Week Two in the Bag!

Or something like that. This week, we began our practice teaching which is basically us, paired with a cooperating teacher (CT), in summer school. The classes that Fellows have been assigned to are polar opposites: some classes have students who are trying to get ahead and some classes have students who are way behind. For my classes, basically the students are behind, have failed their grade and have been offered a pass to 8th grade if they attend summer school. On day one, we had two students in the first period, none in the second, and two in the last. On day two, we got a couple more students. It's been slow.

It's hard having grown up in Montgomery County. I received a education from one of the best school districts in the nation and now I'm teaching in Prince George's, which is the bottom of Maryland's schools. I find myself saying, "This would not fly in Montgomery County!"

Anyway, the kids are pretty cool. I think they like seeing young faces which will eventually will become way less interesting, but at least we have some leeway!

My CT is okay. I haven't had the best experiences in my interactions with PG teachers. For one, she tells it like it is. She also seems to really enjoy answering our questions and really wants to help us grow. Some downsides so far are that she doesn't seem like she's very prepared and she tells it how it is when she teaches, too so it's not very innovative. With that said, the kids seem to get it though it's not the most exciting. One big upside is that she really seems to understand students and she pays attention to them, although she's not always engaged with them.

Yesterday, she let us teach the opener of the lesson after she had taught the first period. My co-Fellow went first, and then it was me. I had worked out a quick plan of what I was going to say, but when I got up to teach, I had done some math wrong so one of the problems I gave the students made the problem way more complex than they were ready for. I mini-freaked out inside. It wasn't the most successful lesson.

What I've found out is that I'm really great with one-on-one help. What I really need help with is delivering lessons with flow and clarity. While my plans look great, executing them is a different story. On Tuesday, I'll be introducing the classes to probability. Will update on that soon...

There is this one kid that I am so amazed with. He's taking the class because he skipped school so much that he failed. (You can skip when you're in middle school?? Where do you go??) He did the best on the pretest that we gave all the students and when we did a word problem worksheet on fractions, he did the problems faster than I did. And I'M supposed to be the math teacher? Oh so by the way... I have to teach math now because I passed the math Praxis. I'm kind of bummed because I can get so much more excited about science. But I'll make the best of it. My friend told me I should teach math in a science context and maybe I will... cell DIVISION, anyone?! :)

But, back to this kid. He is clearly intelligent and stifling his potential. (PLEASE! Fulfill your destiny!) By the end of this coming week, I'm being switched to a Special Education math class. I wish we didn't just have two weeks in each placement because I'm just getting to know the kids.

In all obviousness, summer school is not a realistic nor thorough enough way for us Fellows to practice teaching. But it's better than nothing.


This week we worked on class management. This is what keeps us new teachers awake at night. We're scared our classes will be chaotic and we can't do it. We're told that there are just seven reasons for misbehavior. It's easy.

But here's my guess, sometimes it will be easy and sometimes it won't. Sometimes kids don't misbehave because they're bored, there are unclear limits set in class, they have trouble expressing their feelings, they're dealing with peer pressure, etc. Sometimes, kids just wanna misbehave. I know I did. I know as humans we like to rationalize everything, but some people are just jerks sometimes, and it can't be explained. (But of course, more often it can.)

I just want someone to tell me their worst classroom nightmare ever and how they handled it. So far my plan is for be ridiculously consistent and overplanned.