Student Teaching Blues

I've heard some terror stories for student teachers, this is scary for me in the non-frightening crash course way. Some student teachers have all their worked dumped on them after the first week of school. I am on the fifth week feeling very calm and at ease, and am just waiting for this huge task to be presented to me that would carry on and take all the energy out of me until the end of the semester. I get to be in charge of the classroom occasionally. Hopefully I am on the start of being in front of the classroom more and more. Yesterday went very well going over vectors, but i was in front of the class for only 2 periods. Eventually I will be in front for all the periods, I just not sure when. Fortunately the classes are all the same, except the very first period (Physics II) . CSU told me it alright not to add that class to the list but at least get practice working on that class as well, which I am totally for, because eventually I would be teaching those topics as well. Everything outside the class: grading, attendance, documenting, etc. I am a whiz with or have almost reached proficiency in. There will be days coming up where my mentor will be absent for important meetings downtown. Guess who gets to run the entire day! I might get some observation done that day for the periods I am off, just to be able to point out what I should be doing, or how I should be addressing students whether it is behavior, demonstrations, or lead discussion. When I first started writing this entry, I was a little worried about my progress as a student teacher, but after talking with CSU and a few others, I feel a little better, but that doesnt mean I have time to relax, it means I have to stay on task.

Mindset

You want to have the ability to speed up their learning from what you would think they know and how they should apply it to the new concepts.

I would not walk away from a student without telling them everything they need to know to solve a problem or realize a natural phenomenon, i just want them to figure out the last step. I crack up at them when they shout at me to give them the answer. They are responsible for their own learning. It takes a lot for them to understand that, but unfortunately I am afraid they wont realize it until later in life. My mentor told me that I have a lot of patience. Now I need structure and Guidance. The motivation portion of teaching has come in waves for me. The ISPP incident gave me another lift when I thought I was alright. As long as I get enough rest and time with people outside of the school, then I'm set.

3rd Week

I just finished my third week of student teaching. The only thing I can say is that these students need help, in a good way! I am starting to identify those who are just a little under educated with those who are plain ignorant, and to all of those teachers out there, no matter where you go, expect both! What is funny is that you need both! The ignorant ones are those who keep me on my toes with practicing (1) who is in charge, and (2) how school policy is listed and conducted. I do my best to keep all of the students in the class room, ALMOST regardless of their behavior. I had no problem booting students out of the classroom for repeated offenses. They are looking for a line to cross. Let them cross that line, but show them you can support your side with authority as long as they have not seen the limit to your power. I have already thrown down the hammer. The students were very well aware, but they have not seen what they want to come across. This does seem like bit of a power trip but there is always the chance for the students to test your limit. A note from my mentor: If the IDEA to call their parents comes up when you have already ESTABLISHED all possible ground rules (meaning no new rules come up on the fly) CALL THE PARENTS!!!

Professional Organizations

Modern teachers have a chance to meet up with people of their field. Science teachers, like me, join organizations for various reasons.  One organization is the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).  There are groups for special areas.  The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)   has multiple chapters throughout the region and plan occasional conferences.   There is one more physics association that meets monthly unless there is an AAPT meeting for that month. This group is mainly restricted to the state of Illinois known as the Illinois State Physics Project. Here is a snipet from the website:
ISPP is a loose organization of High School, College, and University Physics Teachers in the Chicago Area who meet once a month , except November, July and August, at host schools to discuss teaching methods, lecture and lab demonstrations, and teaching techniques. We emphasize the use of phenomena to engage the student, so the presentations usually involve activities.

I went to a meeting last thursday at Chicago State.  High School and College teachers met to do sort of a "show and tell" of physics experiments they introduced to their class that challenged everyday phenomena. Since I had to take my mentor to a student teacher meeting prior to the ISPP meeting (that was on the same campus) we showed up very early.  I had time to grab some equipment I left at Chicago State the day before that I used to show my supervisors in one my class earlier that week.  Walking around with this, everyone assumed I was going to show THEM something.  I wasn't going to show them whatsoever.  As the ISPP meeting started my mentor mentioned to me that he signed me up to perform a demo with what I had. "The mystery tube" as he had everyone calling it.

There was a reason I didn't want to show this off.  One, I was sure they had seen this already, and two, majority of the people have lots of experience with teaching physics or other general sciences.  I was more nervous in front of these people than I would be with my actual students!  The host assured me that the audience is not as vicious as I would expect.  I have heard this before.  The nicest audience, that was used to describe Science Seminar when I was an undergrad.  A science colloquium presented by the students for the students, and the profs would supervise.  It was my turn to show off what I had with me,  I can feel my heart beat in my stomach.  I like to have attention, but not professional, mature, attention.  These are people I look up to, and now I went before them...

