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Day 14

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This week I am really feeling the crunch. April has begun and there’s so much I need to do before May! My thesis is due, Student Teaching ends shortly afterwards, I graduate from college…I’m really stressed out about everything! On top of that, Student Teaching will gradually become more challenging as time progresses as I’ll be taking on more and more responsibilities. I really see why they suggest not participating in anything else during Student Teaching; it’s a full-time job!

The first week at Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School, I did not teach any classes. My second week, I taught one grade level. My third week, I taught two grade levels. Now that it’s my fourth week, I am teaching three of the six grade levels, so I am completely in charge of half of the classes. I’m not sure if I prefer this gradual schedule more than the schedule I had at Canyon High School where I was completely in charge of absolutely everything for two weeks, and not in charge of anything the remaining five weeks. I think I may have preferred the other schedule more as I was thrown into the job rather than given a tiny piece at a time.

Today was Monday, so again, I enjoyed observing the new lessons my teacher had planned for the classes. It was a bit difficult to teach, though, as I wasn’t completely sure of what all the lessons entailed. I hadn’t seen them performed, hadn’t read the lesson plans until I received a hard copy this morning, and I didn’t know if my teacher had examples, Powerpoints, etc. I tried my best and went with what I had to prepare the lessons. I think that it went pretty well, but I do have some suggestions to improve later on.

One thing that was a bit confusing was when I asked my teacher if she had her handouts with pictures of dinosaurs on them to give to the students to aid with their dinosaur drawings. She responded that she did and pulled out a poster with a picture of fighting dinosaurs on it. I thought that she had mentioned she had worksheets with tiny pictures of dinosaurs on them, so if we didn’t have those, I decided to improvise. My teacher has a how-to draw dinosaurs book, that I decided to use. Since there’s only one book and students wouldn’t be able to all use the book at the same time, I decided to draw the illustrations from the book on the white board, large enough so that the class would be able to see them. I drew five pictures, some full-body images and some headshots, and included a variety of dinosaurs. I was quite pleased with my drawings and thought that they would help the students in drawing their own dinosaurs. After I had completed my drawings, my teacher found the dinosaur handouts she had been talking about.

Woops! Well, at least we had even more references now.

I did allow the class to take turns using the drawing book if they wanted any of the images that I didn’t put on the board, but that turned out to be a mistake. So many students wanted the book and because only one student could have the book at a time, it caused problems. Tomorrow, I’m not going to allow anyone to use the book and will simply tell them that a majority of the drawings from the book are on the wall.

I was also quite nervous today as my university supervisor was coming to observe me. Again, today was a Monday, the “testing” day, in which I hadn’t done the lesson yet and wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I was a bit nervous about that fact, as well as the fact that I feel I simply am not as successful as I am with higher grade levels. After my instruction, my supervisor noted that fact, saying that I was still adjusting to this level and she had a list of suggestions for me.

I need to praise the students who behave more and get on to the students who misbehave less in order to promote good behavior. This can be a little challenging without knowing students’ names, but I know that it can be done. I also need to improve my demonstrations and instruction by showing bad examples of what student’s shouldn’t do with their artworks, and by visualizing the planning process better, such as drawing a shape on my paper with my finger before drawing it in pencil. I also need to pay attention to anything that may be distracting a student and remove it from the area. I should pay attention to the room, in general, more than I have been, by checking the room when I make rounds, looking up more from talking with students, and listening to the overall noise level to make sure that students aren’t getting too loud. I know that I have strong focus and can sometimes go a little tunnel vision, tuning out noises and my surroundings easily. I can also help my students work more efficiently if I set a daily objective and tell the students how much time they have remaining. My supervisor agreed that managing student behavior is my largest weakness and the spot I need to most improve on. It was a little disheartening to go from observations at the high school level with barely any suggestions of things to do differently, to having a full list of things I need to change today. I’m hoping that I can focus on these aspects and improve upon them over the next few weeks.

There’s so much for me to focus on; I’m so nervous!

<< Thursday, April 2, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Tuesday, April 7, 2015 >>

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Day 13

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Today was the last day of this odd week with crazy schedule changes. Today was pretty nice, yet confusing, because my cooperating teacher had several free periods due to schedule changes. The 2nd Grade students had a field trip today, so they did not go to art class during our first period of the day. My cooperating teacher then told me that the 3rd Grade students were practice S.T.A.A.R. testing and she heard that they may or may not be coming to art today. She also heard that they may be switching with 4th Grade, our last class of the day. The passing period before the 3rd Grade class, my cooperating teacher and I had no idea what to expect. 5 minutes after class started, however, no students had arrived and we concluded that the 3rd Grade students just weren’t coming. This gave us another free period.

Another confusing schedule change possibility resulted when my cooperating teacher received a text from the Music and Gym teachers asking if we should have the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Graders partake in Fitness Friday. Because Thursdays are a rotational day for these grades where they attend a Specials class for the second time that week, the Gym teacher thought that they should participate in Fitness Friday. My cooperating teacher does not like Fitness Friday, though, and already planned her day. Because the suggestion was so last minute and there were already so many schedule changes happening, my cooperating teacher convinced the other Specials teachers not to go with this plan.

On top of everything else, my cooperating teacher hasn’t had any lunch duty all week due to the S.T.A.A.R. testing, so we had another extended lunch period. All of this free time gave my cooperating teacher and I time to lesson plan, create examples, change the bulletin boards, prepare for the day’s classes, and prepare for the upcoming Art Show. It was incredibly helpful and it made me wish my teacher normally had a Conference period during the day.

I used some of this free time to continue working on my teacher-made example for the next 1st Grade lesson. Because the students will be outlining their works, I outlined my sketch in ink. The students will also be depicting their dinosaur in an environment, so I challenged myself to add a background, something I don’t do often. I am incredibly thrilled with how my example came out. I love my linework and the detail of my background. I really feel that it adds to my original sketch. Now, I’ll be coloring my picture with crayons, focusing on using multiple colors and blending them together. Hopefully the finished piece turns out successful.

Unfortunately, the principal decided to hold an assembly today because tomorrow is Good Friday and we don’t have school. I enjoy the assemblies, but my cooperating teacher does not as they cause the school day to start 15 minutes earlier, cutting into her before-school Conference period. The assemblies are usually pretty long, too, and since 2nd Grade is our first class, we didn’t get much extra time due to the 2nd Graders being gone on a field trip. We really only gained about 15 minutes of extra time.

