Week 1 (ending 5 Feb 2016)
This week I taught eight lessons in total (five Business Ed 9/10 and three Life Skills/Special Ed).
The intro lessons were quite easy to feel good about, because there were wide parameters for lessons. By the end of the week, content started to weigh on me – how best to deliver? How much and what kind of planning should I do? (Do I prep for the worst scenarios like no internet, or for enlightened learning goals?).
In Life Skills, we had great success in building country name banners and “mad-libs”-style national anthems. The third lesson, making flags, was confusing for students because I needed to provide more explicit step-by-step direction (I laid out some cut outs for tracing and basically allowed them to create as they please – which doesn’t work for students with such a wide range of abilities). I will be trying to slow down and provide clearer guidance for future lessons here.
My two blocks of Business Education were fun. I connected well to students in the smaller class. The bigger class has some wonderful students but it is harder to meet the needs of all 29. I have invited about 5 students to see me for extra coaching; they need the extra attention, so I hope they take up the offer. I’ve framed it in a positive way (though spending time with a teacher may not be viewed that way…).
Things that worked this week:
KEVA Blocks for a hook
Group discussions / panel
Google Forms for an assignment (after a few tweaks)
Talking with lots of teachers, especially about classroom management (thanks Heather Jensen)
Smiling and acting happy, even when I’m panicking inside
getting students to write names on a seating plan
Things that didn’t work:
Showing up to my Friday morning first block class at the final bell (I attended the formal staff “chit chat” and then got caught up trying print something, involving three office staff and 15 minutes of wrangling). I think this was a good lesson for me, to always, always be ready to go at least 15 minutes prior to the lesson. I like being poised and composed, but this is impossible to convey when I run to class almost late.
Speaking without conviction and enthusiasm: when I lacked preparedness (like on Friday), I felt like prey on the savannah in front of the classroom. I’m the classroom leader and need to show it.
Expecting too much of the students: When I ask a question, I want to hear a chorus of shining answers. In reality, it’s the twilight zone. But that’s okay: they’re unfamiliar with me, and I need to respect that. I’m trying to communicate and connect to them in small groups and individually, to build up rapport.
Long weekend musing:
Douglas Coupland shared his stories about luck and lotteries in the Financial Times on 5 Feb 2016, the text of which is below:
“Thirty years ago I was staying over with my parents on my birthday, December 30. Around nine in the morning, I heard my dad cursing from down the hallway. On inquiry, I learnt that my mother’s Aunt Constance had phoned from Victoria on Vancouver Island and had not only woken my father from a deep sleep but also told him that the lottery ticket he’d put in her Christmas stocking was a big winner.
$%#^&!!!!!
Well, that’s life.
But apparently there was a complication: Aunt Con had lost the ticket. My father was not thrilled. You what?!?!??!?!
Suddenly I was rallied into duty as my family’s “finder” and was instructed to get dressed and take the ferry over to help Aunt Con find her ticket.
No problem.
I arrived maybe six hours later and Aunt Con’s face was beet red and her facial muscles were contorted like a well-wrung dishcloth. Inside, furniture was upended, the contents of all drawers and cupboards emptied and I asked Aunt Con to sit down and take a quick breather. You can imagine the sort of day she’d had in her head.
So we inhaled and exhaled, and then I looked down at the coffee table and saw a runner on top of it. I lifted it up and there sat the ticket: ta-da!
Except the thing was, Aunt Con had made a mistake. A few days earlier she’d seen the winning numbers in the newspaper and written them down on a sheet of paper that she stuck on to her fridge door; later she looked at the numbers, forgetting where they’d come from, thinking they were the numbers on a ticket she’d bought . . .
If you ever wonder what it looks like to see someone lose several million dollars, let me tell you, it is a dreadful thing to witness, and I hope you never have to do so. I hightailed it out of Victoria very quickly, and the Day of the Ticket entered family lore.