I Survived!

I can say that I officially survived my first day of student teaching. My day started when I woke up at 5:45 am, and ended when I came home from school at 3:30 pm. Whoever said teachers have it easy is totally wrong. Commuting, then standing on their feet for the full school day, and dealing with students’ behaviors… it’s a lot of work! After eating breakfast, Gabe and I caught the 6:45 am bus and then walked from the blue line stop to our school (in 5 degree weather).

What I learned: Invest in a nice pair of hat and gloves and wear two layers of pants in the morning. We get to do this for the next four months, so I’ll be a pro by the end of it all!

My first impressions of Belding:

1) As soon as we walked in, everyone was so friendly. Every single person who walked into the office either said “Good morning” or “Happy New Year” to me and Gabe. I felt so welcomed that I almost forgot I was nervous to be there!

2) My teacher’s office is in the school library, so while I waited for him, I browsed some books (what else would I do… I love books!). I was shocked to see the types of books I saw: There was an entire bookshelf dedicated to books in different languages. Common books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the Harry Potter series were in Arabic and Spanish. Along with the books in different languages, there were some that talked about different religions. Belding is a very diverse school, so it makes sense to have a variety of books. It made me really happy to see all of this in a public school library.

3) I like how Belding is so accepting of its students’ backgrounds. Something that surprised me today was that all the students from grades K-8 learn Arabic. ARABIC. Forget about Spanish or French… but Arabic! I still can’t wrap my head around it if you couldn’t tell.

4) The teachers that I worked with today made me feel so welcome and comfortable in my new environment. They were willing to let me work with students and find a place in each classroom. Each of the teachers was really easy to talk to, and they all included me in everything they did as a team.

So what am I actually teaching?

Surprise! I’ll be teaching 8^th grade special education! Well, mostly 8^th grade. I was nervous at first because I was expecting to work with a variety of middle grade students, but 8^th grade will be a new and different experience! This is what my schedule will look like for the next 8 weeks:

7:50 – 8:50	8th Grade Math (Resource Room)
8:50 – 9:50	8th Grade Reading (Inclusion)
9:50 – 10:50	8th Grade Social Studies (Inclusion/Pull-out)
10:50 – 11:50	8th Grade Science (Inclusion)
11:50 – 12:30	RtI/Writing (Inclusion)
12:30 – 1:15	Lunch
1:15 – 1:45	6th Grade Social Studies/Science (Inclusion/Pull-out)
1:45 – 2:45	Prep period

I will mainly focus on teaching lessons for 8^th grade math. I’ll have 8-9 students for the full hour in the resource room, a place where the special education students are pulled out to learn math. Inclusion means that those students are included in the classroom with their peers without disabilities. When the students are in the inclusion classroom, I will work with them during class time and will modify and accommodate their tests, homework, and study materials to work with the goals listed in their Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). When the students are pulled-out, I will be teaching them a modified version of whatever their peers are learning in that specific subject. My supervising teacher will slowly ease me into actually taking over the full caseload. I’ll start off with small-group, pull-out work and then transition to teaching the full day.

What did the students learn today:

Math: PEMDAS – that’s the Order of Operations (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract)

Science: Potential and Kinetic Energy

Language Arts: Vocabulary (I learned the word capacious today! Don’t know what it means, look it up!)

Science: Convection Currents in the Earth’s mantle

Heard in class:

“You know, 20 years ago or something like that, they didn’t make kids take all these tests [NWEA and PARCC tests]. They’re putting too much pressure on us.”

This was definitely something that got my attention because it was the special education student who said this in her general education Language Arts class. We discussed standardized tests in my college classes and the effects they have on teachers and students, but it was great to hear first-hand how a student felt about them. I grew up taking the ISATs, but those didn’t seem to be a HUGE deal back then. Now, these high-stakes tests determine what high school most of these students will be able to go to. The local public high schools are not as good as some of the other city schools like Lane Tech College Prep or Whitney Young Magnet High School. One of the teachers told me that of the 19,000 kids from the Chicago area who are allowed to apply to these good schools, only 2,000 of them get in. “Allowed” means that they have the grades, test scores, and extra-curricular activities to even get them an application to these schools. Students have to apply to get into HIGH SCHOOL… and I was worried about college applications. A girl that I was working with today told me, “I’m not going to high school. I’m not smart enough.” It’s heartbreaking to hear that coming from an 8^th grader. Usually kids are excited to graduate junior high and move onto high school, but this girl definitely does not have those same emotions.

This week is NWEA testing week so the schedule will be a little different. Tomorrow, I will help to administer some tests by reading questions aloud, an accommodation that many of my students have on their IEPs. Today went by extremely fast, so I have no doubt that tomorrow and the rest of the week will also fly by!

Roommate picture after our first day of teaching!