The assembly also threw off many of the students. Because assemblies are done on Fridays, several of the students were thinking we were on a Fitness Friday schedule and that they were supposed to report to the gym instead of art class. Because P.R.I.D.E. leader students are allowed to go to class early without walking in line with the teacher, they weren’t led by their teachers to art class. We had to send students to the gym to collect the P.R.I.D.E. leaders, causing our art classes to start late.

Today was just wack-a-doodle!

We didn’t actually get to teach many classes today, just 5th Grade, 1st Grade, Kindergarten, and 4th Grade. It still seems like the students are lacking the benefits of demonstration. The 5th Grade students have been illustrating still lives in the style of Pablo Picasso and have been struggling with replicating his abstracted style. They’ve also been confused on how to add “random lines breaking up the picture.” The Kindergarten students again struggled with tracing their suns for their sunsets in a good spot, coloring the sunset, filling the whole page with the sunset, adding the ground, and adding the silhouettes. It seems like the Kindergarten students have really been struggling with the whole assignment and only find success when my cooperating teacher or myself walk them through each step one-on-one. The 4th Grade students are also struggling to complete their pointillism pictures with so many dots to create. I don’t think the students quite understand the dot concept though as they’re either drawing incredibly large circles, simply outlining everything in dots, or creating spaced-out dot patterns to color things in. I’ve been trying to explain to students that the dots are meant to be squished together and done in random colors with mostly the color you want the space to look, and after hearing that the students seem to be more successful. Many students, though, just want to be finished with the pointillism pictures and aren’t caring enough to work hard on them. They do look pretty tedious and time-consuming.

Sara Bareilles – Brave

Here’s one of the songs that’s played at the beginning of the Friday assemblies.

<< Wednesday, April 1, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Monday, April 6, 2015 >>

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Day 12

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Objectives Wall

Objectives Wall

Today was another good day. For some reason this week seems to be going better than last week. I don’t feel nearly as tired or stressed. I feel like I’m in a better mood overall. I hope that this continues because, in reality, I am really freaking out about finishing my thesis in time and I don’t want my Student Teaching experience to be negative because of it. I’m just glad that I’m enjoying my time more. Hopefully this keeps up.

Today was another positive day because my cooperating teacher didn’t have lunch duty, giving us an extended lunch period. She doesn’t have lunch duty all week, which is really nice because it gives us a Conference period during the day, something my cooperating teacher doesn’t normally get. During today’s extended lunch period, my cooperating teacher and I were able to lesson plan for next week. I enjoy lesson planning with my cooperating teacher because she’s so organized and on top of things. She has a year-long curriculum already laid out so we can follow along and make changes as necessary. This feels like a much better way to lesson plan than creating lessons on the fly, as I’ve seen in previous placements. My cooperating teacher also already has her objectives and TEKS already printed and ready to be hung on the “Objectives” wall.

I absolutely love her “Objectives” wall and would like to use it in my own classroom because it’s so organized and easy to use. On the wall, my cooperating teacher has placed colored pieces of paper labeled by grades with the title, “Objectives” above them. On the colored pieces of paper, she’s attached plastic sheet protectors so that she can print out her lesson’s objectives and TEKS and slide the paper into the sheet protector. The end result looks clean, polished, and professional and creates an easy-to-read resource for the students. I’ve been struggling to think of a way to effectively relay my objectives and TEKS to my students and keep them posted in the room like it is recommended, and this is an awesome solution!

I’m really glad that my cooperating teacher shares my level of organization. Her room is spotless and completely organized with everything color-coded and labeled, and she knows where everything is. Today, I decided to sort the crayon buckets to make sure all of the buckets had the same crayons (2 reds, 3 yellows, in every bucket, etc.) something I’ve seen my teacher do when she has the time. When she noticed what I was doing she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, organization! Thank you!”

It really shows that you can have an organized art room.

After lesson planning with my cooperating teacher, I decided to use the rest of the extended lunch period to begin a teacher-made example for the next 1st Grade lesson. We decided to do Dinosaur Drawings, a lesson in which the students will draw a dinosaur from reference and color it with crayons, focusing on color blending and using multiple colors. The students will also place the dinosaur in an environment. I began by drawing my favorite dinosaur, the parasaurolophus. I was only able to complete the sketch for today, but I love the way it turned out so far. I’ll have to add the environment tomorrow, something I’m nervous about because I rarely draw scenery.

Today, I taught the 1st and 3rd Grade classes and I feel that I was competent, again. For the 3rd Grade class, I decided to give the students a quick, 2-minute demonstration on how to properly use watercolors. My cooperating teacher and I have been having issues with students trying to dig out the watercolor paint from the tiny trays or using way too much paint with barely any water. Their watercolor paintings have been coming out really dark and over-saturated as a result. I took a moment to explain that watercolor should use a lot of water and barely any paint. I then showed how the students could blend colors when the paper was wet and keep colors separate when the paper was dry. The students seemed impressed and amazed. When I felt like they understood how to use the paints, I set them off to work.

I was incredibly pleased to find that this group of 3rd Graders were doing much better than the previous groups. This time, I didn’t see any students trying to dig the paint out of the trays. There were few students using way too much paint and not enough water and I saw several students experimenting and mixing colors! Many students were adding several colors to their flowers and wetting the paper to allow the colors to bleed and blend. My cooperating teacher and I were so excited by this success.

This goes to show that demonstrations can do wonders for the students, even if it’s just 2 minutes!

I’m excited to see what else the students can accomplish with the help of demonstrations.

<< Tuesday, March 31, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Thursday, April 2, 2015 >>

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Day 11

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Today was another day in which it was difficult to wake up in the morning. Because I had a Student Teaching Seminar meeting yesterday, as soon as I finished my Student Teaching for the day, I ate dinner, picked up some prescription medication, cashed a check, wrote my Student Teaching Reflection for the day, and attended the meeting. The meeting let out around 8:00pm or so and I didn’t get home until about 9:00pm because I live out of town and stopped for gas and food. (I hate having to eat every four hours because of my blood sugar.) As soon as I got home, I ate and went to bed. This morning as I was walking into the school, I felt as if I hadn’t gone home yet.

It felt like I was just at the school!

