Last week I taught my 4th graders for the first time. It was kinda thrown at me 2 seconds before I had to get up and teach. It was a bit stressful but I loved every minute of it.
Ms. Johnson was teaching double digit times double digit multiplication. I settled at the end of a row where there is an extra seat, right next to Teya, expecting to just sit and watch. Then Ms. Johnson surprised me, she looked at me across the room and said, "Why am I doing this, you come do this, and besides I need to take a bathroom break." And just like that, she had walked out. Leaving me alone with 20 fourth graders, a projector, and a pencil. I shakily walked to the front of the classroom. Then I remembered how horses are, they can smell fear, I figured those kids could too so I immediately pulled myself together and took my place next to the projector.
It was a fairly easy lesson to teach, I just followed the teaching style of Ms. Johnson so as not to confuse them. I did a few problems with them and then gave them a few to do on their own. Only one girl got both of the problems right, but it was their first day with that kind of math so I'll cut them some slack haha. But, overall, it was a wonderful teaching experience.
I also met Ethan Starkweather for the first time. Ethan is the kid from Extreme Makeover who has been diagonosed with Prader-Willi. He was such a happy, smily kid but I felt for him everytime he asked Ms. Johnson if it was lunch time yet. I can't fathom having that kind of disease. In case you don't know what Prader-Willi is it is an extremely rare genetic disorder. It causes low muscle tone, labored speech, trouble breathing, and because of a malfunctioning hypothalamus, a constant feeling of extreme hunger
I had the best Valentine's Day that I've ever had. Recently I have started reading thepioneerwoman.com. It's a blog that is written by someone who cooks, homeschools, photographs, and gets up at 4 every morning to work the ranch. She has recently published a cookbook and Lucas got me her cookbook for V-Day. We chose some recipes from the book, lasagna and blackberry cobbler, and made them for dinner. We also watched the olympics for a while. It was wonderful getting to spend that time with him. The food was amazing and we did a wonderful job cooking it. However, the blackberry cobbler "cooked" for 1.5 hours instead of just 1. That's what happens when the oven isn't on for the first 45 minutes. Go me. =( Lucas didn't even laugh at me. haha. Good thing to cause I felt ridiculous. But, anways. It was a wonderful Valentine's day mostly because I love my Valentine. I love you Lucas.
-Kristina
Monday, February 15, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Miss Hickey
This week I started my observations with Ms. Johnson's 4th grade class. I'll be with them once a week and I'll teach them at least 8 lessons. I'm so excited. The school that I'm in has fourth graders go to two different classes. Ms. Johnson teaches math and science, and Ms. Rodriquez teaches the reading and social studies. So essentially I have to classes, the 4-1s and the 4-2s, but I will only spend about 20 minutes with the 2's each week. I think that this set up is my dream job. I would absolutely love only teaching math and science to 4th or 5th graders.
The students in my class are wonderful...of course, I've only been with them once. My opinion could change after they get to know me and start acting more like themselves. We'll see in a couple of weeks. When I first got there Miss Johnson let them all ask me questions. It was crazy to see how different they all were just in the questions they asked. I got questions from "What's your favorite color?" to, "Have you ever kissed a boy?" It was fun though and through this I learned most of the 4-1's names. I'll probably never leave the 2's. Oh well.
Something happened while I was there that essentially made me more determine to be a teacher. It showed me what it is I like about being in a classroom. My students are learning multiplication right now, and so they were doing a facts sheet. Facts sheets have 100 multiplication problems on them and the students are timed to see how well they can do. They just recently started doing these like last week and they all keep a progress chart so they can visually see how much they've improved since the last test. After grading their papers, Ms. Johnson asked who had improved. One boy, Avery, improved drastically since the last time they had done it. He raised his hand and had a huge smile on his face. Ms. Johnson walked over to look at his paper and her jaw just dropped. She went through and graded it really fast and found that yes, he really had only missed 19 of them. She immediately hugged him and both were just there smiling for a while. Later, Ms. Johnson told me that on tuesday, two days before, when he had last done it, he had missed 82. She said that was the biggest improvement over two days she had ever seen. She then asked Avery what he had been doing and he said he'd just been studying a lot at home and doing flashcards and stuff.
