Still Alive...Barely

I just recently remembered that I had (well, have, really) a blog. Here's how life's been going:

• OSAT - Passed
• Semester Y Student Teaching - Done and LOVED IT
• Broken Knee - All better
• Semester Y Classes - Almost over.  
• Grades? Your guess is as good as mine
• Work - Last day (EVER) is Friday
• Capstone project - Should be being written instead of this...

Speaking of my Capstone, here is the original first paragraph, but I replaced it with something more "professor-pleasing". 

"The growth that can occur over one semester is astounding; not only for myself, but for the students in my placement classroom.  I feel as if my students are teaching me how to teach more than anything else this semester.  They stump me on a daily basis."

Truth...all kinds of truth up in that statement.  They get me all the time and teach me more than my college classes ever did. Third graders are pretty darn cool and so incredibly smart.  I absolutely love all 22 of them.

Semester X Reflections

I wrote this post a few weeks ago while stuck in an airport during a layover. 

"The semester came to a close last week and I'm waiting for those last few grades to trickle in.  These past few days have given me time to reflect on this past  semester.  I truly could not have asked for more qualified, caring, and simply wonderful professors.  I was also blessed with an absolutely amazing cooperating teacher to observe at the middle school and I have learned so much that I will be able to actually use in the future, which is a rather new feeling for a college student like myself.  I honestly could not have asked for a better literacy professor this semester, she was truly fantastic; I loved every second of her class and I just really didn't want to leave when the last session came to a close.  She is such a supportive mentor and I plan to keep in close contact with her over the next year and throughout my first few years of teaching.

This is the first semester in which I actually felt that I was doing what I was meant to do and that I was good at it.  My grades even reflected it! That's not new, my grades are usually good, but somehow it was different this semester.  Whenever I doubted that I couldn't do it I knew that some one thought I could, and it wasn't just my parents and friends this time, it was my professors and that was really, really nice.  I left this semester with a confidence that I certainly didn't have at the end of the last.  In December, I certainly had passion, but I now feel like I can actually do it and do it well.  Being good at something you love is so gratifying yet terrifying and at the same time completely humbling.  Do I feel 100% prepared right now? No, absolutely not and I'm glad that I have another year of school and student teaching to prepare me, but I'm certain that I can get through it, enjoy it, and excel in it."

Since writing this, my final grades were posted (I got all A's!!), I singed up to take my OSAT (I'm nervous), and I fractured my knee cap (more on that later). 

It Finally CAME!!!

The blessed day finally arrived yesterday! I had once again begun the dangerous cycle of checking my email every time it "bing-ed".  Yesterday, however, one of the bings was no ordinary bing! We finally received the emails informing us where our placement schools were for next year!!!!!!!  Let me reiterate, if you don't happen to grasp the weight of this glorious news...I know where I will be student teaching next year!!  Though it was very difficult having to wait as long as we did (it seemed like literally for-e-v-e-r), I put it into perspective and I feel much better. I am light years ahead of my peers that will be student teaching next spring because I already know exactly where I will be because I will be there for a full year.  And that, my friends, is a wonderful feeling.

Other reflections on the day, I just love observing my middle level cooperating teacher.  She is simply wonderful.  She has been teaching forever and she is still one of the most passionate teachers that I have ever met.  I really admire her for that.  I feel like years of teaching tends to wear on people and break them down, but perhaps that is only people that weren't meant to be teaching in the first place.... hmmm that's definitely something to consider.  Anyway, she's always learning about and applying new strategies and techniques with her students to improve her teaching and she is just such a fun teacher to watch because of this!  I also love the kids, they are so SMART! I just never recall being that intelligent when I was in seventh grade, perhaps I'm wrong, but I still feel like some of them are smarter than me now (I just don't let them know that! ;) )

I also tutor a local student for one of my classes.  This is my most dreaded and favorite part of the week all at once.  Today I adored it, last week I adored it.  My tutee and I have made an awesome connection and I have learned so much more from that little human than I could have ever imagined.  I can only think that students must teach teachers just as much, if not more than we teach them.  The way they see the world can be so naive yet eye-opening and worldly yet innocent.  I'm going to be really sad to see the end of our last session next week. 

Reflections on Friday

Friday was a good day at work.  Not only was it the Friday before Spring Break, but the children didn't have school because of parent-teacher conferences.  We had nine children show up out of fifteen.  Nine.  It was blissful.  The weather was beautiful and we got to have free time outside today, which is quickly becoming my favorite ways to spend time with the kids because they get to let out a ton of energy before we go inside to our tiny little room.  Yep, it was smooth sailing. 

Our little boy that has been having problems was one of the nine that did show up today, and I was really excited.  The smaller number allowed for more one-on-one time.  He sat on his name three times today.  Three baby miracles, maybe not even baby miracles, I'm okay with calling those full on miracles now.  He's coming really far and I'm really proud.  I feel like a proud momma. He also didn't try to escape through the outside door today.  I always see it as a "win" when the children don't try to run away.  Now, something that has really bothered me this whole weekend and that I've had to think about, I've never really thought about it before, but the way different cultures state that they have experienced pain must be different from each other.  This must seem like an obvious statement, but it has honestly never crossed my mind.  Most children that I have worked with go to school and learn "ow" very quickly.  When they don't go to school, they don't have exposure to this phrase.  I am so happy that I was standing next to the door when this little boy came back from the bathroom. As I turned and knelt in front of him to tell him where to hang up the bathroom pass, I noticed that there were tears in his eyes and that he was shaking his hand, but he wasn't making a sound.  I asked him what was wrong. Dumb move on my part. He obviously didn't understand so I pointed to his finger and he pointed to the crack in the door.  His itty bitty finger had gotten shut in the door.  "Ice?" I asked, assuming that, with all of the bags of ice I had gotten his peers for booboos that never occur, he would know what that meant.  The kid just stared at me, so I walked him to the kitchen and got him a bag of ice and gently placed it on his finger.  All the while wondering what it would feel like to be plopped in a classroom where not only you couldn't understand anyone, but they couldn't understand you either.  I questioningly gave him both the thumbs up/down signs and he responded with up, so we went back and continued to have an excellent day.  When he left I gave him a high five.  Never under estimate the value of a high five, those little guys can move mountains with five-year-olds.  I left work hoping and praying that this week off won't undo all the progress that we have made; if it does, we'll make it work, but if it doesn't, that would be great.