Today was another fairly easy day because of the S.T.A.A.R. Testing. Because it was a testing day, my cooperating teacher and I did not have lunch duty which gave us an extended lunch period. My cooperating teacher also still had the room set up in the modified arrangement to remind students that it was a testing day and that they needed to be more quiet than usual. Our schedule was also slightly altered, as Kindergarten and 5th Grade were switched, so we had Kindergarten in the morning and 5th Grade in the afternoon after they had finished testing. Another result of the testing was the fact that we had more students in our Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade classes. Because the librarian was hosting tests, the classes that were supposed to have Library as their Specials Day were split up into thirds, one third going to Gym, one third going to Music, and another third coming to Art. This meant that we had several students from another class mixed in with our classes. My cooperating teacher quickly found out that we didn’t have enough seats for all of the students, so she asked the excess students to sit on the carpet. She decided to give them an alternate assignment today, since they weren’t really supposed to have Art today and they would have it another day this week anyway. She didn’t want a select group of students to get ahead of schedule and since we didn’t have seats for them anyway, it all worked out all right. These students were given coloring sheets, or grids to create patterns on. S.T.A.A.R.

Testing can really alter a teacher’s schedule, and ours wasn’t even changed that much!

Today, our kindergarten students were more successful with their sunset images. I tried to help the students on a more one-on-one basis by showing them how they could blend colors to create the sunset and how they needed to color a majority of the page, not just a sliver at the very top. I feel that after seeing a demonstration, they were more successful. This keeps reinforcing my idea that the students would benefit from seeing demonstrations in class before or while they are working. My cooperating teacher normally spends about 5-10 minutes at the beginning of every class showing the historical reference and possibly showing a teacher-made example and then lets the students work the rest of the class period. Because the students work so quickly and my teacher and I spend a lot of time trying to explain concepts to the students or fix their errors, I feel that another 5-10 minutes of demonstration could really help them be more successful.

Because we had an extended lunch period today, I was able to create a teacher-made example for the 1st Grade project. My cooperating teacher had an image that was almost the same project as the one they were working on and was almost finished, so I thought that it would benefit the students to see a completed example of the actual assignment. The students are making landscapes with a single tree using torn tissue paper. My teacher’s example showed an apple tree in a lush, green field with a setting sun, so I decided to create a cherry blossom tree in front of a rising sun to give the students variety. I was also interested in creating an uncommon tree as I’ve become bored with all of the green apple trees I’ve been seeing while Student Teaching. I really think that my piece came together quite well, especially with the unified color scheme. I’ll have to see how it aids the students tomorrow.

<< Monday, March 30, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Wednesday, April 1, 2015 >>

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Day 10

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Desert Sunset & Silhouette

Desert Sunset & Silhouette

Today, I’m glad to say, was a pretty good day. Although I was sick for a majority of the weekend and spent the rest of my time working on my thesis, even until 1:00am last night, I had a successful day today. Although I was tired, I was did not feel moody or stressed and the day ran by quickly.

Today, I was again greeted by my cooperating teacher handing me a printout of this week’s lesson plans. She had also emailed me a copy of them yesterday morning. I also noticed that the classroom had been rearranged. My cooperating teacher had been toying with the idea of rearranging the room for the STAAR Test days in order to keep talking down and to remind the students that test days are special days in which they need to be more quiet. She had seated all of the chairs on one side of the tables so that all of the chairs were facing one side of the room. She felt that if students weren’t sitting across from each other, they would talk less. I then began helping my teacher cut strips of tissue paper to refill the tissue paper bins for the 1st grade students.

The first class began and a wave of second graders entered the room. I was shocked at how quietly they entered the room. Because today was a STAAR Test day, students were not allowed to talk in the hallways at all, and they were obeying. Immediately, though, students were confused as to where to sit. Although my cooperating teacher explained that the color-coded tables were still the same and students were still to sit at their assigned table, some students sat wherever they wanted or were just confused in general. Some also started to move chairs from one side of the table to the other side, (the side where they normally sit.) It took a bit after my cooperating teacher continued to explain until the students finally realized where they should sit. Finally after everyone was seated, class could begin.

This class was working on Eric Carle collage insects. Last week these students painted large pieces of paper in random colors so that they could cut from the colorful papers and create a collage insect this week. The painted papers were handed out and students started cutting. There were still some understanding issues. Some students began drawing on the paper they would be gluing their collaged pieces to, while others tried to draw an entire insect on the painted paper, rather than cutting out pieces, like legs and wings. Some students had even painted insects and flowers on their papers last week and just started cutting those out. It took explaining from myself and my cooperating teacher to help them understand the project. Students who had already painted “things” on their papers were instructed to cut up those things into different parts and to then glue them together in a collage style. I was intrigued by the insects that some of the students were creating, as some showed great signs of creativity. Some of the painted papers turned out really well, too, and helped add to the insects. Last week I thought that this project may have been too advanced for the students, but today I thought otherwise. With a great deal of explaining, the students were able to accomplish the task.

During the 3rd grade class, I again helped students to improve their watercolor paintings of flowers inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. After some students had covered their entire paper in paint, I encouraged them to add darker shades in places such as behind petals and in the center of the flower. Students were amazed when I told them that they could add shadows and create darker values that would help make their piece more interesting. They were also amazed when I explained that they could use more water and less paint to help the colors blend better, or to move paint from areas that were too saturated to areas that could use more color. I loved explaining these new techniques to the students and seeing their faces light up. They really caught on and improved their pieces, too.

Today was my second time taking over a class as I taught a 1st grade class again. This week the students were continuing to add to their tissue paper landscapes. I began the class by explaining that today was a test day and that there shouldn’t be loud talking. I told students to whisper if they needed to say something. We then reviewed what we did last week as I asked them about what they created and what a landscape was. We also reviewed the criteria of the assignment as I asked them if they could simply make their whole sky blue or their whole ground green. “Can you just glue a whole sheet of tissue paper to your piece?” I asked, as the students called out in response. I felt that the students understood the project and handed out their works and let them get to work. While I don’t feel as comfortable teaching the elementary students, I feel competent at it. I feel that I know what to do and how to conduct an effective class.

Today my cooperating teacher and I did struggle with noise, though. Although we had seated the students differently, the noise level didn’t really seem affected. Students tried to talk to students they normally didn’t sit near and would even talk to different tables. My cooperating teacher constantly had to remind students that today was a testing day. I did notice that my 1st grade class was more quiet than the other classes, but they still had to be reminded constantly when chatter started to crescendo. I think that the different seating arrangement might have actually caused more confusion than it did cut down on noise.

