One Year Complete!

Well I have gotten one under my belt, and I survived. I still love teaching! I am even liking Geography more and more. I liked it before, but... I am continuing to try to find new and fun ways to engage students in their own learning process. I love seeing the students discover something without me telling them. I love to see them learn. lol

I wrote my first grant this year, through the local community and was given it. Sooo excited! I only teach a semester class, so I never have time to go into depth about different countries and the people who live there. I am lucky if I get basics covered and then North America covered. The grant idea is based on culture and how the world is shrinking. It is meant to help students realize what culture is, how it shapes society, and how stereotypes and racism can grow. This is I feel important to a ever growing global society. I can't wait to get the materials I ask for and get planning. I will designate Fridays and Culture days, on those days we will learn and about culture and conduct culture studies.

I was sad the last day of school, I am told I will get over that, and that every year gets easier, but we will see. I am finding there are always new horizons to cross, and that the possibilities are endless, if I look for them. If you have suggestions of great geography lesson please feel free to share them with me.

Time to do some homework, lol.

Teaching

Well it has been a while since I posted. I was looking through some old papers and found one of the blogs I had posted and printed. Therefore, I decided to add a new posting. I have been teaching 7 th grade geography and I am loving it. I always thought I would teach American History or state history, but at the moment I am happy teaching geography. It has been a challenge to create fun lessons that also address the multiple intelligences of students. It has also been a challenge to learn about the new school and the extra things required of a teacher other than lessons and teaching. I still love getting up and going to school, I am happy. It is not easy by any means. I already have students who hate, love, and don't care about my class or me. I am not giving up on those who hate my class. My goal is to find activities to make geography relevant, interesting, thought provoking and sometime fun, so that I reach those who come in to my classroom thinking "I hate social studies."

November 18 - December 2

Well, the NCSS Conference was interesting I learned a great deal about teaching as well as professional events. I was able to meet many history teachers from around the United States. I learned new techniques in teaching the social studies.
This coming week is my last; this has been such a memorable experience. I have learned so much that it is hard to put it into words. There are so many things that people tell you about teaching but you cannot truly understand until you actually take it on and do it yourself. I not only learned about teaching this semester, I learned about myself. I learned that I am capable of being a teacher, actually being in the classroom proved that. I learned that classroom discipline has to be tailored to your preferences, that what works for one person does not always work for another. I learned that sometimes a simple hello could win over a student over to your side. How a little extra attention to something a student likes can make their day. I learned that students will complain about almost everything that you ask them to do. They will try to get away with almost everything, and test you every minute of the day. Some days I will go home completely exhausted, others go home smiling and happy about the day’s achievement. I was scared going into this experience that I would not be made out for this but now I feel as though I can do this. When students’ eyes light up, when you give them, a complement for doing well makes the days that go bad seam far away. One more week left, I am going to miss so many of these kids.

November 14-16

I decided to go ahead and tell about this week up to Wednesday, being I am not sure if I will be able to post on Friday. This week I have learned how much fun giving state tests are. They are as fun to give as to take. I did not give them, but I helped pass them out etc. I also learned that there is not always a good way to reward students. Today we showed a school wide movie, through the system. I found that no matter what movie was being shown someone was going to complain about it. I also found that many students would rather get on with regular schoolwork. Well I am off to my first convention tomorrow, looking forward to going. It will be a learning experience. I teach my last lesson of my own tomorrow, and then I have to sit back and watch for a while. Student teaching goes by so fast. This blog will be continued when I return, from the conference. Therefore, I can discuss the end of the week, as well as, the conference.

November 7-11

It was strange this week only being in charge of two hours. I surprisingly found myself getting bored. However, I have plenty to work on. This week of course was the week of Veterans Day. Our school like most others held a Veterans Day assembly. My cooperating teacher was in charge of this assembly therefore she was really on edge. Most of the classes she was in charge of this week watched movies so she could get things done for the assembly. I now do not feel bad about one of the days I got to school and could not do the activity that I had planned for the day; therefore, I had the students watch one of the Founding Fathers videos. At least this video had to do with the subject we were studying. However, if I was in her situation I might have done the same thing. I am finding that the students are starting to realize that I will not be there much longer. Realizing that I am no longer teaching some of the classes and asking why I am not. I have had many students ask me if they can have my e-mail so they can talk to me when I am gone. It is flattering. I am really going to miss most of them I am seeing how easy it is to get to know some of these kids, and how many of them look forward to seeing you everyday. I am also realizing how by just smiling or saying hi to a student can brighten there day, and in some cases change completely how they act in your class. Taking a little time to listen to them goes a long way, not only toughing there heart but mine as well. This makes those late late nights of working on lesson plans worth the time.

I am excited about this coming week; I will be attending my first national convention, for the National Council for the Social Studies. I am really looking forward to the learning experience. However, I am also sad because after next week I will no longer be teaching a class. I do not understand how my cooperating teacher could turn everything over to me; I do understand now why some teachers do not like having student teachers, because they have to sit back and let someone else have the fun, so to speak.

October 31 – November 4

This week went by fast. I had the privilege to ride along on two trips. The first was to the Kansas State Library in Topeka. I hand never been so this was an experience just in going. This was a trip to allow the students participating in National History Day to do some research. So I was also able to help some students research topics for their projects which was also an experience in itself, for I was helping students when I needed help as well, not knowing the procedures and rules. The second trip I had the privilege of going on was for a trip, a group of ten eight graders will have the privilege to travel with other students their age to the east coast, and tour some of the nation’s most historic site. This day was to allow the students to meet one another and to get some of the information they need as well as experience some of the things they will experience on the trip. On this trip I for the most part was just a follower, I followed one of the groups around to get to see what they all got to do. It was interesting and I came away with some ideas that I may be able to use in the classroom. It was nice to get to go on these trips, and see more of what goes on behind the scenes.
This week I gave back my US History classes, it is strange sitting at my desk again not teaching. This experience is going by so fast. This week I also learned to always have a back up plan. I was going to have the students use the class laptops to do some research and to make a PowerPoint, but unknown at the time was that another teacher had requested the laptops therefore I could not use them. However, I was lucky and was able to use the library, so I was lucky and I realize this will not always be the case. That is about all I can think of now, but I may add more later. I am enjoying this immensely.

October 24-29

This week went well; we did not have school Monday, which was strange. However, the week still felt long. I believe it was because the day off made the students wilder. I did not have major problems this week. I had my second evaluation it was during one of my American history classes while I was doing an "I have, who has" review. The students were not hesitant to answer but they were just guessing. However, I was pleased with it. The test however I was not. Grading them was depressing. The information on the test had been covered, most was on the review they received in the form of the "I have, who has" game. Nevertheless, my highest grade was an 82. Therefore, I will be going back and counting the questions missed and see if they were all missing the same questions. I may just take those out. I do not know if they just did not study or if I just did not do a good job of teaching them the information. However, I do know that they had everything in their notes. I also think a problem was that they are used to a review that has the exact questions and answers on it as the test, so if they study the review, then they will do great on the test. I did not do this, I tested the same information, which was on the review, and I just asked it in different ways or ask for the opposite information. I give this class up this coming week. It is so strange. This semester has gone by so fast. I feel as though I just started. I have learned a lot and I think that when I have my own classroom I will take some of the ideas I have from my cooperative teacher, but others I will not. I also believe that I leaned on my cooperative teacher too much in backing me up. I ask the students to do something and she would chime in asking them to do it as well. Sometimes I wonder if they are minding her or me. Therefore, when I get my own class I will have to learn what works best for my personality and me. I really like teaching, it is so rewarding when students do well, but it is stressful at the same time.