Throughout the course of student teaching, there's bound to be some days that end with the questions, "Why do I even want to be a teacher? Is all this worth it?" I definitely had some of those days about a month ago when things started getting hard for the first time, after hard feedback, after days and weeks struggling to control my class, after days full of tears.
Yesterday was another one of those days. The kids were so restless and chatty, and complained about the smallest things. Some complained about their stick not being pulled from the cup when I asked for a volunteer to explain a math problem and draw it out on the board, even going as far as to accuse me of throwing away their sticks as they hadn't been pulled the past few times. Some complained about not having a designated snack time (they still got their snack. They just had to eat and work at the same time due to having the book fair in the morning.) Others complained that I hadn't taught the material on a test (maybe I didn't teach it as well as I should've, but it was on the study guide we made in class and was sent home over the weekend so they would have several nights to study.) Others complained about not getting extra outdoor recess (did they deserve extra recess? 100% no.) I had my fill of it, and it's probably the most frustrated I've ever gotten with my students. With the combination of exhaustion (#parentteacherconferences #13hourdays), being sick, frustration with my students, and frustration with myself, I spent much of lunch break in tears, asking myself those questions.
But it is worth it.
The look on a student's face when she finally understands multi-digit multiplication for the first time.
When a student tells me he's always struggled with subtraction, but the way I've explained it helped made it click.
The obvious pride of a student when she tells the class the answer to a science question I had asked her to look up at home the night before.
When a student says "Wow. This is so much fun. I like social studies!" during a simulation.
When a parent tells me at a conference that their son (whom I haven't connected with very much) can't stop talking about me and how much he's going to miss me when I leave.
Conferencing with a student on his writing, and seeing the joy in his eyes and his huge smile when I compliment his great vocabulary.
When my highly disorganized and distracted student comes back after leaving at the end of the day because he remembered that he forgot to copy down the homework and asks if he can borrow my planner so he could copy down the homework.
When it comes up that I only have three weeks left, and a couple students initiate a class-wide group hug.
I want to be a teacher because of these moments. I want to be a teacher to help students realize that they can do it. I want to be a teacher to help students discover their potential. I want to be a teacher because kids make me smile and remind me of the simple joys. I want to be a teacher in order to be an advocate for students. I want to be a teacher to help students discover a love of learning.
Only three weeks left. Only three weeks left. Only three weeks left.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Friday, October 16, 2015
Success
Success is a funny thing. What qualifies as success? What doesn't qualify as success? Is trying your best success? Or is accuracy success? What about those tricky situations where there's no quantifiable measure?
I can measure success as a teacher based on my student's scores, and gain scores from a pretest to a posttest. I can measure success as perseverance-not giving up even when I'm exhausted, when a student asks the same question for the millionth time, when that student misbehaves (again). I can measure it by my lessons-were my students engaged? Do they understand the concept? Did they take ownership of their learning? Did I talk too much? Did they not talk enough?
The list goes on and on. Wheaton students are ambitious and perfectionistic. And although I often don't classify myself as either of those things, I've felt myself floundering this semester because I do have those some of those qualities in me. I haven't defined what success is for me in student teaching-well maybe I did, but if I did, it was something along the lines of "be the best student teacher ever." Not a very achievable goal, right? And I don't think I have ambition...
So this afternoon, I took some time to define success for myself. And yes, I'm gonna brag a little. After 3 really really hard weeks, I want to brag about a really really good one.
So for me, success this week looked a little like this:
Survive 11 school days without cooperating teacher. (check)
Not only survive those days, but thrive in the midst of them by growing in classroom management, confidence as a teacher, and collaboration. (check)
Receive a compliment from the principal (check) (okay. So it wasn't a flat out compliment, and it wasn't said directly to me. But apparently telling my cooperating teacher on the day of her return "well, I never had to go into your classroom and intervene" is a compliment.)
Teach the best lesson I've ever taught-students engaged and excited, student ownership of learning, inquiry incorporated, building student confidence, student to student discourse (check)
Bonus point: Best lesson ever observed by supervisor (check)
Be able to let loose and be a little silly with my students without fear of losing them because of the expectations I've set for the class (FINALLY) (check)
Leave school before 4pm, feeling energized and excited to be a teacher (check)
Be 3/4 done with full time teaching (check)
Be 2/3 done with student teaching as a whole (check)
Okay. So obviously I still have a lot to grow in. I always will. I can always incorporate more inquiry. I can always make my lessons more student centered. I can always create a better classroom environment. I can always be more patient with my students. But I have to admit, today (and this week) felt really really good. But the struggle of the past few weeks made the success of today even sweeter. I can see so concretely my growth in the past 4 weeks. And that's success.