Because of STAAR Testing, my cooperating teacher had an extended lunch today. I used that time to create an example of the tissue paper landscape. While I didn’t finish, I still like to attempt the assignments that the students are given so that I know exactly what it’s like to do and so that I can give the students tips that I learned by doing the activity. If I do complete my example, I then have one for my own future classroom and to remind me of that lesson. I also spent a good amount of time cutting more tissue paper to refill the bins as the students today used up almost all of the blue and green paper.

After lunch, there were only two more classes, kindergarten and 4th grade.

I was amazed at how quickly the day seemed to go by!

Because the kindergarten students seem to complete their work so quickly, they were given a new assignment today. My cooperating teacher showed the students an image of a desert sunset with a silhouette of the land on the projector and talked about the colors that make up a sunset. She had me set out warm-colored crayons on the tables, only providing the students with reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, and purples. They also talked about the silhouette and how it looked like a shadow. The students could tell that there was grass, a cactus, and a jackrabbit, but the objects were completely black. The students were then given yellow paper and sent to their seats to create their own desert landscape.

My cooperating teacher gave each student a coffee can lid to trace to create a large, round sun somewhere on their paper and then explained that they should color half of the paper in sunset colors. Students seemed to really struggle with this concept as some students would color half of the paper in one color and think they were done, while some only colored a small strip at the top of the paper, and some didn’t even know what to do after tracing the sun. A few students even had trouble tracing the sun. It took a while for my cooperating teacher and myself to check with each student and explain the sunset concept to them. Once most students had completed their sunset, they were then given black paper and told to create their silhouette. This was another misunderstanding as students would draw directly on their sunsets and ignore the black paper, draw on the black paper and then glue it on to the sunset without cutting out the things they had drawn, or just glue the black paper onto the sunset without cutting or drawing on it. I had a few students glue the black paper right on top of the sunset-half of their paper, completely covering the sunset they had colored. It was difficult to try to explain to the students the correct technique.

Overall, I felt like this assignment was too advanced for the students. I know I said that last week, so maybe I’m wrong again, but we had few successes today and many students were confused. I feel that this assignment could be kept with the kindergarten students, but a demonstration would need to given. Perhaps if the students had seen the teacher color a sunset and then cut out silhouettes and glue them to the bottom of the page, they may have understood better. I’m interested to see how a demonstration could benefit this lesson.

At the end of the day, I was pretty happy. I feel that today went well and I enjoyed seeing new lessons or the continuation of last week’s lessons. Elementary is so different from secondary, in that students normally complete assignments within a day or two since they only have art about once a week. A day or two in elementary is literally a week or two. It’s definitely a different feel from secondary.

<< Friday, March 27, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Tuesday, March 28, 2015 >>

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Day 9

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Today I had a rocky morning. I was up until midnight last night working on lesson plans and my Student Teaching reflections and was woken up at 4:40am with incredibly terrible abdominal pain. Thankfully I was able to get back to sleep, but when I woke up for Student Teaching, the pain was still there. My stomach area was hurting and I felt unable to eat. I also felt weak and had a bad headache. Unfortunately, because I have hypoglycemia, it is incredibly common for me to wake up weak, with a headache, unable to move. I could not figure out the abdominal pain, though. After waiting about 20 minutes for the pain to subside, I ate breakfast and, thankfully, felt much better. All of my symptoms began to subside, so my issues this morning may have simply been blood sugar-related. I finished preparing for Student Teaching and left my home.

When I got to the school I found out that it was a good thing that I had decided to come. A 3rd grade teacher and the gym teacher called in sick today and weren’t going to be in attendance. Because they called in this morning, the school was unable to get substitutes for them. Thankfully, as the day progressed a substitute was brought in for the 3rd grade teacher, but one was never called in for the gym teacher. That wasn’t ideal as today was Fitness Friday, the day where all music, library, and art classes are turned into gym classes. Because of the gym teacher’s absence, the music teacher ran the gym classes while my cooperating teacher and I assisted.

The schedule was the same today as it was last Friday. The morning began with a Friday assembly. I actually really like the Friday assemblies as they’re high energy and exciting. Loud, upbeat music is played during transition periods and the principal speaks about upcoming events, student accomplishments, and things to be excited about. She seems like a nice person and I like the way she interacts with the students. The next batch of P.R.I.D.E. Leaders received their badges and a music video was played to allow the students to dance and get hyped about the upcoming S.T.A.A.R. tests next week. Apparently, the S.T.A.A.R. tests will not affect our art classes.

Friday Assembly

Photograph by: Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School

After the assembly, the music teacher, my cooperating teacher, and I hosted a gym class for each grade level. The students were instructed to walk/run the track for about 7 minutes and were then allowed to play with the different gym stations, such as the mats, puzzles, and building supplies on the stage, basketballs, or wheeled vehicles. This was the schedule for every single class, and just like last Friday, it was quite boring and tiring. It’s so draining watching people have fun and having to address any issues that arise. I tend to monitor the stage area where the students can partake in gymnastics, and it’s always a chaotic mess. Students will be jumping and falling all over each other, moving the mats around, and not taking turns or giving each other space. No matter how many times I stopped all of the students and told them how to appropriately act, it would quickly become chaotic again.

There was one student in particular, today, who openly defied everything we told him to do. He did not join the other students in walking the track for 7 minutes and instead ran about the gym crawling on the storage bins, entering the storage room, dangling from the basketball hoop, or even starting to play with the gym stations. When he began riding one of the wheeled vehicles outside, many students started riding them, too, because they thought it was time to. While I was able to get the other students to go back to the track, I could not control the problem student no matter what I did. He would not listen to me and if I took something away from him, he would just run and get another one. Finally, the class was done walking the track and returned to the gym to begin the stations. The music teacher saw me trying to control the student and told me to just leave him alone.

At the end of class, this student was again not listening at all and wouldn’t put away the basketball that he was playing with. The music teacher was calling students who were well-behaved and had cleaned up to line up for recess. When the homeroom teachers walked into the gym to take the students to recess, this difficult student immediately put the basketball away and ran to the front of the line as the teachers took the line outside. Nothing seemed to be done with this student and he seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted without any real consequences. Even though all of the other students had to be well-behaved to get their rewards, such as lining up first, this student just ran to the front of the line and was the first one on the playground. I was upset by this unfairness.

