Afterwards

After my experience with the whole internship situation this semester, it is hard to know what exactly will be happening after this year, and even after this semester. After all of the struggles I have had to overcome in adapting to the internship and being in front of the classroom, it is easy to see that, if it does work out, I can still see myself with my own high school classroom, or maybe even a second floor office in the English department building at some small liberal arts college.

After this year, I just want to be as good as I can be, meaning I want to be very good at whatever I do. If I do end up becoming a teacher, I want to be known as the "cool teacher," the teacher whose class is challenging yet still fun, and one kids want to come to every day. If I end up with some sort of  desk job, I want to be the employee that is good at his job.

After one of the hardest semesters I've experienced here at Lyon, I can honestly say, with a good amount of shame and embarrassment, that I had no idea that teaching was this hard. I came into this internship thinking that I would be able to overcome my fear of speaking in front of people and would automatically gain that "cool teacher" status without even having a job yet. Instead of all that happening, the opposite happened. It was quite a wake-up call to me, telling me that I need to get my priorities straight or my life could very well be ruined. It has certainly made me think a lot about my future and look back at all the opportunities I have missed due to my lackadaisical lifestyle.

After I figure out what is going to happen, I am not going to treat it how I have treated every other situation and put off my initiative until the last minute. I am going to jump on it as soon as I get it figured out, and I am going to make the best of it. I am tired of being a procrastinator and watching everyone be better than me. I want to be in those ranks, and be a role model to students, or prospective employees.

After all these years, I am now figuring out that slacking all the way to the bottom as I have done is for the birds. It's time for me to rise to the top.

The Arkansas Literacy Conference

Presenting at the Arkansas Literacy Conference in Little Rock was a great experience. I was very nervous at first, as I think all three of us were, at the thought of being college students teaching things to teachers who have been teaching for years. Especially after my experience with losing my internship, I felt very out of place with a longing to feel at home. 

Upon arriving at the conference, it was almost immediately apparent that this conference was primarily geared toward elementary teachers. Besides the two sessions we helped present, I attended only one other session. This session was about a therapy dog, Korie (a Labrador retriever -- my weakness), who belonged to Badger Elementary in Beebe. This session was aimed toward 1-3 grade teachers, but Rachel and I attended anyway. It was very interesting learning about therapy dogs and what all they do for students. Korie could actually read, too, which was pretty neat to watch. 

Presenting at the conference, however, turned out not to be as scary as I thought it would. On the first day, we only had three people attend our session about Wikis, which, I think, helped calm out nerves. The only thing that I didn't like about having only three people was that this was the presentation I was most prepared for and most confident about. Overall, though, it went pretty well, and I still enjoyed it. The second presentation about authentic literacy gained a lot more attention, as we had probably 25 or 30 people come to this one, and I'm pretty sure they were all the secondary teachers that came to the conference. This presentation went pretty well overall, too. 

After attending this conference and the curriculum conference, I can easily say that I love/will continue to love going to these kinds of conferences (although, that may be the measly intern in me speaking). I love to learn knew things, and these conferences provide the perfect opportunities for that. 

The Full Story (pretty much)

A few weeks ago, I was dropped from from my internship classroom at Cave City High School. It was something that I had been worried would happen since Junior year when we were in Practicum, getting ready to enter the internship process. I have always doubted myself in a number of areas throughout the 20 something years I have been able to have doubts about myself. The internship became one of those areas of doubt.

At the beginning of the internship, I was very nervous, as one might expect a brand new intern would be. The first couple of weeks of observation were very calm. I caught myself wishing that was all I would have to do in the internship, knowing full well that it was not a good thing to wish for (insert self-disappointment). As the taking over of my first class loomed, I became even more nervous, knowing that it was going to be a lot more than just running down the hall to make copies.

Getting up and talking in front of a large group of people is certainly not my forte. In fact, it gives me extreme anxiety. Before now, I had asked myself, based solely on this fear, why I was choosing to be a teacher. Now was time to answer that question. I wanted to be a teacher for the kids. I chose students over my own fear. Still, however, it did not come naturally to me at all to get up and teach 50-minute lessons. Each day there were several times in my lessons that Mrs. Sandy had to correct me or fill in a giant hole of important information that I had failed to give the students. It was adding to the list of things that were lowering my confidence in my teaching abilities each day.

