Third Week (Sept 24-28) Plus One (Oct 1)

The third week of my student teaching experience went very well, I thought. I led a lesson on Tuesday in which I introduced the concepts of Imperialism and Isolationism through Legos. We did some vocabulary work as a class, and read a story from their textbook to become more familiar with Chinese traditional culture. I've continued to foster relationships with the students.

In my section that is almost half ELL, I may be receiving some support. An ELL teacher on our faculty team has had a period open up that coincides with every other day of that class. Hopefully, she'll be helping me out there, and I look forward to her advice in designing lessons that are accessible to all my students.

Today I took over the Pacific Rim classes. I opened with a discussion on classroom expectations and attempted to democratically construct the expectations of the course. In one section, the discussion seemed to come off fairly flawlessly. We worked from a fairly rowdy "our regular teacher isn't here" attitude into one of respect and courtesy. We achieved everything we wanted to, and I even was able to give them a closing journal question.

In the second Pacific Rim period, the same activity and discussion went terribly. The students gave similar expectations as the first class, but it was clear they weren't internalizing them. They would tell me, "yes, it's important that we respect each other and hear each other," and then immediately go back to their disruptive side conversations. The discussion stalled several times, and while I think they must have seen how disappointed and frustrated I was, I hope they also noticed that I never stopped treating them with respect and that I never raised my voice in anger. To some degree, I'm going to consider that a success.

The classroom is now organized in tables of four to six students, and I have a seating chart arranged. Hopefully this will help alleviate some of the classroom management problems we've been having with distractability and side conversation. It's going to be difficult having my most challenging section at the end of everyday, since it's all I can think about on the way home. Still, I'm hopeful and ready to take the challenge on. More to come!