Today was also a fire drill which caused some issues. The fire drill was held 15 minutes before school ended and we escorted all of the students outside. After the drill ended and we were allowed back inside, the music teacher told all of the students to run to a distant fence, come back, and then line up to go back to their homerooms. The students normally return to their homerooms 15 minutes before the bell rings, but because of the fire drill, two minutes before the bell was about to ring, we were still trying to line students up in the gym to return to their homerooms. There were even some students who were still returning from the fence, too out-of-breath to run. I was asked to escort the students back inside, and the bell rang while I was gathering them. Because of the fire drill, after-school dismissal was also pushed back a little as it took the teachers and students longer to get outside. I’m still not sure why the music teacher asked the students to run to the fence and back before lining up in the gym.

One major highlight of the day, though, was the fact that my cooperating teacher had an extended lunch period. We used this time to discuss next week’s plans, to come up with new lessons, and to just chat in general. I learned about how my teacher writes lessons, comes up with plans, how she fills time, and even how she grades. We talked a lot and I felt more comfortable afterwards. I’m really hoping that our relationship will continue to improve.

STAAR Test Funk

<< Thursday, March 26, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Monday, March 30, 2015 >>

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Day 8

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Red Canna, Georgia O'Keeffe

Red Canna, Georgia O’Keeffe

Today was the last day of the week as far as art classes go because all art classes are replaced with gym class on Fridays. Thursdays are also a rotational day where my cooperating teacher will see 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes for the second time this week. These classes rotate every week, so that we will see a particular class twice in a week every three weeks. My cooperating teacher doesn’t exactly like this schedule as it makes some classes get ahead of other classes in weird ways.

Today I felt a lot better emotionally as I didn’t feel as stressed or unhappy, but I wasn’t feeling so well physically. All morning I felt dizzy, weak, nauseated and had a headache and stomachache. I ate snacks to take care of my blood sugar, but nothing seemed to help. I only started feeling better after lunch, so I’m not sure what was wrong with me. Thankfully, my cooperating teacher had an extended lunch today as the lunch I had prepared for today went bad. I had to eat lunch off-campus, and within the hour we had for lunch, I was even able to go home and spend 20 minutes taking a break before returning to the school for 3rd Grade Lunch Duty. It was interesting taking a small breather at home, and perhaps that’s what caused me to feel better.

It did help me to feel better when I tried to interact with the students and help them improve their artworks. Whenever I keep busy, I tend to start feeling better, probably because it keeps my mind off of how I feel and keeps it focused on something else. Today, I spent some time with some of the third grade students as they worked on their Georgia O’Keeffe-inspired paintings of large, close-up flowers. The students had begun to paint their drawings with watercolors and I decided to show some of the students how they could add extra contrast and value to their paintings. I showed several students how they could add a darker color to an already-painted area in order to show value and variety. Several of the students were amazed by the technique and began using it in their paintings. I loved the improvements they made as they added shadows behind petals, or simply added more colors to their flowers. It seems that the students are always so focused on finishing their pictures as quickly as they can that they don’t focus on how to make a successful image.

Today I was actually surprised by my cooperating teacher’s instruction with the kindergarten students because she acted a lot more excitable and childish than she usually does. It seemed more natural to me to see her act this way with the students rather than her usual, more stern and direct style. It made the class seem more light-hearted and and enjoyable, even to me. I still feel that this might be a better teaching style for the younger students as it seems to keep their attention and invoke responses from them. I’ll have to see if I can adopt a style similar to this in my own teaching.

<< Wednesday, March 25, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Friday, March 27, 2015 >>

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Day 7

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Today was my first day instructing a class during my Student Teaching experienc eat Comal Independent School District’s Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School. After seeing my cooperating teacher begin a new lesson with the 1st grade students, I took the reigns as I introduced the lesson to this day’s class of 1st graders. The class began with my teacher introducing me as she had been out last Wednesday and hadn’t been able to before. Afterwards, she gave me the class and I started by reviewing the term, “landscape” which they’d been learning about before. The students were able to recall what a landscape was and the important features about one. I then showed an example of a landscape made from colored tissue paper and explained that they would be creating their own. I explained that the students would be using multiple colors in their grass and sky, then asked the students about what I had just explained.

“Can your sky be just one color?”

“Nooooo!”

“Can your grass be just one color?”

“Nooooo!”

I felt that the students understood the assignment and were ready to begin when I sent them to their seats. Before the students could begin, we needed to create the 3-dimensional tree from the brown paper lunch sack. Each student received a bag and I instructed them to open their bags and set them on their tables.

“Where should you set your bag?”

“On the table!”

After all the bags had been opened, I showed the students how to cut the corner of the bag to create a small hole, and then showed them how to put the scissors in the hole and cut the bottom from the bag. After the bottoms of the bags had been cut off, I demonstrated how to cut the vertical strips, and then how to twist the trunk and the branches. The demonstration seemed to run efficiently, however, I found it incredibly difficult to gain the attention of students who weren’t giving me their focus. Without knowing their names it was difficult to get their attention. “I need Red Table’s attention!” I would call out. “Red Table, there’s still some students not giving me their eyes. I need everyone to look at me. This is important.” My cooperating teacher agreed that it’s hard to manage the class without knowing names. She said that her first year was incredibly difficult until she mastered the names.

The rest of my class seemed to go pretty well. The students followed my directions for the most part, understood the concepts, and worked until the end of class. After the class ended, my cooperating teacher noted my success and I agreed that things seemed to go well. I still feel nervous about teaching at the elementary level, but at least I know that I’m not terrible at it.

Today, I decided to create a teacher-made example alongside the students. Although all of the students were starting new assignments this week, my cooperating teacher did allow her 5th grade students to finish their Aboriginal Australian Animal drawings since so many of them had not finished and because 5th grade students have art class twice a week every three weeks. With all of the Sharpies, colored pencils, gluesticks, and a papers out, I was too enticed and decided to make an artwork, myself. I love depicting animals and the Australian Aboriginal style intrigues me with its simplistic and stylized variety. I decided to create a kangaroo, an Australian classic, and began sketching on brown paper.

