for the class, and felt prepared. When it came time for the lesson, I was prepared, kind of. I had stuff done, plans done, etc., but the lesson in my opinion just stunk! I worked really hard on completing it, I worked hard to get it so that students could learn what really needed to be learned, and thought it would be wonderful. The ideas were good, I’ll give myself that, the thought behind the lesson was great as well, but it just didn’t work. For one, the pages the students were going to do had re-group subtraction in it, and I wasn’t allowed to teach that (Miss M ran in and took over at that point, more on that later). Next, the students didn’t understand it. They understood the four plan concept, that there were steps… but they didn’t understand what they could do to solve the problem because they couldn’t do the regroup subtraction, and the pictures were too big to draw. I had a hard time also when Miss M took over when the re-grouping came up. I wanted to give it a go. Try it and see how it went, and see if I could do it... I couldn’t, she didn’t even think about letting me... All I did was basically write the problem on the board, and then she interrupted and took over. I had a hard time with that, I was mad and still am a little on the not so happy side of things, but i have to understand that this is HER classroom and I need to respect her decisions and her thoughts/ideas. I wish she would have given me the opportunity to try it, or to even give it my best shot, because I think I could have done it, but she didn’t, and I think that is what bothers me the most.
Other than those few things, the day went pretty much the same. There hasn’t been science since Monday, the Title I kids are pulled out during Social studies (going to be a daily thing), and math takes forever!
I also (before I forget) watched the PE teacher today (I got his permission on Tuesday to make sure it was ok that I watched). The class was a little unorganized, he just had the students play soccer. There was a no wristband team, and a wristband team. Then there were 2 balls out on the field (great idea being there were about 40 students on the field at one time). There really were no rules, not guidelines, not really anything (students were wrestling with each other and pushing/shoving and then were just asked to stop. Students weren’t participating, and weren’t really forced to be a part of gym.). It really was interesting to see!
Tomorrow is Friday, and I’m excited! I like Fridays! Hopefully I feel better tomorrow!!!! 