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About Me
- Dr. Susan Ferguson
- I teach English Education, Foreign Language Education, and ESL Education, and I advise STEM Education Majors at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama--and I LOVE IT! I love to invite others to find the poet that is within them--I am certain a poet lies within each of us!
Today is 3-23. I finally got to meet the students I will be with for the remainder of the semester. A week of grad testing, and a week of Spring Break really delayed my meeting the students. 10th grade is so different from 7th grade! I actually taught my first lesson today, which I hated because I haven't even seen my coop teacher in action, nor had I learned the students names. I did ok though. Do we have class tonight? I'm so confused!
ReplyDeleteI hope someone responded to you, Danielle. I did not have internet access for the past 48 hours. Yes, 1oth grade is so, so different. Both have their merits, but generally teachers will gravitate toward 6-8 or 6-9 and 9-12 or 10-12. It will be interesting to see what you think at the end of the semester.
ReplyDeleteDanielle,
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your shock at how different 7th grade and 10th grade are: I did my pre-service (what you're doing now) in a 7th grade classroom and my internship in a 10th grade classroom. I agree with Mrs. Piper--some people can hack the middle school kids while others take on the high school kids. I'm of the latter.
I can also relate to being forced to "jump into" your teaching. My supervising teacher during my internship did that within my very first three days of being in the classroom. I, too, had not even learned the students' names. It's daunting at first, but I chalked it up to being true-to-life because when you get your own classroom, you won't have time to learn the students' names before you start teaching them then.
http://www.southalabama.edu/oie/internships.html
ReplyDeleteJen, Try this one.
Interesting program concept with a variety of options (TEFL, Spanish, etc.. as well as location).
ReplyDeletehttp://cedei.org/cedei8/programs/Summer%20Spanish/summer%20spanish.html
http://cedei.org/cedei8/programs/index.html
This one is in the Andes...lovely!
Danielle, I can't believe how drastic the change is from 8th to 10th grade either. I'm surprised you are already teaching. As you might remember, I was thrown into the mix at Causey before ever seeing my cooperating teacher in action as well. Brittany is right: view it as a real-world experience. I am looking forward to next week; I will be teaching my first lesson on several of Poe's shorter poems! Death, murder, and the macabre! Yes!!
ReplyDeleteDanielle,
ReplyDeleteI'll be wanting to know what you think of your coop teacher (Danielle's at my school). Are you teaching honors? I don't know what kind of schedule she has.
Anyway, I'm curious as to what you think about "honors" at our school.
High school is really crazy...sometimes I don't wonder if I should try to go to a middle school... I know my first year I was 21 when I started teaching and I was teaching some seniors who were 20. It was really unbelievable.
i think its good for you to jump in like that though. Like Brad was saying...its real life...we don't know the kids until probably the third week of school.
Melanie, Yes it is an honors class.
ReplyDeleteToday we returned to meet the classes for the first time. The 3rd period is her honors class. For some reason both classes did the same work so I was confused as to why there's separation. First period is filled with kids who like to goof off and talk a lot. This class would definitely be labeled as bad kids. I would disagree honestly. Her strategies and methods are horrible. Her kids are supposed to come into the class a complete board work compiled of different textbook assignments. She doesn't provide any examples for the students to model. The only type of feedback is negative. I really don't see the point in having the kids walk in her classroom.
ReplyDeleteDanielle and Brad,
ReplyDeleteI had noticed a change in the students before I had even met them! With grad exams and spring break, it was not until this week that I got a chance to formally observe them in the classroom. Even before that though, I could tell a difference between these kids at Leflore and my students at Dunbar. They are not interested in me or Ursula in the slightest. During the week of grad exams, we were sitting in the classroom (during homeroom) and no one said anything to us. They didn't even ask who we were or why we were there. They are like zombies competing to see who can care the least.
This week I was astounding at the level of ignorance I observed in my cooperating teacher. She has the students complete a "word of the day" activity in their notebooks upon entering the classroom (although they don't even do it because they know they can do it at home). What I found particularly odd about this activity was that the teacher did not even have a good grasp of the words she was having the students define! She also had them write the phonetic spelling of the vocabulary words, which ended up being completely pointless because she mispronounced the words and the students pronounced them how she did.
Brad I am excited for your Poe lesson! I know you will do well.
Paige
For those methods students who, like me, have gone from middle school to high school: What do you think? To be quite honest, I think I like high school. I don't really know why, I think they aren't so bratty. I know that sounded horrible just then, but hey, lets be honest.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am jumping to conclusions though. I mean I only spent 6 weeks with one class in one school. It isn't a huge sample to draw conclusions from. Also, I am in upper level high school classrooms. These students I am with now aren't typical. As of now I think I prefer high school, but we'll see in a few weeks how I feel about it.
I have taught at middle school and high school. I prefer high school way more. Middle school students are not half as mature and need constant attention, whereas high school students are more on an individual level. jpb, that is how all high school students are. You have to be memorable for them to actually care who you are or what you have to say.
ReplyDeleteMiddle school was much harder that high school. For one thing, just the time spent supervising the middle school students is so much more than high school. From 7:10 until you walk them to P.E.,then 1 period planning and back to walk them from P.E., then walk them to lunch, eat with them, and walk them back from lunch. The 20 minute break for lunch in high school doesn't seem like much until you experience not having it. I didn't mind actually eating with the middle schoolers because we were able to talk, but just being on duty practically all day is tough. The noise level in the halls is as different as night and day, and high school students don't do all the hitting and running. Classroom management is much easier too.
ReplyDelete