In my cooperating teacher’s lesson, students drew an animal on a small sheet of colored paper. After outlining the drawing in Sharpie and decorating around the animal, they then glued the colored sheet of paper to a white sheet of paper. On that paper, they added a decorative, patterned border in Sharpie. After finishing that, they then glued that onto a larger tan paper and added another decorative, patterned border in Sharpie. This created a decorative, layered look and really enhanced the piece.

I decided to draw my kangaroo on a brown sheet of paper to keep with a natural theme. As I was working on my piece, I found it challenging to stylize my animal in a way that kept it recognizable and detailed. I also really struggled to keep within the fine boundaries of overworking my piece and adding just enough pattern and variety. It took me a while to figure out what to do around my kangaroo in the extra brown space and I ended up changing my mind several times. In the end, I was pleased with my piece and really enjoyed creating it. I feel that this is a neat lesson.

Today I ended up staying about an hour after school ended to help my teacher change out the display cases in the hallways. After dismissal duty my teacher announced that she’d be changing the cases.

“Do you need any help?” I asked.

“Well, no, not really. I’ve got a system, I don’t really need anyone else…I guess you can come along to see how I do it,” my cooperating teacher replied.

Again, I felt that she had everything so organized that she simply didn’t need me, but I took her offer and followed her into the hallways. She showed me how this school has high quality frames in the hallways that showcase the artwork in a beautiful and safe way that is still easy to manage and exchange. She opened a case and took the artworks off of the backing. After pulling the tape from the backs of the artworks, she applied new tape to the new artworks and hung those up before closing the glass door and moving on to the next frame. My cooperating teacher has a wheeled cart that makes this process extremely efficient.

“How about I take all the artworks down, and you hang the new ones up?” I suggested.

“Oh, I guess that would work.”

It felt like we had finished hanging all of the work in no time at all. I really like the frames that this school has and so does my cooperating teacher. She noted that she would have to find out what kind of frames they are if she changed schools to see if she could get them into a school that didn’t have them. I also liked that she had the cart. It made things much simpler as we stored the art on it and rolled down the hallway. There wasn’t any bending over to pick things up off the floor and our arms weren’t full. My teacher definitely has a system for everything and she seems to have everything figured out.

<< Tuesday, March 24, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Thursday, March 26, 2015 >>

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Day 6

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A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, 1884

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, 1884

Today was my second day observing my cooperating teacher’s new lessons after Spring Break. Today, I still felt tired, moody, and stressed out. My sleeping schedule is backed to being messed up as I am having trouble adjusting to the school schedule. I ended up falling asleep after school yesterday, woke up in the evening, and wasn’t able to get back to sleep until much later in the night. So I was tired this morning and not in a good mood again. This semester is really draining on me and I can’t wait for it to be over.

Today the second grade students actually did seem to understand the concept better than they did yesterday. While there were a few students who actually painted a sun, or ground, or insect, most of them followed instructions and simply painted colors. There was one student in particular who was tirelessly painting colored dots all about her page and when she showed it to my cooperating teacher was told to fill in the page better as there was still a great deal of white paper left in between all of the dots. I followed her to her seat and offered that she wet her brush and try dragging it across her colored dots to create some new, blended colors. She was intrigued by the idea, tried it out, and loved it. “Wow!” she exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could do this!” Soon the students around her followed suit and began mixing new colors together. Her paper was completely painted just moments later. I love seeing students understand new concepts and get excited about it.

The first grade students are doing an activity that I thought may be too advanced for them at first. The students are creating landscapes from torn up tissue paper and are focusing on using a variety of shapes and colors. To begin the landscape, though, my cooperating teacher walked them through creating a 3-dimensional tree from a brown paper lunch sack. The students were instructed to open the lunch sack, cut a corner off, stick their scissors in the hole from the cut corner and cut the bottom from the bag. Afterwards, they were told to flatten the bag and cut about four or five vertical strips from the bag, without cutting all the way through. This caused the bag to look hula-skirt like. Then the students twisted the bottom of the bag to create a trunk and each of the cut strips to create branches. The end product really did look like an interesting 3-dimensional tree with texture and variety. I was actually surprised that with the walk-through with my cooperating teacher, the students were able to create the tree. Only two students messed up their trees so badly that they had to start over because they cut the strips completely from the bag rather than leaving them dangling.

After the students had completed their trees, my teacher and I stapled them to their papers and they began gluing torn tissue paper to create their landscapes. Unfortunately, many of the students didn’t understand this concept and would glue entire sheets of tissue paper to their papers to create land or sky. There were also issues with the use of glue as students would completely unwind the gluesticks and complain when they broke. At one point we ran out of gluesticks and students began complaining when they had to share or use a glue bottle. My teacher explained that most teachers avoid glue bottles because of the mess they can create, but with proper instruction, the students can use them well. This gives me confidence as I’ve always been weary of glue bottles, even when I was a student. I’ve always found them to be too messy and difficult to use effectively.

The fourth grade students seem to be partaking in a somewhat difficult lesson plan. Inspired by Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, they’re creating paintings or drawings using pointillism. The students were given freedom to choose what they would like to depict and were told to color the image with dots in watercolor paint, crayon, or colored pencil. One student really embraced the idea and depicted a nuclear explosion. His red, yellow, and black colored pencil dots were really-well done and were beginning to create a successful looking image. Most students, however, were struggling with the concept. Not only were some struggling to come up with an idea for what to draw, but most were having issues with the dots. Some students drew small circles, some did incredibly large blotches, some did dashes. Several students didn’t even put dots in their paintings and drawings. Students who opted for watercolor also quickly discovered that if they put their dots too close to each other and used too much water that they would blend together and not be dots anymore. My cooperating teacher had to explain to several students that they would have to go over their images with darker colors to try to put the dots back in. I really feel that the students could benefit from a demonstration from my teacher on how to use the dots, especially since she didn’t have a completed example to show them.

<< Monday, March 23, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Wednesday, March 25, 2015 >>

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Day 5

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Today was my first day back from Spring Break. I felt incredibly moody, tired, and stressed today. You would think that I would feel otherwise, rejuvenated, relaxed, and ready to get back to work because of the week-long Spring Break. On the contrary, I spent every single day of the break, from the moment I woke up to the time I went to sleep, with small breaks here and there, working on my Honors Thesis. I am so stressed about completing it by the end of April in order to graduate on time. Thankfully, I accomplished a good deal over the break, but I didn’t complete as much as I’d like. I also found a working groove and didn’t want to interrupt it by returning to Student Teaching. I have been stressed beyond belief this entire semester and I feel that if I was only Student Teaching or only working on my Honors Thesis, I wouldn’t be nearly as stressed as I am. I didn’t intend to do both this semester, but a registration error brought on this situation. Thankfully, everyone I know is encouraging me and telling me that they know I’ll accomplish everything because that’s the kind of person I am. It’s true that once I commit to something, I am severely committed and will even put my health aside, but looking at my schedule just demotivates me. My thesis is sitting at 66 pages right now, so let’s see if I can get it done in time!