I can measure success as a teacher based on my student's scores, and gain scores from a pretest to a posttest. I can measure success as perseverance-not giving up even when I'm exhausted, when a student asks the same question for the millionth time, when that student misbehaves (again). I can measure it by my lessons-were my students engaged? Do they understand the concept? Did they take ownership of their learning? Did I talk too much? Did they not talk enough?
The list goes on and on. Wheaton students are ambitious and perfectionistic. And although I often don't classify myself as either of those things, I've felt myself floundering this semester because I do have those some of those qualities in me. I haven't defined what success is for me in student teaching-well maybe I did, but if I did, it was something along the lines of "be the best student teacher ever." Not a very achievable goal, right? And I don't think I have ambition...
So this afternoon, I took some time to define success for myself. And yes, I'm gonna brag a little. After 3 really really hard weeks, I want to brag about a really really good one.
So for me, success this week looked a little like this:
Survive 11 school days without cooperating teacher. (check)
Not only survive those days, but thrive in the midst of them by growing in classroom management, confidence as a teacher, and collaboration. (check)
Receive a compliment from the principal (check) (okay. So it wasn't a flat out compliment, and it wasn't said directly to me. But apparently telling my cooperating teacher on the day of her return "well, I never had to go into your classroom and intervene" is a compliment.)
Teach the best lesson I've ever taught-students engaged and excited, student ownership of learning, inquiry incorporated, building student confidence, student to student discourse (check)
Bonus point: Best lesson ever observed by supervisor (check)
Be able to let loose and be a little silly with my students without fear of losing them because of the expectations I've set for the class (FINALLY) (check)
Leave school before 4pm, feeling energized and excited to be a teacher (check)
Be 3/4 done with full time teaching (check)
Be 2/3 done with student teaching as a whole (check)
Okay. So obviously I still have a lot to grow in. I always will. I can always incorporate more inquiry. I can always make my lessons more student centered. I can always create a better classroom environment. I can always be more patient with my students. But I have to admit, today (and this week) felt really really good. But the struggle of the past few weeks made the success of today even sweeter. I can see so concretely my growth in the past 4 weeks. And that's success.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Tales of a 4th Grade Teacher
Have you ever heard of/read Judy Blume's book Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing? We read it at the beginning of the year in our daily 4th grade read aloud. Hence the title of this post and my hashtag for posts about student teaching. Laugh at the cleverness of it. Please. Humor like this goes unappreciated by 9 year olds, so lately I've been feeling absolutely un-clever and not funny at all.
It's hard to believe, but I am more than halfway done with student teaching-last week was the halfway point. And today marks the end of (I'm really, really, really, really hoping) my hardest 3 weeks of student teaching. It's felt like a never ending reality check. Something will happen that makes me think, "Woah. I have not been working hard enough. I need to kick it into gear, or else my students are going to suffer the consequences." I try to fix what I was doing wrong, I feel good about it for like a day (if I'm lucky), and then something else will happen, and the cycle repeats itself. I will forever think of these past 3 weeks as the "weeks of daily cries". (My mom and roommate from last year *may* have received a few phone calls from me that consisted of mostly crying throughout the past 3 weeks). First it was classroom management. Then it was unsatisfactory planning. Then it was classroom management (again) (and again). Then it was disorganization. Then it was exhaustion and literally not being able to hold onto my train of thought for more than 3 minutes.
The past 2 weeks have been a whole other realm of difficult (and amazingly growth filled) as my cooperating teacher was gone (and still will be until next Wednesday). I've had an amazing sub with me who has years of teaching and subbing experience, but I was still the lead teacher for the past 2 weeks, and the sub was out of the room for majority of this week, leaving me completely in charge. Even though my teacher's absence lined up nicely with the timing for me to go full time, there has been so many other responsibilities I've had to pick up that I was not expecting. When people (myself included) think of teaching, they often think of planning lessons, teaching those lessons, and grading. It is so so much more. I have be organized, I have to make sure I give enough assessments to fairly know if a student understands a concept or not, I have to be in contact with parents, I have to handle serious student misbehavior, I have to attend meetings, I have to be an advocate for my students in those meetings, I have to collaborate with the other teachers, I have to write weekly newsletters to the parents, I have to prepare Friday Folders to send home... all on top of a couple hours of planning and prep every night. The list goes on and on. I averaged probably 10 hours a day at school these past 2 weeks, with the record being 13. The most sobering part of that day, was driving home, and realizing that I would be back at school in less hours than the amount I had spent at school that day.
Don't get me wrong. I love this. It is so extremely hard, and it makes me doubt whether I am really meant to be a teacher or not, it makes me cry out of frustration and feeling overwhelmed, but I still love it. Though my kids sometimes frustrate me to tears, I still love them and they make it so incredibly worth it.