After about 7 weeks of this, Mrs. Sandy, Ms. Crosby and I all sat down together to voice our concerns. It seemed to give me a bit of a boost, and I could feel myself doing a bit better and feeling slightly more confident than I had been. However, while I was focusing more on better planning, I failed to strengthen areas I already wasn't paying much attention to, namely classroom management. My last day there, I was helping a student early in class, giving all of my attention to her instead of the other students. Meanwhile, there were two boys looking at a yearbook, one of which was out of his desk. After about five minutes of them cutting up and laughing about the pictures, and me not saying anything about it, Mrs. Sandy took it into her own hands. Within seconds, the yearbook was put away, the one boy was back at his assigned seat, and I knew I was in trouble. After class, Mrs. Sandy and I had a very long conversation about my lack of multitasking abilities and my inability to effectively manage the classroom. Later that night, I got a call from Ms. Crosby saying that Mrs. Sandy had opted to forgo the internship, putting me in a really terrible position.

After about a week full of searching, Ms. Crosby finally found me a temporary spot at Southside High School, where I have basically gone back to practicum. Just what I wanted right? Wrong. After being in front of the class every day at Cave City, going back to just sitting and watching other people teach is pretty boring. But I only have one more week. In the meantime, we are still trying to find a classroom for me to take over next semester, and with only one option left, my nerves are coming back to show me that my future is on the line. I have certainly learned a lesson in all of this.

Failure as an Intern

As a teacher I dread a lot of things, but the one that I dread more than anything else in this world is becoming a failure in the classroom in front of children. I had this idea that all lessons should go as planned and that never should I have to worry about being a failure. If something did go wrong it would so slight that it would be unnoticeable to the students. As I figured out Monday, I am human, and, as a human, I will fail.

I prepared Thursday and Friday for a class discussion on Monday. As I figured out later, the students were very prepared for the discussion. Their notes were there and they had good ideas. My first period class went as planned and we had a great discussion. Second period was a bit of a problem. They came in, plopped down, and did not move. They would not talk, except to hold a little side conversation every now and then. Only eight students participated in the class discussion. I had this long pause were I decided I was not putting up with this horror any longer. I got up and I told the students that they could write a paragraph for me instead.

I have been dealing with this all week long. I have worried that I did something wrong. I was trying to allow the students to take control and lead the class, as teacher evaluation asks teachers to do. It flopped for me. As I look back on the situation and the moment I realize that I cannot take all the blame and must pick myself up and move forward—not allowing this to hinder me. I will not stop class discussions just because one class decided to sit on me.

Group Work Success!!

We had a discussion in our education class a few weeks ago about how to have group work in the classroom. We talked about effective ways to group students and when grouping is not appropriate. One thing that was brought up was the actual work; students should not do individualized work in a group setting—work should reflect all persons.

I took this to heart, realizing that I had the wrong approach to group work. I starting working to revise my group work and make it as efficient as I could. My activity last Thursday really worked in the group settings.

My students were actively looking for internal and external conflicts in one character. They had to use colored pencils and illustrate the conflicts and then answer questions that reflected on the artwork, tying in the essential questions of the unit. I was amazed at the eagerness they worked together. Students had better scores, and most of my students worked really hard to complete the answers. The short answers had excellent answers, showing that students understood the essential questions and could apply it to the novel.

Overall I was impressed with the grouping and the student’s reactions. I will always keep this in mind when I am grouping and try to always keep the students in working groups—not play groups.

ACC in Little Rock, Arkansas

This week I had the privilege to go to Little Rock to the Arkansas Curriculum Conference (ACC). At first I was a little worried about it -- I usually hate things like this. It turned out that I really enjoyed the conference.

I was able to pick up a lot of great ideas for my classroom. Every session that I went  to demonstrated activities and games that I could include in my classroom that would enhance the learning experience. I also was able to pick up on projects that were simple to do and would make the lesson applicable to the students' lives.

The greatest sessions were the ones that include cross curricular activities. Common Core is really heavy on the integrating of different fields into a classroom. Of all the material received, these will be the most helpful in enhancing the classroom.

I hope that each year I can come back and get more material each time. I never know when I might come across the right piece to make a lesson reach the outstanding on the TESS evaluation.