I love 2nd grade!

Well, I'm about to finish the 3rd week of my student teaching placement and it's going by so quickly. My kids LOVE Science! Maybe it's just because their seven, but I think I could give them magnifying glasses and have them examine dust off the floor, and they'd thoroughly enjoy it. The best part of working with kids this age is that anything you have them do is fun and exciting, making teaching them fun and exciting, too. We just started a lesson in Social Studies with the United States, so I've made it my mission to get postcards from all 50 states sent to my class. In the first week we've received 12 postcards! From our classroom we can see when the mailman arrives at school. I can't help but smile at their excitement as they point out the window and wonder how many postcards will arrive today.

It's nice to belong

I am thoroughly enjoying my student teaching experience! It's such a great feeling to belong. I've been in my assigned classroom for just a week now and my cooperating teacher has made me feel at home. Every teacher, parent of visitor that stops by the room she is quick to introduce me to. It's nice to be introduced as her student teacher. She doesn't say, this is the student teacher assigned to my room, but "This is MY student teacher." I'm finally finding my place and can truly see myself as a teacher. I can confidently walk into a classroom and know that what I'm doing is important and that I'm making a difference to someone. It's something that makes me feel valuable as an individual.

I've been given the responsibility of teaching Science, Social Studies, and Health, so far. These are subjects that are seldom a student's favorite and often are covered so quickly and briefly that kids don't get much out of them anyway. Today in class we did a lab where the students examined different rock and soil samples to determine similarities and differences between them. As I was preparing the samples, the student kept asking when it would be time for Science. When the time finally arrived you would've thought it was Christmas morning and these kids couldn't wait to tear into their gifts of rocks and dirt. As I was moving about the room while they worked, I heard one student, clad with her magnifying glass, say to another, "I feel just like a real scientist!" It may not sound like much, but I was so excited. It's nice to know that learning can be fun and educational.

Delores even managed to stay in her seat for most of the lab today.... when she wasn't smoking her crayons, pretending they were cigarettes. I guess this gives her the option of getting Cerulean or Razzle Dazzle Rose lung instead of the, rather boring, "black" lung. It's unfortunate that parents can be such unhealthy role models, and it shows just how impressionable young children are. I would venture a guess that smoking isn't the only bad example Delores's parents have set for her, and seeing her unusual behavior in class, I'm afraid to say that she may just be a carbon copy of her mother. Parent-teacher conferences may be interesting!

Life's Little Annoyances

I just finished this book called Life's Little Annoyances. It's a really good book for some light reading, and it's comforting to know that the small things that bother me also bother other people. The only difference is that they were creative enough to plot some passive-aggressive revenge. Here's the link to the website. The book is by Ian Urbina if you're interested in checking it out. It's a quick read and quite therapeutic!

Oh Delores.....

I gave a brief introduction to Delores in my last post, but I'll give you more insight now. For starters, I'm not a very large person, but in a classroom of 7-year-olds I tend to be significantly bigger... that is until Wednesday.

As the school day begins and the students are filtering in, I begin observing, trying to figure out who my strongest students will be and of course trying to determine who's going to give me fits. Then I see her, a girl abnormally tall for second grade, even tall for fourth grade, which happens to be the highest grade in the school. School hasn't really started yet, so I assume that she's the older sister of one of my students and will be leaving when class starts. To my surprise she sticks around, and with her bleach-blonde hair, dark roots exposed, she's pushing other students out of her way to hang up her coat and backpack. Alright, she's in my class, but she must've been retained a couple or five years. Nope, seven-years-old, and pound for pound she's every bit the presence in the classroom that I am, if not a little more, and that's just speaking in terms of size. Behavior is quite another story, and Delores is more of a presence than myself, the regular classroom teacher, and 16 other students.

As the day progressed I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Delores has the attitude of the recent tabloid-plastered Britany caged within the body of a second grader. The first thing I noticed during class was a brief exchange of words between her and another student. Delores was doing something she wasn't to be doing and the other student felt it her duty to inform her. Quite obviously Delores doesn't like being told "no," as I'm also since discovered, and marched over to the desk of this student and told her she needed to mind her own business and not worry about what she was doing. When the other student attempted to respond, Delores promptly snapped her fingers, made a circle with her hips and shoulders in a well-rehearsed motion, and raised her palm to the girl's face, telling her to "talk to the hand because the ears ain't listenin''"

My jaw dropped, if not literally, I was thinking it in my mind. Did I just see that? Is this a dream? Am I really in an 8th grade class??? Nope, still in 2nd grade, and I really did just see that. How bizarre. Granted, I've been in a few different classrooms and I've dealt with my fair share of behavior problems as a substitute; however, I've never seen a diva like this any younger than 5th grade.