The past three weeks, I've experienced disrespect (to me and to other students), tears (my own and students'... some out of joy, some out of frustration), hard conversations, great conversations, a kid hiding under a desk in fetal position, fights on the playground, fights in the classroom, a lesson interrupted by a student walking up to me as I was teaching to ask me a question (yes. I'm serious. I was doing whole class lesson, and was in the middle of it-he gets up out of his seat, and asks me what he should with an assignment I had collected a half hour before. As I was in the middle of teaching a lesson to the whole class. I cannot understand what was going on in his head.)
But I have learned so much from these kids and because of these kids. I am a better teacher and a better person because of these past 3 weeks, and I will continue to grow in my last 5 of student teaching. I will forever remember these students as my first students. I'll remember the student that tells me the most random and interesting facts (I've lost track of the amount of times I've heard "Miss Gibson. Did you know....?), the student who gives me fashion advice, the student who keeps me up to date with the latest 4th grade drama, the student who gives me at least 2 hugs a day, the student who thanked me for helping her finally understand subtraction, the student who has the most amazing scientific knowledge for a 4th grader (there's things he knows that I don't remember ever learning). Though it's been the most difficult 7 weeks of my life thus far, I cherish this time, and I am so glad for these crazy tales of a 4th grade teacher.
It's hard to believe, but I am more than halfway done with student teaching-last week was the halfway point. And today marks the end of (I'm really, really, really, really hoping) my hardest 3 weeks of student teaching. It's felt like a never ending reality check. Something will happen that makes me think, "Woah. I have not been working hard enough. I need to kick it into gear, or else my students are going to suffer the consequences." I try to fix what I was doing wrong, I feel good about it for like a day (if I'm lucky), and then something else will happen, and the cycle repeats itself. I will forever think of these past 3 weeks as the "weeks of daily cries". (My mom and roommate from last year *may* have received a few phone calls from me that consisted of mostly crying throughout the past 3 weeks). First it was classroom management. Then it was unsatisfactory planning. Then it was classroom management (again) (and again). Then it was disorganization. Then it was exhaustion and literally not being able to hold onto my train of thought for more than 3 minutes.
The past 2 weeks have been a whole other realm of difficult (and amazingly growth filled) as my cooperating teacher was gone (and still will be until next Wednesday). I've had an amazing sub with me who has years of teaching and subbing experience, but I was still the lead teacher for the past 2 weeks, and the sub was out of the room for majority of this week, leaving me completely in charge. Even though my teacher's absence lined up nicely with the timing for me to go full time, there has been so many other responsibilities I've had to pick up that I was not expecting. When people (myself included) think of teaching, they often think of planning lessons, teaching those lessons, and grading. It is so so much more. I have be organized, I have to make sure I give enough assessments to fairly know if a student understands a concept or not, I have to be in contact with parents, I have to handle serious student misbehavior, I have to attend meetings, I have to be an advocate for my students in those meetings, I have to collaborate with the other teachers, I have to write weekly newsletters to the parents, I have to prepare Friday Folders to send home... all on top of a couple hours of planning and prep every night. The list goes on and on. I averaged probably 10 hours a day at school these past 2 weeks, with the record being 13. The most sobering part of that day, was driving home, and realizing that I would be back at school in less hours than the amount I had spent at school that day.
Don't get me wrong. I love this. It is so extremely hard, and it makes me doubt whether I am really meant to be a teacher or not, it makes me cry out of frustration and feeling overwhelmed, but I still love it. Though my kids sometimes frustrate me to tears, I still love them and they make it so incredibly worth it.
The past three weeks, I've experienced disrespect (to me and to other students), tears (my own and students'... some out of joy, some out of frustration), hard conversations, great conversations, a kid hiding under a desk in fetal position, fights on the playground, fights in the classroom, a lesson interrupted by a student walking up to me as I was teaching to ask me a question (yes. I'm serious. I was doing whole class lesson, and was in the middle of it-he gets up out of his seat, and asks me what he should with an assignment I had collected a half hour before. As I was in the middle of teaching a lesson to the whole class. I cannot understand what was going on in his head.)
But I have learned so much from these kids and because of these kids. I am a better teacher and a better person because of these past 3 weeks, and I will continue to grow in my last 5 of student teaching. I will forever remember these students as my first students. I'll remember the student that tells me the most random and interesting facts (I've lost track of the amount of times I've heard "Miss Gibson. Did you know....?), the student who gives me fashion advice, the student who keeps me up to date with the latest 4th grade drama, the student who gives me at least 2 hugs a day, the student who thanked me for helping her finally understand subtraction, the student who has the most amazing scientific knowledge for a 4th grader (there's things he knows that I don't remember ever learning). Though it's been the most difficult 7 weeks of my life thus far, I cherish this time, and I am so glad for these crazy tales of a 4th grade teacher.
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