The point is, I really enjoyed that moment when I saw Avery's face light up because he had done so good. I could actually see how proud of himself he was and how proud Ms. Johnson was of him. I just would like to be a part of those student/teacher moments that are so profound.
Okay. I think that's all.
-Kristina
The students in my class are wonderful...of course, I've only been with them once. My opinion could change after they get to know me and start acting more like themselves. We'll see in a couple of weeks. When I first got there Miss Johnson let them all ask me questions. It was crazy to see how different they all were just in the questions they asked. I got questions from "What's your favorite color?" to, "Have you ever kissed a boy?" It was fun though and through this I learned most of the 4-1's names. I'll probably never leave the 2's. Oh well.
Something happened while I was there that essentially made me more determine to be a teacher. It showed me what it is I like about being in a classroom. My students are learning multiplication right now, and so they were doing a facts sheet. Facts sheets have 100 multiplication problems on them and the students are timed to see how well they can do. They just recently started doing these like last week and they all keep a progress chart so they can visually see how much they've improved since the last test. After grading their papers, Ms. Johnson asked who had improved. One boy, Avery, improved drastically since the last time they had done it. He raised his hand and had a huge smile on his face. Ms. Johnson walked over to look at his paper and her jaw just dropped. She went through and graded it really fast and found that yes, he really had only missed 19 of them. She immediately hugged him and both were just there smiling for a while. Later, Ms. Johnson told me that on tuesday, two days before, when he had last done it, he had missed 82. She said that was the biggest improvement over two days she had ever seen. She then asked Avery what he had been doing and he said he'd just been studying a lot at home and doing flashcards and stuff.
The point is, I really enjoyed that moment when I saw Avery's face light up because he had done so good. I could actually see how proud of himself he was and how proud Ms. Johnson was of him. I just would like to be a part of those student/teacher moments that are so profound.
Okay. I think that's all.
-Kristina
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Why I hate my French class:
Over the past few months, ever since I enrolled in my dreaded French class, I have been nervous/stressed/anxious about going. I had been told by everyone who had taken a class with this professor that she was heartless. She refuses to be happy until she has made each of her students cry. Or until she has called you out in front of the class and attacked you for either your personal beliefs or your wrong answer to a question. I was determined to not let her effect me. I was planning on being strong and keeping a good attitude and just letting her hurtful words slide off my back. Well. That all changed Tuesday.
It started like any other class. We reviewed the readings we read, her correcting our mistakes and then we all settled in for her lecture. Her lectures skip around like crazy and so it's very hard to follow and keep up with her fast French and crazy teaching style. But I was doing okay. It was 20ish minutes into class and I had taken a page and a half of notes already. I felt good about what I was learning and felt like I was keeping up very well. And then. It happened. She said, "Quel est la raison pour laquel le guerre civile americain commence, Katrina?" Which means, "Why did the American civil war start, Katrina?" Like everyone else in the room I looked around for Katrina. There are only 8 people in our class and I didn't remember anyone being named Katrina. After a few awkward seconds of silence my eyes settled on my professor. My heart sank when I realized she was talking to me. "Moi?" I asked. "Oui, tu es Katrina." I hesitated in responding that my name was Kristina. And that was when she tore into me. I'm going to loosely translate what she then said.
"Katrina it is very important for you to pay attention during class. It says in the syllabus that class participation is a huge part of your grade and if you don't pay attention you will fail."