My first run-in with Delores was in the library, later this same day. The library is a small 15x15 room, no larger than a restroom, in which the walls are lined with bookshelves. Even having a small class of 17 students, space was limited. Delores decided she was going to give us all a preview of her American Idol routine. This was not the appropriate time or place for dancing or singing, so I felt it necessary to kindly ask her to stop. Her response included a familiar hip and shoulder swiveling, finger snapping, with a head wiggle, hands to the hips, and "Excuuuuse Me???" You heard me! The library isn't the place for dancing and singing. Dumbfounded, I kindly repeat myself if, in case, in the moment she was so caught up in the performance that she just didn't hear me, but no, that wasn't it. Then I get to "talk to the hand..." For a split second I felt myself taking on her attitude and wanted to respond with my own, much less rehearsed, hip, shoulder, and head swivelin' finger snaps. I refrained.

With great relief to the classroom teacher, Delores was absent on Thursday. Apparently the students were rather excited. On Friday when another Thursday absentee returned to school, a classmate informed her that she shouldn't have missed school yesterday because Delores wasn't there. The girl was visibly disappointed that she had spent the day at home for whatever ailment, missing a day of peace and quiet at school in Delores's absence.

The final Delores incident I'll leave you with for the weekend occurred on Friday. As the students returned to the classroom after lunch, they were to get their coats to go outside for recess. The classroom rule for the coat closet is that no more than three students can be in there at one time. One student is assigned the job of monitoring the entryway while the others stand in line awaiting their turn. It appears as though Delores doesn't feel this rule applies to her either because she again pushed her way into the already full closet grabbed her coat and put it on in the crammed space, elbowing others in the process. When she was finished she pushed her way out, glaring at the students in line, telling them to "MOOOVE!" As she exited the classroom, one of the other students turned to me and said, "Ms. Miller, I don't know if you've noticed yet or not, but Delores isn't very nice. No one else really likes her because she's so mean. Today she told us all we were losers." So I fight off all the things I really wanted to say about how it would be hard not to notice or aiding in plotting revenge. I searched the "teacher-y" things to say and responded with, "Sometimes in life we are forced to deal with people who aren't very nice, but we just have to try our very best to be nice to people who aren't very nice to us." I felt like someone from an afterschool special or one of those cheesy public service announcements.

At least there aren't 17 Delores in the class. It might actually be an interesting eight weeks. I can't say that I'm not looking forward to it, and although it was a peaceful classroom on Thursday, I was somewhat disappointed and much less entertained.

let's give this another try

It's been nearly a year since my last post. Hard to believe that the year has gone by so quickly. I'm now 16 weeks away from finishing my degree!!! My final semester started on Monday and I began my student teaching today. I figured student teaching would provide several interesting events to share, so I'm giving this blogging thing another shot.

As I sat through some of my classes these past two years, there are some people that I just can't imagine educating students, and my supervising meeting on Tuesday further supported these feelings. There's a student who happens to be in my supervising group that could very well be the most socially retarded person alive. She was fondly nicknamed CK1, short for Chatty Kathy, in another of my classes. The meeting, which lasted for an hour and a half, consisted of myself, CK1, and our supervisor. I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot with my supervisor, since she could single-handedly prevent me from acquiring my teaching certification, so I politely sat and bit my tongue to keep from shouting out how ridiculous she was. Finally, after listening to her tell all about life in Montessori school in Atlanta, (sidebar--Montessori school must teach students that every idea that enters their mind is so important that it is essential to share with everyone else immediately) the supervisor finally asks me about my background. After hearing from CK1 and her vast amount of expertise in everything under and encompassing the sun, Dr. Supervisor decides I'm going to be the difficult one to supervise this semester due to my lack of experience. When I finally have to opportunity to speak, I explain my background in athletic training, and my teaching experience at Bethany, and my first master's degree, to which CK1 replies, "I didn't know you had a master's degree, too." Well, maybe if you'd shut your yap for 5 seconds and listen to anything anyone had to say you might learn something. Then, interested in athletic training, we begin to talk about my senior year of working with football, to which CK interrupts, "I watch football." What the...?!?!?! Who cares?!? I left that meeting feeling sorry for all those hellish middle school kids, who even in all their wickedness don't deserve having to spend 5 days a week for 8 weeks with the likes of her. Poor souls. I won't be surprised if several higher level math students don't come down with communicable diseases that happen to last for the next 8 weeks.

Well, that was my delightful second day back to classes. Thankfully I won't have many more days like that. Next time I'll give you the scoop on the newest star of my blogs, BIG FAT DELORES! If you've seen the Sandra Bullock movie, Hope Floats, you'll know exactly who I'm talking about, and that girl is my second grade class!!!