Head Start and Starting To Look Ahead

Wow! I'm terrible at blogging. I remember when I used to blog about my life every day, even when I had nothing worthwhile to say.

Well, I'm officially 2 weeks into my final placement (woot!). I'm at a Head Start in a small little town about 35 minutes away from Des Moines. (Yes, the drive sucks.) I have two classes: a morning one from 8:30-12 and then an afternoon class from 12:30-4. It's kind of crazy, but I guess it's sort of fun. It's ridiculous hearing the things that come out of some 3 and 4 year olds.

I wish I could say I'm loving this placement as much as my previous two, but that's just not the case. It's not that there's anything wrong with the place, teacher, or students. I just am not "clicking" as well with this placement. I think a lot of that is probably my senioritis kicking in. We are 3 weeks from graduation, I've already been student teaching for longer than required, and did I mention the drive every morning?

Plus, I GOT A JOB FOR NEXT YEAR! So that's sort of made me lose some motivation (which I know is a terrible thing). But yes, I'm officially under contract for 2014-2015. I'm going back to Holy Family! I was there for my first placement - loved it, loved the kids, loved my mentor, loved the staff. So when my mentor teacher emailed me to tell me they were hiring a 2nd ELL teacher for next year, I jumped at the chance. I had my interview last week and it went great! I got the offer 20 minutes later and accepted it the next day.

It's crazy to think how close I am to being done. 3 weeks to graduation, 9 weeks to getting married, and 2 months until my teaching contract starts. It's like my while life is starting this summer! I'm pumped!

Things You Learn In Kindergarten

1. No college class can EVER prepare you for the moment one of your kindergarten students comes into school and says "Guess what? My daddy's in jail!" - Yes, they teach us that for some students, the teacher is the only one who shows them love, that school is supposed to be a safe haven for kids who have an unsafe home life.  They tell you things like this might happen.  But when it actually DOES happen, you'll have NO CLUE what to say to them.

2. Fake it until you make it is actually wonderful advice. - I've NEVER been known for being a confident person.  I'm always way too hard on myself and tell myself I can't do it.  A couple nights ago, I had what I like to call a "graduating senior crisis" and was questioning whether I was good enough to be a teacher, whether I should be a teacher, if it's too hard, etc.  But the next day at my final evaluation, my teacher said my biggest STRENGTH was my confidence.  I'm still not sure how to respond to that.

3. Applying for teaching jobs is probably the most stressful thing you'll ever do. - Hiring season doesn't start until after Spring Break for most places, yet as soon as March rolls around everyone (including your university supervisor) starts asking if you've found a job yet.  No, no I haven't.  I haven't even had an interview.  Not only that, hiring season goes all the way UNTIL SCHOOL STARTS (and even after).  I'm already panicking.

4. Having to cut back to working 10 hours a week is not going to pay the bills. - Unless you have a super high paying job, in which case HELP A SISTER OUT!  But really, you WILL struggle.  It WILL be hard.  But (hopefully) something good will come out of it.

5. Getting out of bed in the morning when you're sick and depressed is one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do. - But you really have to do it.  On time.  Otherwise, your mentor teacher WILL say something about punctuality in front of your university supervisor (yikes!).

6. Having to give the same directions 300 times is frustrating. - Why didn't you listen the first time?  Oh, you didn't care enough to stop talking to your friend?  Kbye.  (Sorry Mom! And every teacher who had me from grades K-12)

7. There are literally not enough hours in the day to plan your lessons. - Sure, I can plan out an entire days worth of lessons including materials, standards, differentiation, and extension in the 40 minutes that my kids are gone for music, but only if you take 20 of those minutes for a meeting.  Why not?  Jokes.  You bring that stuff home with you.  But if you plan on eating or sleeping, it won't get done there either.  Some times (or most of the time) you'll really have no idea what you're doing.  This goes back to the "Fake it until you make it" philosophy.

8. Fridays are a gift from the heavens. - I. Love. Fridays.  After school is out, there's 2 whole days without screaming children (unless you're a parent).  Also, many schools have a "casual Friday" type of thing.  I'm currently typing this in jeans and my most comfortable Drake sweatshirt.  Get at me.

9. Kids will do anything to try to get out of being in trouble. - You know, I'm really glad you apologized.  But you still have to miss part of recess.

10. Speaking of recess, it will be below freezing, but you'll still go outside. - Bonus points for living in Iowa!  It'll probably be slightly warmer that morning, so you'll bring a lighter coat.  Then, SURPRISE!  Outside recess. And you're freezing.