Because today was Monday, I was able to see some new lessons and activities. At the elementary level, every day of the week is the same for an art educator, you just see different classes each day. Whatever I saw last Monday was the same thing I saw on every day afterwards. Today, my cooperating teacher wanted to start all new lessons, for the most part, because of the break. Even though some students hadn’t finished the previous lessons, she wanted them to start on the new activities. She emailed a copy of all of the lessons and handed me a printed version when I walked into the classroom.

It was enjoyable to see some familiar students this time. Again, an elementary art educator sees new students each day of the week, so this was only the second time that I’ve seen some of these students. I still am bewildered at how I’ll be able to learn all of the students’ names over the time I’m Student Teaching here, and I’m wondering if it even will be possible. I’m trying my best to retain the names when I hear them called out in class and during after-school dismissal. Sometimes I’ll see their names written on their artworks while they’re working, too. I’ve got a few names memorized, but not nearly the amount I had done at the high school level by the second week.

Today was interesting as I saw my cooperating teacher’s new lessons. With the second grade students she asked them to paint an entire piece of paper in random colors that they would cut shapes from next week to create a collage insect in the style of Eric Carle. She read The Very Quiet Cricket and then set the students to painting.

From "The Very Quiet Cricket" by Eric Carle

From “The Very Quiet Cricket” by Eric Carle

I was surprised at how poorly the students painted, immersing as much of the paintbrush as they could in the paint, swirling the brush in the paint for several moments before placing it on the paper, not mixing the colors at all, using way more paint than they needed, and trying to wash all the excess paint in the water. It seems that second grade students may need more instruction on actually using the paint. I may be assuming incorrectly, but I feel that they could be trained to not dunk their brushes and waste so much paint. I was also surprised as my cooperating teacher gave each table a container of water and then immediately began dumping the containers of water and refilling them. She went from table to table repeating this process until the end of class. Sometimes the water hadn’t been tainted by the paint too much. I felt that my teacher may be overworking and that she didn’t need to change the water so much, or even at all, perhaps. The students were also incredibly interested in playing with the water and trying to change the color of the water. A lot of the paint contributed to changing the water’s color. Maybe if the water wasn’t changed so often they wouldn’t have the chance to create so many new colors.

Another thing that surprised me with the second grade students painting was the fact that many of them weren’t just painting random colors. Although my cooperating teacher had explained that they would be cutting the paper up to create the insects next week and that they only needed to paint colors on their papers, I found suns, grass, and even bugs being painted on the papers. Even after my cooperating teacher and I addressed these students personally, they still continued painting “things.” They didn’t understand the concept, which made me wonder if this activity should be pushed up a grade level.

A similar experience happened with the third grade students as they were instructed to draw a composition inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s close-up abstracted flower paintings. The students were shown several examples of O’Keeffe’s paintings and were told to pay attention to how the flowers were drawn incredibly large with parts of them going off the edges of the page. The students were sent to go painting and were even given calendar pages of large lilies to use as reference. Very quickly, however, I found tiny flowers being drawn with suns and grass in the background. I tried explaining to students to make their flowers larger or to draw them more zoomed in, but the concept was not understood. Some of the students did draw flowers with petals that were large or went off the edge of the page, but none of the images looked abstracted or zoomed in.

A final learning experience was with the kindergarten lesson. The students were shown images of ancient cave drawings and were given a sheet of brown paper. My teacher instructed the students to crumple up their papers to replicate the rough surface of a cave wall. The students really enjoyed crumpling up their sheets of paper, though one was incredibly hesitant of messing up the paper in that fashion. After the paper was crumpled, students were instructed to draw animals on their paper and to show the environments that they live in. I was confused as to why my teacher wanted the students to show environments as the original ancient cave drawings did not. Quickly, I realized the answer. Within minutes the students were finished drawing their animals, outlining them with markers, and coloring them with crayons. If they hadn’t been instructed to add backgrounds, they would have been finished, and even with the backgrounds, they were finished and told to free draw with the rest of the class period. I feel that this particular assignment should be assigned to a higher grade level in which they can try stylizing the animals like in the original caves. I felt that crumpling the paper was a great activity for the young students, though.

It’ll be interesting to see how the classes in the following days interact with these lessons.

The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle

<< Friday, March 13, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Tuesday, March 24, 2015 >>

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Day 4

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Friday Assembly

Photograph by: Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School

Today was my first Friday at Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School and it was an interesting day. Fridays at Goodwin-Frazer are called “Fitness Fridays” as all special classes are replaced with a gym class. Because art is considered a special class, this meant that my cooperating teacher and myself were in the gym the entire day. We did not teach one art class today. This will be the case for every Friday, so I am no longer looking forward to the end of the week.

The day started off with an assembly, which I’ve been told happens every Friday. The school has started a new program called P.R.I.D.E. Leaders in which students who show leadership potential are granted P.R.I.D.E. Leader badges that grant them extra privileges such as being able to walk in the halls without a supervisor. During today’s assembly, the next batch of students to be granted the P.R.I.D.E. Leader badges were announced and congratulated as their badges were granted. The system actually seems like a good idea as I hear all of the teachers talking about P.R.I.D.E. Leaders. They use it as a reward and a reinforcement for students who do and don’t have the badges. My cooperating teacher said that this is something they should have been doing since the start of the year.

