Tuesday morning I had my first “do I REALLY want to be a teacher?” moments while my CT was at a meeting and I took the lead in the classroom. Lately I’ve been disheartened by my lack of authority in the classroom and it came to a head when a student made a negative comment to another student about his academic ability. I felt I had lost control: of the class, of my composure, even of my strengths that had kept me going. My CT does a great job supporting me and presenting me to the class as equal to her, however it only makes me more embarrassed and frustrated that she NEEDS to remind the students of that on a weekly basis.
I did eventually cool off, and by the next day I fell back into the grove of feeling productive and competent in the classroom. I was excited on Wednesday when the students were able to interact with the SMART Board for the first time during a math lesson. My CT and I have agreed that my next big project for our class is to incorporate centers into our math block. Although intimidating at first, I’ve really been motivated think of creative and engaging ways to make centers work for our class.
My guided reading group has been developing comfortably into the classroom schedule and after a few days I feel like I have the hang of it. As the weeks go on, I will get more involved in planning them myself and making adjustments based on student needs.
In my Incorporating Exceptional Students course, we spent a lot of time analyzing how culture plays in to the social and academic lives of our students. After reading the article “Canary in the Coal Mine” by Mano Singham and watching clips of news stories on the issue, our class was lead to a heated (at least on my part) discussion about the achievement gap and how it pertains to us as teachers. After narrowing down my focus of inquiry during Seminar, I was particularly invested in the topic.
This week, 3rd grade hosted an FCAT information meeting for parents in order to give tips on how to help students prepare for the test this spring. I was happy to see a few of my students attend the presentation (which was offered in Spanish and English). I believe it is important to offer families involvement in the education process.