But in reality, teaching is one of the most rewarding experiences you'll ever have.  It's HARD.  It's EXHAUSTING.  But it's WORTH IT.

Wrapping Up & Starting Over

     Obviously keeping up with a blog is not as easy as I thought it'd be - between teaching, two jobs, Intervarsity, and prepping for the wedding, I literally have NO TIME!

     My first placement is officially over. :(  I had my last day on Thursday - so bittersweet.  I absolutely loved Holy Family and my students.  They will always hold a place in my heart.

     My supervisor came to observe me 3 more times over the term of that last placement.  Overall, I received excellent feedback, especially with my kindergarten lessons (Go figure, since 99% of my practicum was Kindergarten).  There was one lesson (5th grade, I believe) that my supervisor was less than thrilled with.  However, I used this as an opportunity to grow and become a better teacher.  When she came back the next time, she told me she was blown away.  I guess I improved. :)

     Another thing I opted to do while at Holy Family was a mock interview with the principal.  Anyone who actually knows me well knows I deal with anxiety on a daily basis, so this definitely had me on edge.  When we finished, he immediately asked me how I thought it went.  That was intimidating.  Shouldn't YOU tell ME how it went?  I thought that meant I messed up.  He eventually told me I did actually do a good job.  A couple of my answers he was extremely impressed with! :)  He gave me me some constructive criticism on a couple things, which were actually very helpful.  Fingers crossed I made an impression, because I actually turned in an application for that school and I happen to know they need a Kindergarten teacher next year!

     On Wednesday, I got to sit in on some parent teacher conferences.  In fact, I got to actually talk to some of the parents, since I had been working with the students for 7 weeks.  It was really interesting seeing how the different parents view education.

     My last couple of days were a little emotional.  My kindergarten class wrote me "cards" that say things like "Miss Shelby is the best teacher ever.", "I will miss you.", etc.  The teachers also got me a gift - just some things a first year teacher will need. :)

So Good!

Hello again!

I really don't even know what to tell you. Teaching is an absolute joy. I LOVE my school and my students. It's still kind of hard to believe that I'm actually a teacher now. It's starting to catch up with me how much work it actually is!

My supervisor came to observe me for the first time on Friday. I was absolutely nervous. I feel like I'm a competent individual, but I hate feeling like people are watching me, especially when I know they are taking notes. But, it went really well! Here's part of what she told me:

-Your first group of students were very anxious to learn, do their best and please you. GREAT!
-I observed a real comfort level between you and your students.
-Great positive comments were given to students who were working hard and doing a great job.
-You did a really super job of redirecting your students.
-You did a great job of helping your students during their writing lesson, but you didn't give them answers. You helped guide them in the right direction.

Seriously, the only thing she told me to change had to do with one specific child who was having some behavior issues and distracting other students.

This really made me feel a lot better about my teaching. I mean, look at that! Obviously I'm doing okay.

Then again, that's kindergarten, my dream. Tomorrow she's coming to watch me teach 5th graders some vocabulary relating to the Revolutionary War *gag*.

Tomorrow is also when I start full time teaching, by myself, all day, every day, until (at least) February 14th.

Wish me luck!

Week 3 Already?

As some people have oh-so-kindly pointed out, it's been a while since I've written last. I was so pumped about writing this but my goodness, student teaching keeps you busy! (Especially when you're working 2 jobs on top of that, but totally not the point).

My first placement is going extremely well. I absolutely love it. My mentor teacher is great. The other teachers are wonderful. And the students are fantastic. Being a Catholic school, these students are taught morals and manners a lot more than in a public school system and it shows. They are so respectful, it's unbelievable.

So, last week my mentor teacher's mother was in the hospital. It was a pretty serious deal. Because of that, I actually ended up teaching 2 1/2 full days by myself (with very, very minimal planning). It was crazy. Some of the kids tried testing me so much! But I suppose that's normal.

Overall, I'd say it went fairly well. Obviously if I had known beforehand and had some time to plan, things might have gone a little smoother but hey, that's teaching. You've got to make the best of it!

Last week I also had professional development all about the I-ELDA (Iowa English Language Development Assessment). Basically, this is the test we give our English language learners to measure their language development. It was actually quite interesting and I was bummed that since I'm not yet a licensed teacher, I can't get certified to administer the test. (Which would have been extremely helpful since my school has over 150 ELLs).

