All said and done.

During my last "official" week, I had dinner with my supervisors.  They started off with asking me if I was finished.  I told them that I had to make up for the two days I missed over the semester, so I was going to be there a couple days longer.  There is this lab I want to end on, and the students are almost at reaching that subject.  The response in my head when they asked was a little different:  YOU MEAN ITS OVER?  We talked about my portfolio I had for them.  I have two: one is personal that has any documents, notes, lessons, etc for my class, the other is a final, almost like a professional portfolio of anything I personally have wrote up and is legitimately my work.  The supervisors wished to see a hard copy of my final, even though I can make many digital copies.  They told me that I should get that to them since grades were to be posted the next day at 5pm.  It really was over!  I could not believe it.  The feeling I would tell people was that it felt like I was handed an Honorable Discharge!  The war was over, Im coming home!  Only, I am going to stay, this time to get paid!

It was funny when teachers and students would ask when my last day was, before it was never, now I tell them I finished yesterday!  Yet I still show up.  It is "officially" over for me, but I'm still teaching until I say I am finished.  Which will be this week.

Last official week

To sum it up, I guess I got the hang of it. An issue arises, I just keep to my routine of issuing referrals. I dont care how severe the punishment is, just the fact that the disturbing student leaves my classroom, Im happy. Sure you fall behind for the moment. but I intend to catch up. I talked with someone who has been a teacher for two years. Supposedly, a lot of the people with the school think I am an actual teacher here. The new teachers who have to go to new teacher meetings think I've been here a little longer than they have. I took it as a compliment. Anyways, she told me, when the bad students complain, it means you are doing your job. When the good students complain, maybe something needs to change. My mentor is telling me that this is the worst that it will ever get. I've said it before, the bad news is I feel fine, the good news is that it gets better! I would like to leave it at that, but I just have to ask, WHEN? When does it get better? I have one week, and a lot of the students know it. So if they have to go down in a blaze of glory, so be it. Im not the one sabotaging their grade, THEY ARE!

Need some positive momentum going

I glance at a group of chatter boxes in my class and wonder how this happened? How did all of them get together like this. I swear something is not right. Always keep a hard copy of the seating chart, check. Always keep a seating chart with students who were enrolled late in the semester, d'ohh! It worked earlier this week in a different period, and the rough edges weren't as jagged for the rest of that period.

DEMO OF THE YEAR!!!

I am sorry to those who missed it, but I've heard through the grapevine that you can catch it on YouTube! Just kidding, I wish!  This was one of the easiest and best days that I ever taught, yesterday. I forgot to write about it when I got home. Today was a lil rough being under the weather, but I managed.  So what happened? Well, let's say it's a Bill Nye / Mythbusters crash demo. So that set's the stage for a scientific, but overall entertaining show. I had to teach the students about pressure, and instead of giving them a great amount of force through a small area, like through a compressor, why not spread a great amount of force through and even greater surface area!   For the past couple of weeks, me and my mentor would work on something we cannot top. We would shoot nails evenly over a 2x4 sheet of plywood so that the ends of the nails pointed upward when flipped over. If the force of someone's weight was placed on one nail, one small area, then going to the hospital for a deep punture wound would be in order, maybe a tetanus booster too. What if the weight was spread over a few thousand nails? Well, that might get a rise out of a few, meaning the scared. Why not make two sheets so there's nails sandwiching a body together? Still not amusing. Then fine, Steve put a cinder block on the top board I was sandwiched in and smashed it over my chest! You cant top that! We never said dont try this at home, but if I put up pictures, then follow the format. (make it look how we did to not get hurt, if you get hurt, claim you didn't do it our way!) Safety goggles and helmet were in order, better to be safe then sorry, but it's easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Today had to be a bore compared to yesterday. I wrote up a Power point review an hour before classes started and used it for the entire day. It was in the plan to review, but this was a last resort because I couldn't find the resources I needed. Now I have to write a jeopardy PP for tomorrow. I dont know how, but hopefully google can help me.

The wrestling team has their first match of the season today. I was almost going to take off cuz of my close to delerious condition. I dont want to think it's a building year, that means my expectations for them are not high. Not cool.

Wrote up 2 students today, got one kid suspended yesterday. My reactions to incidents are becoming more professional when it comes to things I don't want to happen in the class. It was their choice to go against my word, it was their choice to be disruptive in my class.   Their choices either lead toward consequences or rewards.  Only a few types of choices lead toward reward. Only a couple times a week do I see good choices over bad, but I hold them higher than when I am issuing negative consequences.

What went wrong, and what could I do better

The day before Thanksgiving and I made 2 parent phone calls. The good news was that there weren't any offenses to make these phones. Its really about the poor attendance and progress of one student and the lack of focus and constant tardiness of another. Both present the fact that they want to pass, but it is really easy to see it coming that when marking periods come around, they never really hold their end of the bargain, and wish to try and make their grade change overnight. Did that make sense? When they are surprised of their grade, they thought they were angels, and deserve better. I dont think so. I have my first conference with a parent. It is not a harmful one, its more of an informing type of conference. The weird news is that I have worse students who have far more absences and much much worse grades. It is not that I have given up on them, but they just dont care, so it's really up to them to tell their parents that they did not pass because they never came since the first three weeks! 

It is after 21 days of not being in the class that there is no possible way to be aloud to pass for the semester. I am fine with that.  I know when a student has cut my class with no excuse.  I am wondering what they are doing, this was never that case at my school, you couldn't cut.  Discipline is a factor.  Well, there's discipline and then there's nothing to lose.  Many have nothing to lose, so they just go carefree into the world.  When they get out there in the real world, their nothing to lose attitude becomes nothing to ever gain.  So i suppose the parent phone calls were a pro-active move, It is better to be pro-active than reactive.

I have a couple more weeks of Student teaching, and I think I need those couple of weeks.  I have finally made it to the part of student teaching where the idea of getting experience is synching in.  I am running ideas now past my mentor that are for what goes on in the class, as well as outside the class.  My goal is that I leave something he can use.  Not all the ideas I have suggested are my own but I can get around to something soon.  The grading is piling a little, and hopefully he starts to retrain himself on grading since I have been taking care of it most the semester.   I have lost the point of all this, I might have lost the point in most of my ramblings, but all is well,  cant wait for monday after I get a plan together first.

Not too bad

I was slightly sluggish today, it's not that the periods got worse as the day went on, but I did have a little less effort each time around. Now last Friday was different. Every period got better and better. I would think about changing it up each time, but I just did not want to go over time in the period.  This is now where I reflect; What went wrong, and What worked?

Stuck in a rut

So today was alright, it was a lab day, which I prefer over other days, because the students get engaged, and lecture is minimal. Of course, there needs to be a lecture to setup the lab and to get them going. My trouble is how far they make it when they are on their own in the activity. Then trouble is that they get stuck. Today I can sort of see why and its in the questions that are asked as they investigate. However, I was just out of things to say when I was trying to introduce the lab. So when I reflect on this, I tell myself that I know I can do better, but how? more later...