TIME FLIES
Start of summer school = essentially CLUELESS on how to write a lesson plan, how to deliver a lesson plan, how to assess if the students understood the lesson at all... CLUELESS on everything that was TEACHING.
My lesson planning usually went like this during the month of June:
-figure out what the state objective for the topic I am teaching is
-spend 3-4 hours tearing out my hair, googling everything related (or unrelated) to the subject I'm planning to teach, talk to myself (usually out-loud) until I think I've come up with the perfect way to teach the state objective
-propose my brilliant lesson plan idea to my second year
-have the second year say something along the lines of "umm.... yeah... okay... well, how about THIS" and propose a MUCH more brilliant and effective plan for the lesson
-spend 2-3 hours trying to write that brilliant plan into the "lesson plan" format... making sure the VERB in my objective was perfectly perfect
-spend the bus ride from oxford trying to remember some of the brilliant lines I had thought of the night before
In total, maybe 6 hours. For one lesson plan.
When I look back at the start of summer school, at how I felt lesson planning and how I felt teaching, I can most definitely say that this "crash course" into teaching HAS been effective x 100000. My lesson plans no longer take 6 hours and are much more effective than those lesson plans from June that DID take me 6 hours to write. I have figured out this whole "verb" thing and create lesson plans that ACTUALLY teach the students what they are supposed to learn during the lesson. I feel comfortable. I feel good. I see PROGRESS and that is reassuring. I feel as ready as a 7 week (was it 7?) intro to teaching could make anyone feel....
Some things I wasn't too too tooo fond of:
- I am not good at pretending to get mad, pretending to be in a "chick fight" or pretending to be verbally assaulted. I tend to start laughing (more of a giggle, really) and it all goes down hill from there. I was not good at role playing. However, I DID really like hearing the team teachers' accounts of REAL experiences they encountered during the year and HOW they dealt with those experiences. That was helpful... I hope their wise words come back to me once I find myself in similar situations...
- This is not something that can be changed... but it would have been even MORE helpful/realistic if our class had had more students... or at least some trouble-makers. Our class was composed of angels, really, and classroom management issues were never even on the radar...
Big thank you's to Ann Monroe for giving us all the logistical, preparatory and book knowledge possible in such a short amount of time, the 2nd years and the team teachers for sharing your personal experiences and acquired knowledge to prepare us for what we're going to see this year, principal Sweeney for running a tight ship, and the interns for making sure it all ran smoothly...
If you ever get nostalgic and miss Holly Springs, come on up and visit me :)