This week, PD (Professional Development,  try to keep up) was a joke. Absolute joke. And this isn't just me being a slacker student teacher. Seriously, my teacher was like "Why are we even here?" The whole thing was chaos, not well thought out at all. However, I guess spending 2 hours on a Monday afternoon doing that was better than sitting through an entire day of school.

The rest of this week I'm taking over Kindergarten centers to do a unit on Pond Life (Yeah, I know). My supervisor is coming to watch me on Friday so fingers crossed!

Anyway, that's been my week. Adiós!

Days 1 & 2

I had every intention of posting after my first day yesterday but clearly that did not happen. So, while I ride this fun little bike at the gym, I'll update you on my last 2 days. :)

Day 1 - A. It was a 2 hour delay because of the weather, so I had literally no idea what time to show up. We never had this conversation!  Haha. So, I just showed up 2 hours later than normal and called it good. (Turns out that was an excellent guess).

Since it was an unexpected shortened day, we literally just skipped our first 2 hours of what was planned - 20/20/20. Which you'll hear about once I finally do it!

The first thing I did was go in to observe (that's all I do the first week or so - especially the first day) the kindergarten class doing their literacy centers. Generally there'd be a volunteer there during that time, but they didn't come because of the delay, so the kids in that rotation were supposed to play literacy games on the ipads. Surprise! All the ipads were dead. So, Miss Shelby (That's me!) got to jump right in first thing and play a literacy game with them, where they had to read me sight words. Simple enough.

After that it was already lunch time, which only means one thing - lunch duty. Holy moly when you get that many kids from age 4 to age 7 together in one room, it gets loud. It was also freezing and I was starving. But I made it through and then got to have lunch in the teacher's lounge (I still remember when that was a forbidden place and nobody was sure if it actually existed). It was actually a lot of fun. I really like my teacher and all the other ones who were around at that point.
After lunch was small guided reading with 5th grade, then eventually 4th grade. Both groups did the same thing of going over vocabulary words and then answering some questions to prove they understand. For example, one of the words was "scarce", so they had to answer "Name something that is scarce." to show us they understand. Again, pretty simple. All of our ELL students are pretty high in proficiency level, so it's not too bad.

Oh, and best part? 3 of the kids I coached in soccer all summer go to this school & 1 is even in my kindergarten class! 

Day 2 - Today started at normal time, but since it's Wednesday and I'm at a Catholic school, we started our day with mass. This was an extremely new experience to me, as I'm not at all Catholic. However, it was actually really interesting to see how they ran their service. I am a Christian, so we worship the same God, just a little differently. Although it was different, it was kind of nice to be able to freely worship even though I was at work/school. Makes me kind of wonder what a Christian school would be like. :) It did leave me with multiple questions though so I think I have some research to do tonight.

Not only do I need to look up some Catholic practices, I also apparently need to educate myself with what's happening in South Sudan. We have a large Sudanese population at my school and so the war was a large part of mass this morning (the Father & Deacon are also from Sudan. So that was really neat.)

Today was also an early out so we really didn't have much to do today at all. Our schedule was entirely messed up. All we did today was help the kindergarten (which makes me so happy!) with a picture - word sort of the short a family.

After school let out I made a word wall in the classroom and then went home! (Well, to work. And now I'm here.)

Tomorrow will be my first FULL day with all my "classes" and my first time meeting my 20/20/20 group, which will soon be my own group to work with independently.

Until then, have a wonderful evening, day, week...whatever it is until I get back to you again! (I have a lot to do & a lot to research - Catholicism, South Sudan, and a bunch of stuff so I can impress at my Des Moines Public School District interview on Saturday!)

Surprise! It's really cold.

So, I was all ready to start student teaching at Holy Family tomorrow. All ready if you don't count forgetting to look through the Journey's book (I wasn't going to be teaching it though, so no worries), not remembering what time I was supposed to show up, not knowing if I get to eat lunch at school for free, stressing because I work until 10 tonight and a lot of other last minute things.

Fortunately/Unfortunately (It's a little of both, really) Holy Family (and a ton of other schools) cancelled school tomorrow.

So yes, now I have another day off of school. Every student's dream, right? Only, I'm not a student anymore. I'm a teacher. And while I was experiencing my normal blast of anxiety over starting something new, I was actually looking forward to it.

On the plus side, I get to go see my kids tomorrow at the day care! I still can't imagine not being there 40+ hours a week like I've been doing the last few months.

For those of you experiencing this crazy cold front; stay inside, stay warm, and God bless. ♡