Week Ten

03.20.2012

Today is my first ‘official’ whole day of teaching. I was a little nervous at first, looking around like a deer in the headlights for Mary’s cue or to interject on what we should transition to next, but it was all me. But things went great. I knew my plan and was able to flex when needed or keep on track.

03.21.2012

I slacked off on journaling to do research on the Blackfeet. Tomorrow I’ll make up for it. Overall a great day. Time goes by so much faster when I teach the whole day and I like it more. At first the thought was a little scary but the nerves have vanished with the end of CRT and just diving in. Teaching is so fun.

03.22.2012

Day three of teaching for reals and I am on cloud nine right now. THIS IS WHAT TEACHING SHOULD BE! All day the kids were excited to be learning. One student told me they were in love with their social studies textbook. WHAT?! Loving their textbooks. Now, I do not really love teaching from the book all the time but just getting out of CRT mode has lifted all our spirits. Oh the possibilities!!

But my real cloud nine, elevated feeling of happiness came in the afternoon during the Blackfeet unit. I stretched, pulled, and twisted their fourth-grade minds to not just absent mindedly fill in a map of the territory but really analyze and think about what had happened and then talk about it. Whoa, ‘Miss Schuschke, we gotta talk about it? Not just do the map.’ Oh yeah, there was some stretching. And the best part was the high kids; they made the connections. They took the information, summarized it and them made it theirs. AND gave me their opinion about the topic too (in one case). And the lower student were gaining too because of the discussions. If I could I would rearrange our seats so the discussions were a little more pushed (high with mid level, mid with low) so there is more talk rather than gossip, but hey, for the first shot it went pretty well.

Another thing that is getting me excited is this one girl is really stepping up and out and participating. I knew she had good things floating in her brain and now she is proving it. Yes!

Things feel so much more comfortable within these four days and I am loving it. My excitement is back and I am throwing myself into research because I am interested in what we are learning. My goal is to make it the most meaningful learning experience for all the kids. I want to push them to be uncomfortable, well, not uncomfortable but they cannot give up. I want their brains to hurt a little. Is that wrong? No, we laughed about it together. They get my jokes now. Success. I am beaming with how good today felt, hopefully something will stick with the kids today.

03.23.2012

It is spring break!! And I am outta here. Good day overall. Mary lead math. We reviewed our test and she wanted to make sure the kids knew what they missed. This afternoon we had a great speaker on waste not want not. Happy week of rest!