Short Lessons

Sometimes, a lesson that takes the whole 90 minutes for one class period won't take very long at all in another.  Luckily, with FL, we teachers have a lot of quick and easy review games that we can play.  If we have an extra 15 minutes, we can play "matamoscas," practice with whiteboard, play the slap game, pictionary, charades, etc.  In general, shorter lessons haven't really been a problem for us.  I think that it would be harder in an English or Social Studies class but for us, it's no problem at all.

Classroom Interruptions

With Thanksgiving being just next week, students are DEFINITELY showing that they're ready to be out of school. They seem to be more antsy, they don't really want to do anything and they've kinda had this idea that since it's the week before break that they don't have to do anything. Well... that's obviously wrong.  Mrs. Hastings and I are no strangers to classroom interruptions.  We have one difficult class in particular.  It's really hard to explain the class atmosphere to someone without them actually just coming in and seeing it.  There's one student in particular who, well, is VERY attention hungry.  He starts singing or humming randomly in class, stares at other students, makes inappropriate comments, makes the other students feel uncomfortable, plays imaginary drums and, recently, decided that we was going to stand up, stretch and then lay down in the middle of the floor and take a nap... Yea... All of his teachers have been struggling with him.  Generally, if there's a negative classroom interruption and students aren't willing to bring it back in to the lesson, I remind them that we don't have to do fun activities in games in class and have on several occasions reminded them that they can copy their vocabulary lists twenty times for the rest of class.  I hate being the bad person and there are some classes where I just always have to have a strong hand.  I don't think they always realize that the class could be so fun and easygoing if they just went along with what we did and I didn't have to keep bringing them back in line... It's pretty frustrating...

Who I *Hopefully* Influenced

This prompt is a little tricky for me. I generally don't think of myself as some big motivational person.  Don't get me wrong, I always try to get students to do their best but I just don't like to think of myself as an inspirational person.  However, if I had to pick a student that I think I influenced, I would pick my student "Fidel". During the first weeks of classes, he had a really dry sense of humor and was very sarcastic and cynical (not always the best combination).  Mrs. Hastings wasn't originally sure how well she and him were going to get along, however I have friends that are very similar to him and I knew that he was really a sweet kid, but he wouldn't want people to know that. Over the semester, we've had a really good relationship because we can joke around and if another student in class says something about how "stupid" and activity is, he's been quick to defend it in his own way.  It's really cool seeing that we've gotten on his good side and I've really enjoyed having him in class.

Team Teaching

For the most part, I do the majority of the teaching in class. Mrs. Hastings is always there to help and support students if I'm working with someone else, however, she generally lets me take complete charge.  There have been a few occasions where I wasn't sure how to present a certain topic and I would ask her to step in for a while so I could see how she would present that material.  It's very beneficial for me because I get to stand back and see what she does and how the students respond to it.  I also think the students like to mix it up a little and have Mrs. Hastings do an activity with them for a while since they always have me teaching them.  We don't have a Special Ed. teacher or other type of aid in our classes so it's always just Mrs. Hastings and I and I'm just fine with that. We have a really good relationship and similar teaching styles.

La Comunidad de la Escuela

The school community for MHS is very diverse.  Firstly, it's located in Morgantown which is, obviously, where WVU is located.  There's a strong connection between MHS and WVU. A lot of the students have parents that work for the university and most also plan on attending one day.  One of my students last year was even President Clements daughter! Families in Morgantown span the entire socioeconomic spectrum.  There are a good bit of international students, however the majority tend to come from Middle Eastern families.  I have noticed in my time here that there is not a very large Hispanic population which makes it hard to show students how they can use Spanish in their community.

Parent- Teacher Conferences

Last week we had our first round of parent-teacher conferences.  I was a little nervous about them but Mrs. Hastings told me there was nothing to worry about.  We set up four desks in the front of the classroom for us to use and printed out the progress reports of the students we knew had parents coming in.  We had about 5 conferences and they all went really well. The parents were nice and receptive to what we were saying and Mrs. Hastings told me that she wanted me to have just as much say as she did in the conferences so I also got to comment on the students.  We made sure to use the "compliment sandwich" with the parents: say something good about the student, say an area they could improve on, and then finish with another compliment. Overall, I think it was a really good experience and I'm glad I finally got to participate in my first ever parent-teacher conferences.

Mi Relacion con Otros Profesores

So far I've developed a really good relationship with the other teachers at MHS. I think one thing that they like about me is that I don't try to act like I know everything about education and I never complain.  I also treat them like my superiors and not my coworkers because, honestly, I'm not REALLY a teacher yet and they are above me. I eat lunch with my mentor teacher, my PDS coordinator and a couple other teachers every day and I really enjoy that.  I get to hear their interpretations of things that went on in their classrooms and how they handled things.  Overall, I take it as a learning experience being in there. I'm going to go to a conference with the other FL teachers so I'm really looking forward to that.