Is that what it's like to be a teacher?  Is it honestly this emotionally taxing?  Every given day I have 16 days, my own day and a day for each one of my babies.  Today, I only had 10 days and even though it was good, it was still tiring.  It is easy to understand why teachers can become emotionally detached from their work; it would be so much easier to not worry about each one of their little lives and why they do the things they do.  It would be SO much easier to not try to understand and to just handle everything that comes your way at face value.  I wouldn't come home tired everyday or worried or stressed or concerned.  But, is that the type of teacher I want to be?  No.  I believe that children won't care until they know that I care.  It's simple.  Would you want to learn from someone that just didn't care about you?  Follow their rules?  Yeah, I wouldn't either.  So, I don't care how many booboos I have to ice and bandaid or how many hugs I have to give or how many stories I listen to, ensuring that my babies know that I care is the most important thing I do each day.

Frazzled with a Chance of Breakdown

Exactly how many lesson plans can one person be asked to complete in under a week? Well, I suppose that's not an accurate appraisal of the situation I have found myself in this evening.  A better question is, why are group projects a thing?  I won't have any assistance writing lesson plans when I am teaching in my own classroom, so why am I being assigned more group projects than I can count on one hand?  I have yet to determine why "collaborative learning" is just so mystifyingly wonderful to my professors.  They might just not understand that we all really hate them, but I can't see how that is possible considering the amount of complaints that escape the mouths of me and my peers on a daily basis.  I'm sure most people think I'm whining because "elementary education is super easy".  BAH! That's cute! I really just want to give people who say this a swift slap in the face and a stern talking to.  I have yet to meet a single soul that could actually handle and perform well on all of the assignments that we are given. For instance, by Friday I have to...

• Complete the observations and reflections on my literacy tutoring session

• Meet with one of my middle level professor for 45 minutes tomorrow for a required meeting to discuss a group lesson plan

• Meet with my Middle Level Lesson plan group to actually write the lesson plan
• Write an individual lesson plan over rainforests that incorporates technology - turn in for instructor comments sometime tomorrow, turn in final draft Friday at midnight
• Meet with Teaching Primary Math lesson plan partner to write lesson plan and plan activities that we must implement within the classroom.
• Write my literacy tutoring lesson plan by 7:00 am on Friday
• Analyze a math interview with a child, to be turned in at noon on Thursday
• Complete math structures homework - LOL This won't get done.
• At some point this week, I have to write 2 lesson plans for my job, where I plan and teach an after school program for Kindergarteners.  I could write these over Spring Break, but then I wouldn't get paid for it. 
• Oh and meet with the Portfolio Submission person to ask them questions before Spring Break.

That's it...easy huh? No big deal.  So glad there's not much on my plate right now.  Yeah.  

Work today was difficult, it always is in some manner of speaking.  Today, I was forced to reflect on my interactions with a student that's relatively new to our class.  I'm very fortunate to work with a diverse community of children from all over the world.  Unfortunately, I only speak English and they all speak something else.  Last semester I taught 8 toddlers, from 8 different countries, that spoke 7 different languages.  This semester I get to spend my afternoons with 15 kindergarteners from around the world.

Now, this new child and his sister came to our class, and the US, just a few short weeks ago.  Honestly, it is astonishing with how far they have come with their language acquisition; however, today I realized that this particular child has simply not come as far as I had assumed.  Assumptions. I'm learning that you just can't make them as a teacher; those little minds and hearts hide so much from our view and we just have to keep digging deeper and deeper.  We had assumed, there I go assuming again, that behavior problems with this child had simply been that, behavioral problems.  I began to realize, though, that he might simply not understand what we are saying, even if he shakes his head.  So, when we asked him to sit on the carpet today and he didn't, I held his hand and brought him to the carpet and sat with him and told him that this was sitting.  He stood up and I felt like an idiot...the kids obviously knew what I had been saying the whole time and he just didn't want to sit down.  But then, a baby miracle happened, he walked over to the group and SAT DOWN! Now I really felt like an idiot, because he just really didn't understand me.  He needs just a little more attention.  Just a little more love.  Don't they all in some way? 

Like I said, a draining day overall.  Everyday at work is.  I hate being forced to reflect on my own teaching...it sucks.  But it makes me all the better for it and I should be thankful for that. 

The Perfect Little Email!

It finally came!! That perfect little email that told me I would be student teaching for a full year! I happened to be permanently attached to my phone for a better part of this morning while I was shopping for the after-school program that I work for when I received the perfect little email.  I cried real tears of happiness and I texted all of my teacher friends to tell them to CHECK THEIR EMAILS!!  All of my friends that applied got in as well, but, what can I say, my friends are good teachers.  And we will be even better and more prepared teachers after this amazing experience.

Now I need to focus on the crazy-insane amount of work that I need to get done before Spring Break, if that’s even possible at this point.  I should make a to-do list, but it would stress me out.  So, I’ll just say a little prayer of thanks and get some ice cream after work tonight and dinner on Thursday with my teacher friends.  That should make my week a little easier to swallow.