Hello Dearest English Nerds,
Wow! This week has been a whirlwind, for my students and myself. This was the first full week that our school has had in SEVEN weeks; in other words, it seemed long and perhaps exhausting at times. On the other hand, I have to say that I was living on adrenaline and the remainder of my Christmas-gift-coffee as I launched into my Lord of the Flies unit.
The hardest part of this week was planning. That might sound odd considering that I was working from the unit plan I had prepared in the fall, but I realized after day one that the pacing between my College Prep section and Honors section needed to be drastically different. Additionally, I needed to provide more structure in my worksheets and in group discussions for CP because their discussion skills aren't as refined as their peers in my Honors section. This caused some stress and anxiety at the beginning of the week because I felt that I had to go home each evening and create a new worksheet. My mentor could tell that I was rather frazzled and kindly reminded me that I do not need to reinvent the wheel for each lesson, but that I have many, many resources at my disposal; I thought I understood that in the fall! Unfortunately, I've found that my past planning didn't extend as far as I need it to for the benefit of my students. In short, I'm learning to look further ahead in my planning while managing the amount of work I do daily. I do not want to create a dreadful habit of coming home and sitting in front of my computer for four hours preparing all my materials for the next day, which means I need to make very effective use of my limited planning time at school.
One last interesting event that threw me somewhat off kilter was the fact that my mentor got the flu and was out for two days this week! Luckily, she had a sweet and supportive substitute in for her both days who made sure that I was able to lead the lessons for the three English sections I teach, while she led the two sections that meet when I am teaching French. What a way to start off the new semester!
I'm looking forward to checking in with you during this semester. I wish you all the best in the coming weeks. :)
- Julia
Dear Julia,
ReplyDeleteI have discovered that flexibility is a most important quality for us to cultivate as teachers. School is cancelled or starts two hours late due to the weather. The students are not responsive to our attempts at classroom discussion. We have a substitute teacher. We never know what will happen from one day to the next, or even one class period to the next. For me, this is a major reason why teaching is so much fun. We think on our feet, we call upon our creative and intellectual resources, we smile, and adjust our plans. We can do this. We have what it takes. The beauty of teaching high school students is that they are also flexible and able to cope with unexpected circumstances, so we work together with our students in creating a positive classroom experience. Of course, as a student teacher I am not a seasoned teacher, but I hope that in five years I will still approach the unexpected with optimism!
Julia, I am so glad that I'm not the only one who has been feeling like it's going to be a race against time. I totally thought that my unit had enough of the bare bones laid out so that when it came time to teach, it would just fall into place. However, I am finding, like you, that the pacing is not at all what I thought it would be. It ends up that I come home, reevaluate the next day based on the current one, tweak whatever I need to, and create or recreate materials on a regular basis. I think that this might just be a natural occurrence for first and second year teachers. We've never seen a fully visualized unit of our own come together in the classroom. We are figuring out how to appropriately move through a novel and make it more understandable, and we don't have a back-stock of pre-made worksheets and quizzes to pull from. It makes for some long evenings.
ReplyDeleteI have been taking advantage of the internet. I love that your mentor told you there's no need to reinvent the wheel; that's AWESOME teaching advice forever. Anyway...you can do it! We can do it! :)