After the assembly, the first gym class began. Because the 4th and 5th grade students have been watching a maturity video and starting a sexual education program this week during the art classes, I’ve already hosted two gym classes this week. One day the girls were in the sex ed program and the boys were in the gym and the next day, vice versa. Today was exactly the same as those two classes, so I did the same exact thing 6 times today. The students entered the gym, sat on the floor, were given instructions, had to run 5 laps around the track, then had the rest of the class period to play with the different stations set up about the gym. Students could play with hippity-hops, hula hoops, basketballs, soccer balls, jump ropes, racers, scooterboards, puzzles, building toys, white boards, or do gymnastics on the mats. The day was exhausting. All day I was on my feet, monitoring students, completely bored. I actually wanted to join the students in what they were doing. I would have loved to play with hula hoops, jump ropes, puzzles, building toys, or the scooterboards and racers. Ah, it looked like so much fun! I would have even liked to join the students in running laps around the track. I was so bored and sore from just standing and pacing all day. I could see why students would be excited for Fitness Friday, but for the art teacher, it’s no fun and we don’t get any fitness.

I feel as if my Friday reflections may be a bit short as this will be the schedule each week.

Thankfully, there was a bit of variety today as it was Club Day. My cooperating teacher explained to me that instead of having before- or after-school clubs, the school has decided to host three Club Days throughout the year in which the last class period is replaced with a club time. Every teacher hosts a club and every student gets to pick the one club that they would like to be in. My cooperating teacher’s club is the Serious Artists Club. She said that she added the “serious” part so that she would get mature, more responsible students who really are interested in creating art. Today, she gave the students air-dry clay from her leftover clay unit and instructed them to make whatever they wanted, but suggesting making bowls so they would be less likely to break. The students finished within half of the class period and the rest of the time was used for free draw or to color a coloring sheet my teacher had. While the students were working, my teacher was arranging all of the supplies she needed to do work over the Spring Break. I was so bored that I decided to sit down and color the coloring sheet alongside the students. Thankfully, that quickly cheered me up and ended up being enjoyable.

I still don’t feel comfortable here and I think that my relationship with my cooperating teacher may be one reason. We don’t have a bad relationship, I just feel like she doesn’t know what to do with me. Thus, I am given no instruction, information, or even acknowledgements, sometimes, as she’ll leave the room without saying anything. Her classroom is so well-organized, there’s nothing for me to clean up, her students are well-behaved, so I don’t need to work hard in order to manage them, and any time I ask if she needs any help, she doesn’t. And with no workspace, I don’t have a place to retreat to and observe and take notes. I did end up talking with my cooperating teacher today during lunch and she mentioned that she is a micro-manager and is serious about her work. I feel like she may be very similar to myself, and if that’s the case, then she may be nervous with me and not know how to handle me. I’m a bit too shy to approach her or start a conversation, but maybe it’s the same for her. I’m just really hoping that things will turn up in the following weeks.

Pharrell Williams – Happy

Here’s one of the songs that’s played at the beginning of the Friday assemblies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-GLuydiMe4

<< Wednesday, March 11, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Monday, March 23, 2015 >>

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Day 3

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Today, my cooperating teacher was not in attendance as I student taught at Comal Independent School District’s Goodwin-Fraizer Elementary School. She had told me that she would not be in attendance today or tomorrow and that she had two different substitute teachers set up.

As I walked into the classroom, I met the substitute teacher and she was surprised to meet me as she hadn’t been informed that there was a student teacher. My cooperating teacher had printed out two packets of information for the substitutes and myself for each day that she would be out and I had noticed that she hadn’t included my existence on them. At both my high school student teaching experience and my middle school internship, my cooperating teachers always wrote, “I have a student teacher, Miss Brooks. She’ll be able to help you,” at the top of their substitute papers for when they would be out. Again, it seems like I’m an after-thought for my cooperating teacher.

I also noticed that today was a much better day than the previous days. I got along well with the substitute teacher and enjoyed spending the day with her. Unfortunately, I felt as if I wished that she was my cooperating teacher because of how comfortable I felt with her. She was inviting and welcoming as she spoke with me and recognized my presence. There weren’t any awkward silences between the two of us and she shared responsibilities with me as she asked if I’d like to teach the next class and told the students to ask me for help instead of her because she didn’t have an art background. I also liked the way she interacted with the students better, as she wasn’t as strict and direct with the students as my cooperating teacher. She also showed interest and enthusiasm in her inflection, especially when she spoke with younger students. She delivered the same exact lesson to the kindergarten students as I’ve observed yesterday and the day before, only this time the audio actually sounded like a kindergarten class. I also noticed that the kindergarteners grasped the concept much better as they were much more well-behaved than the last two groups and didn’t need as much help as the previous classes. This could be a class-specific difference, but I believe that the instruction was easier for them to understand and made more appealing.

If I end up teaching elementary school, I think that I’ll adopt a teaching style more similar to this teacher than my cooperating teacher. It seemed more natural to me to be enthusiastic and excitable with the young students than monotone and direct. They also seemed to respond to that style better.

Cafeteria

Photograph by: Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School

I haven’t yet reflected on the lunch duty that my teacher and I perform each day. Each day, my teacher is given 30 minutes for lunch and 45 minutes of lunch duty. My first day of lunch duty, my teacher explained to me that we were there to monitor the students and assist them. She explained that they would ask us to open things for them or to retrieve things that they forgot to pick up from the lunch line, such as ketchup, utensils, and napkins. I was a bit surprised that that was part of our responsibilities as I walked back and forth from the students and the lunch line to retrieve objects.

I felt like a waiter being called upon each time a student raised his hand.

I’m sure that this system was put in place to maintain order as students are not getting up from their seats to retrieve objects, but I felt like it was a failed opportunity to teach them responsibility. A student didn’t need to remember to grab their items from the lunch room because a teacher could retrieve it for them later. It just felt incredibly odd to me to be at the students’ whims and I felt like I was their servant. The students were also not allowed to leave their seats to throw away their trash. Instead, I was instructed to wheel around a trash can to every student at the end of the lunch period. The students remained sitting until their homeroom teacher retrieved them at the end of lunch and instructed them to line up and return the classroom.

This reminds me of an article I read recently that talked about how our students are instructed to stay seated and be quiet for the majority of the school day. It talked about how this could create restlessness, fatigue, boredom, and a feeling of helplessness as the students aren’t engaged in an active and interesting way. I’ve been constantly reminded of this point and have made an effort to give my students the chance to get up and move around during my lesson plans within an energizing opening activity.

It’s odd to me that there’s such a stark contrast between student and teacher where the students are told to never stand up and the teachers are told to never sit down.

Tomorrow, I’m excited to meet the second substitute teacher and hope to learn new techniques from him or her. I’m hoping that tomorrow will go as well as today seemed to.

 

<< Tuesday, March 10, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Friday, March 13, 2015 >>

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