She went on for literally 5 more minutes about how I need to pay attention or fail and blah blah blah. Now. Let me say, when I get mad, I cry. That's how I am. So as she goes on and on, I'm getting more and more angry because she is making me look awful, and she is talking to me with zero respect, in front of my whole class. I could feel the tears pushing at the back of my eyes but I wasn't going to let her win. She didn't deserve that. Finally she stopped griping and looked at me for an answer. I replied, in French, that the civil war started because men were fighting for equality.
After making a spectacle about my poor French, she informs me that the civil war was an economical war, surprising me and probably everyone else in the class. She said that people in the North were paying their employees and people in the south weren't. Therefore, the civil war was more about economics than it was about equality. I can't begin to describe how much more angry this made me. Essentially, I felt like no matter how you look at it, the civil was about equality. Even if you look at it economically it was about equality in economics. So, after being attacked and laughed at by her, I quietly went back to taking notes.
About ten minutes later, she asks another question. Which she also directs towards Katrina. Now, if someone is going to give me a new name, they can't expect me to learn it in 10 minutes. So again, I look around. This time I get another 5 minute speech about how I shouldn't look to other people for answers. I kindly tell her that my name is Kristina. She doesn't care. She just wanted an answer. I answered her question...which of course was wrong. And now I can't hold back the tears anymore. As I sat and stewed I got more and more mad and more and more frustrated. I couldn't believe that I was sitting in class crying because of her. I was ashamed and frustrated with myself. Class ended eventually, with her asking me if I was going to pay more attention next week. I told her yes and then rushed out of there.
I honestly don't know how I'm going to show my face in that class again. Please pray for me over the rest of the semester. I still have to go 25 more times or so.
Moral of the story: No matter how much I pay attention, I won't answer a question directed to Katrina.
-Kristina
It started like any other class. We reviewed the readings we read, her correcting our mistakes and then we all settled in for her lecture. Her lectures skip around like crazy and so it's very hard to follow and keep up with her fast French and crazy teaching style. But I was doing okay. It was 20ish minutes into class and I had taken a page and a half of notes already. I felt good about what I was learning and felt like I was keeping up very well. And then. It happened. She said, "Quel est la raison pour laquel le guerre civile americain commence, Katrina?" Which means, "Why did the American civil war start, Katrina?" Like everyone else in the room I looked around for Katrina. There are only 8 people in our class and I didn't remember anyone being named Katrina. After a few awkward seconds of silence my eyes settled on my professor. My heart sank when I realized she was talking to me. "Moi?" I asked. "Oui, tu es Katrina." I hesitated in responding that my name was Kristina. And that was when she tore into me. I'm going to loosely translate what she then said.
"Katrina it is very important for you to pay attention during class. It says in the syllabus that class participation is a huge part of your grade and if you don't pay attention you will fail."
She went on for literally 5 more minutes about how I need to pay attention or fail and blah blah blah. Now. Let me say, when I get mad, I cry. That's how I am. So as she goes on and on, I'm getting more and more angry because she is making me look awful, and she is talking to me with zero respect, in front of my whole class. I could feel the tears pushing at the back of my eyes but I wasn't going to let her win. She didn't deserve that. Finally she stopped griping and looked at me for an answer. I replied, in French, that the civil war started because men were fighting for equality.
After making a spectacle about my poor French, she informs me that the civil war was an economical war, surprising me and probably everyone else in the class. She said that people in the North were paying their employees and people in the south weren't. Therefore, the civil war was more about economics than it was about equality. I can't begin to describe how much more angry this made me. Essentially, I felt like no matter how you look at it, the civil was about equality. Even if you look at it economically it was about equality in economics. So, after being attacked and laughed at by her, I quietly went back to taking notes.