My, name is Jeremiah Campion, you can call me "the young Jerry"  no offense (as I point to Gerry Leitz who was one of the founders of this organization sitting in front of me).  I have been teaching for negative point five ( -.5 ) years but once I am done with student teaching over at Bogan High School, I can officially walk to any school and tell them I have zero years experience.

that got me to settle my nerves and I was able to show them the demo I used with my students.  I told them who I got the idea from and that I was surprised no one had seen it before.  It was a cardboard tubes with strings tied to one another so that if you pull on one end from any side, a string from the loose end gets pulled in, and so on.  The point of showing the student was to help them understand Scientific theory, in that even though you cant see it, doesn't mean we don't have an idea of what it looks like or how it works (like an atom), until we can find ways to further our investigation.  I showed them how it looked on the inside, but by doing this, we are "playing god".  The crowd enjoyed what I had brought forth to them as I always enjoy what they want to show everyone else.  This is not going to be the only time I would present something, I've always wanted to actually, but not until after I had a few years of teaching under my belt, and my own bag full of tricks that I would try to find worthwhile to show off.  I'll get there eventually.

Let's reflect the day after

Today went by so much smoother. I had a class to myself for the majority of the period. They were good students however, so it counts as cheating. I was fortunate to have an assistant principal walk by and notice the students keeping busy. (SCORE). The other classes did everything they were told with less challenges presented to them. I graded the work they did the day before and left notes for what they needed to improve. If i had the chance, i would go over what i meant for the repeated comments i made. They will understand better after that. I wish they could hang on to the information so they are not repeat offenders. Good for now, important note: everyday should get easier, not harder. another important note: Those who know what they are doing understand that it is just busy work. Those who do not know what they are doing are just going to end up busy with a lot of work.

These days will happen

At least it was very nice and sunny today. You want to have a nice sound system of support for your school and pretty much the contact numbers are invalid or disconnected from a person's emergency info. No one was seriously hurt but an urgency to contact a parent was very necessary. This is not the first this has happened. I hope it is not the parent's intention to leave no way of getting a hold of them if anything were to happen. I had a first full Physics Course Plan Committee Meeting with the principal as a special guest. It was only the second week of school, he was there just to see how things go. However the repeated reminder from him that the administration makes to all course committees was made. "We know, we will try to incorporate that into our course" even though it's a skill you build in a High School English course to learn how to write a paper. Writing a few lines for a lab report is the best they can do as of now, if I'm lucky. There are some great students in the class. One unfortunate thing I've done so far is memorize the name of all the students who cause problems. I should have all of them down by the end of the week if I work on it properly. As for the student teaching pace, I may be a little behind schedule as well. All I have to do is teach one lesson to one class. Once I understand the curriculum of any of the classes for the week, I will let the mentor know where I want to jump in and do it the way I would teach it, along with modifications that go along with school regulations, resources, etc. Soon I would have to continue with making lessons for an entire class, then another class, so on and so forth until I am teaching all the classes that I have been observing. Hopefully all of the students kinks have been worked out before it is my turn to get to them, Just kidding, the kinks never get fixed, but you know how to delay their problems. More later.

JC

Quick important note:

If there is anything to do to still be considered a teacher, take attendance. The next important thing to try to do is get and stay organized. The rest should fall into place.

First full week

According to CSU, this is my second week of student teaching (now 3rd week after finish editing, I forgot over the weekend). The first week I was suppose to only perform guided observation. Unfortunately, I was not able to meet that criteria until this week since this was the week the students finally arrived. The second week I started memorizing names and taking attendance. I was aware that the students might try and be smart when it comes to name and seats, but thanks to IMPACT, I was on top. It did feel like team teaching at first when Mr. Farr would give me a chance to put in some words on the topic at hand, but as the days passed, my words were short. I felt a lil disappointed with myself for not being more complete with content knowledge on the spot. (to be continued)

The third week starts off with a lab (horray!). This is the magic happens.
sorry to cut off, will write more later, only because I have to, but this is kinda neat.

JC

First week (not first full week)

After 2 years of professional development, inquiry training, and whole lot of other only slightly useful non-sense (sorry to all who put forth the effort, but stuff starts to come clear as the days go by),  I finally get to practice a purpose in life I find worthwhile.  If i was not doing this I would not be able to tell you where I would be, and doubt would be excited or happy about it.

My first day was not entirely the first day for students to arrive.  There were staff development meetings throughout the next couple of days to lead us toward the 3-day weekend.  I met with my field-based supervisor, whom I will call my mentor for as long as I live to tell student teaching stories, and ran with our own type of experience of becoming a high school physics teacher.  He handed me everything the school handed him that day, which consisted of a Teacher handbook (on top of me already using my "Student" Teacher handbook), class schedule, development schedule, and power point notes for the principal's welcome back address.  The only reason I held these was so he could do lesson plans on his laptop.  No that was not the only reason.  He told me to get comfortable with the handbook and schedule.  It will give me insight on school policy and classroom management, plus a calendar so I can plan accordingly for the next 4 months.

We went to development meetings for the first 2 days, then friday we skipped out and got caught by an assistant principal.  Chewed out best describes what happened to us.  We were however trying to fix his wife's computer so she can send attendance via school program to the registry.  Yes, she is a music teacher there. It still at this time is not fixed, but we tried and cannot continue from there.

Real teaching started the day after Labor Day.  Getting there early was nice, but I was already proving that I had been accidental when I left all the rosters for each period on his wife's desk over the weekend when my task was to create a seating arrangement for every one of them.  I had actually gotten half the classes complete but not finding everything when I wanted to was disastrous.  Luckily with the attendance program, another roster was visible and was able to give the students an overhead visual the second before they walked in.  Word of advice given to me, be prepared, and of course, if you dont have a plan, then you plan to fail.