Hopefully all of you reading this are enjoying your practicum week-- I am realizing that my time in the classroom is the best time of my week. I think its interesting that when I thought that "Practicum Week" was going to be really stressful because of the hours spent in my school, it is more stressful because of the things going on outside of school.
There are still just as many demands from outside forces and I think that as a teacher, hopefully there will be a more steady schedule.
I really liked seeing my school on a Monday-- there are more procedural aspects of my homeroom, like seeing how jobs are assigned and different "Monday Tasks." I asked my teacher at lunch duty today if she could notice a difference in behavior between Thanksgiving and winter break. Her perspective was that at Lafayette there wouldn't be as much acting out as there is excitement. Her past experience in PG county was that students would act out because they did not want to spend time at home. I realized that there are a lot of students who (as much as they resist and dread school) enjoy the stability and predictability of the school expectations.
Language arts in my class has been overtaken by social studies. Students are asked to respond to "diary entries"for our unit on Westward Expansion and there are not very many writing techniques or scaffolding modeled.
My class has recently started using Cornell Notes to read the textbook, but many students read and define the key terms and don't comprehend the lessons and chapters they are reading and taking notes on.
I know my teacher (like so many) is pressed for time because of holidays and special events. Tomorrow my class is visiting the middle school to shadow students for next year. I find it interesting because I know of at least 3 students who are planning on going to private school for 6th grade. My teacher is interested to see the different expectations and hopes to shadow a teacher in reading (to get a feel for expectations). I am interested to hear her perspective as well as to see a different environment than Lafayette.
Like your teacher's previous students, my students definitely enjoy the stability of school, especially when life at home is definitely not what we experienced. Even if home life is fine, my autistic boy who I adore despite his acting out, was CRAZY all week between the change in schedule and a paraprofessional he loves leaving BSES. This time of year is always crazy, as you pointed out, because of all of the holidays. Students don't always do so well with change. Whether it's dealing with the weekend, holiday, or new school year, kids like consistency. As teachers though, we don't have the option to stay stagnant and truly stay with our schedules. We are constantly changing schedules, changes that are beyond our control, and trying to strike the balance between teacher life and personal life. While difficult, I think we're really lucky to have this constant change. While other industries and institutions measure your success by how far you move up in a company, our success is measured and we grow/change every year with each child we meet, lesson plan we change, and each quarter/semester/year that passes. Other people may stay stagnant in their fields, but like our students, we will always be changing and for that, I am eternally grateful.
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