While I didn't fall asleep during my first day of class, I went to my 4 PM class with jitters and butterflies in my stomach. I wasn't nervous about being a student again (after a 16 year hiatus from academia) nor was I necessarily intimidated by the 5 hours of classroom lecture that awaited me this first day.A few days prior, I had received the course syllabus for one of my classes (an intro teaching class the was the prerequisite and stepping stone for all other teacher ed classes). While the 7 page syllabus didn't seem that extreme - even for a 6 week class - the 30 hours of fieldwork did. I would be spending just as many hours OUT of the classroom as IN the classroom doing O&P (observation and participation).
"How can this be?!" was my indignant first reaction. "Public school gets out in two weeks! What is there to observe? Senior skip day? Class field trips?!"
I hadn't yet read the part that I'm also required to teach a class in my subject content area as well (guess reading stories in 'Shroom's kinderclass wasn't going to cut it as an upper level math lesson). Lesson planning won't even be covered in my grad class until AFTER public school lets out for the summer.
See my reasons for freaking out?
The prof's sympathetic response was "I guess you'll need to find a year-round school. Good luck!"
Grrr.
Well, needless to say, I still enjoyed my first day of school. More accurately, I enjoyed my second class (substantially more than the first class). I'm looking forward to learning more about classroom management skills (such as identifying and stopping a fight before it becomes a fight, how to combat cheating and the enabling role technology plays in this problem, and how to motivate kids).
Tons of work to do. I don't think my problem will be fighting to stay awake in these long classes. It will be more like trying to complete all the assignments on time . . .
Wish me luck. I'm needing it!
4 comments:
you could camp out at our place...there's a few year-round HS's around here :)
That would be fun to hang out with you folks!...but what to do with the kids?! Thanks for letting me know - right now the 3 hr commute is a bit intimidating! =)
There's always summer school....but how do you get permission to teach a class? Don't they have schools they're affiliated with to help you out? Or are you supposed to go up to some unsuspecting principal and say "my course syllabus says I'm supposed to teach a class in my content area...can I do that here?"
Yup - we're supposed to approach some unsuspecting principal who is crazy-busy as the last day of school is right around the corner and wrangle him/her into getting us a teacher who is willing to host an observer. I'm getting a lot of rejections because it's finals time. Hard not to take rejections personally.
Most likely I'll have to find a summer school to teach. And there are no bones thrown out to us. We have to find our own schools, make our own connections, and pave our own paths.
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