About ten minutes later, she asks another question. Which she also directs towards Katrina. Now, if someone is going to give me a new name, they can't expect me to learn it in 10 minutes. So again, I look around. This time I get another 5 minute speech about how I shouldn't look to other people for answers. I kindly tell her that my name is Kristina. She doesn't care. She just wanted an answer. I answered her question...which of course was wrong. And now I can't hold back the tears anymore. As I sat and stewed I got more and more mad and more and more frustrated. I couldn't believe that I was sitting in class crying because of her. I was ashamed and frustrated with myself. Class ended eventually, with her asking me if I was going to pay more attention next week. I told her yes and then rushed out of there.
I honestly don't know how I'm going to show my face in that class again. Please pray for me over the rest of the semester. I still have to go 25 more times or so.
Moral of the story: No matter how much I pay attention, I won't answer a question directed to Katrina.
-Kristina
Thursday, January 21, 2010
My classes
It's been a few days and I said I'd talk about my classes...which I never did. So here ya go. Now you can know what I do all day haha.
My chemistry class is pretty easy. I was a little concerned about it to begin with but it's specifically for elementary education majors. So essentially we just do experiments and see how they relate to PASS science objectives. Last week we played with liquid nitrogen. This week we had to compare things using balances...pretty easy stuff.
Math for the Elementarty Child is a really sucky class. My professor just rambles a lot and she is strict in what she wants us to do with our classes that we observe. It's like she doesn't understand that we have to do whatever the teacher is teaching for the week. We can't just enter into a classroom and do what we want with it. But that's okay. This class is also really a pedagogy class. Unfortunately, I'm not learning anything pedagogical. If that's even a word...
Science for the Elementary Child is really fun. I really like the professor and I've learned a whole lot in the few classes that I have had with her. We seem to just do a lot of projects in this class too but it makes sense because she is trying to teach us how to teach science. It's also a pedagogy class but I'm actually learning.
Advanced French would be okay except for my professor. I'm really not sure how I'll make it through the semester with her. I think I'll be okay if I just remember that her personal opinion of me doesn't matter. I just have to pass the class. So I just need to stay caught up and do the work. It'll be okay.
Lastly I have Math Concepts and Reasoning. We are basically just relearning concepts that we learned in Elementary School. So, it's inceredibly easy because it's basically just a review. It's good though. I definitely need that review if I'm going to be teaching elementary kids things that I haven't learned in 10 years.
So, those are my classes. I think right now I'm doing pretty good...but ask me again in 3 or 4 weeks and see where I stand.
I don't really have a lot that's too interesting to blog about. So that's all for now.
-Kristina
My chemistry class is pretty easy. I was a little concerned about it to begin with but it's specifically for elementary education majors. So essentially we just do experiments and see how they relate to PASS science objectives. Last week we played with liquid nitrogen. This week we had to compare things using balances...pretty easy stuff.
Math for the Elementarty Child is a really sucky class. My professor just rambles a lot and she is strict in what she wants us to do with our classes that we observe. It's like she doesn't understand that we have to do whatever the teacher is teaching for the week. We can't just enter into a classroom and do what we want with it. But that's okay. This class is also really a pedagogy class. Unfortunately, I'm not learning anything pedagogical. If that's even a word...
Science for the Elementary Child is really fun. I really like the professor and I've learned a whole lot in the few classes that I have had with her. We seem to just do a lot of projects in this class too but it makes sense because she is trying to teach us how to teach science. It's also a pedagogy class but I'm actually learning.
Advanced French would be okay except for my professor. I'm really not sure how I'll make it through the semester with her. I think I'll be okay if I just remember that her personal opinion of me doesn't matter. I just have to pass the class. So I just need to stay caught up and do the work. It'll be okay.
Lastly I have Math Concepts and Reasoning. We are basically just relearning concepts that we learned in Elementary School. So, it's inceredibly easy because it's basically just a review. It's good though. I definitely need that review if I'm going to be teaching elementary kids things that I haven't learned in 10 years.
So, those are my classes. I think right now I'm doing pretty good...but ask me again in 3 or 4 weeks and see where I stand.
I don't really have a lot that's too interesting to blog about. So that's all for now.
-Kristina
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)