Overcoming challenges

I’ve heard from practicing teachers that the semester or year-long student teaching experience we all have to go through is one of the toughest years of teaching. With only two weeks of student teaching completed, I shouldn’t be able to agree with this… but I agree. This past week was a challenge for me, emotionally and physically. In my last post, I mentioned that I would be teaching my first math lesson on coordinate points. My teacher had me plan lessons for three days, Wednesday-Friday, encouraging me to keep everything flexible. This is how each day went:

Day 1: Introduction to Coordinate Points

I was pretty excited going into this lesson. My teacher gave me a general idea of what the students knew about coordinate points: They’ve touched the topic before. They’ll tell me they know it and will ask for something harder, but really, they don’t know what to do. Going in with this mindset, I planned my lesson around creating a “Quadrant Foldable,” a visual aid containing all the basic information about plotting coordinate points that the students could use as a study guide or reference.

As soon as I began the lesson, the students began complaining, “We’ve learned this already, this is so boring.” My teacher warned me about this, so I was a little prepared for their reactions. I knew that this lesson was important, and I had to make sure they actually understood what they were doing. When I asked them to plot a point, maybe two of the nine students could do it correctly. We started working on the foldable and one of the girls asked, “Do we really have to do this? This is stupid.” It was really upsetting to hear that because I thought that creating the foldable would be something new and different from what they’re used to. Their motivation was low, but they went along with it and finished their foldables. By the end of the lesson, the students still needed assistance with plotting points. When my teacher told me to be flexible with my lessons, he really meant it, because even after spending 50 minutes teaching them to plot, I had to modify my second lesson to review plotting and then move onto the next topic.

Day 2: Review and Movement of Points

We began the lesson by reviewing plotting with a warm-up worksheet. The students complained a lot more than the previous day. One girl told me to my face that she hated me. Another girl said she wanted her math teacher from last year to teach her. A boy said he thought this stuff was stupid. All of this happened within the first ten minutes of class. I was so thrown-off, that I didn’t know how to respond. That’s when my teacher had to step in and yell at the students, telling them that they needed to treat me with respect and treat me like a real teacher. At that point, I was losing my confidence in taking over the class. My teacher took one of the students outside of the classroom to discuss her behavior… this gave two other students the perfect opportunity to start a fight. Both students were yelling and swearing at each other. Another student teacher and I had to break it up and separate them.

That entire class period, I felt like nothing was going right. I lost control of the class, the students were talking back, and I almost didn’t get the lesson finished. My teacher debriefed my lesson with me and told me not to be disheartened. He said that the students were trying to test me the past couple of days to see how far they could push me before I gave into them. He explained to me that I had to be tougher, and I couldn’t be afraid to raise my voice at them. I couldn’t show them that they were getting to me, because once I did that, I would lose the class for the rest of my time with them.

I left school that day feeling so defeated. I was stressed and disappointed in myself for not being able to manage the class. I was so grateful for my family and Alexis that night because they helped me to stay positive and gave me ideas on how to react in different situations that came up in the classroom. They motivated me to think about the positive experiences I had with the students from last week and the progress I had already made outside of the classroom.

Day 3: Movement of Points and Creating Shapes

My teacher took the day off, so I was put to the test right away! I put my “teacher-face” on as soon as I stepped into the classroom. Surprisingly, the students worked really well together, and we went through the entire period without anyone disrespecting me. One of the students tried to get me to cut class short so that he could study for a science quiz, but I stood my ground and said that I wouldn’t do that since my lesson required the full 50 minutes and that studying was meant to be done outside of class. He definitely didn’t like that, but I could see that he knew I was right. It’s safe to say that I walked out of that period smiling because it went a lot better than the previous day.

Remember Sarah from a couple posts ago? She didn’t like me very much from the beginning… Sarah told me in front of everyone in the class that she actually liked me! I was speechless for a few seconds, but I couldn’t help myself, so I said, “Are you kidding me?! You hated me from the minute I walked in!” Sarah shrugged, and said, “You’ve grown on me. I don’t mind you anymore.” We had a moment there, and we both ended up laughing. She even came to me at the end of the day and asked me to sit with her during her advisory period (which is usually my prep period), so I agreed! I’m taking any chance I get to connect with my students!

The end of this day went really well. Gabe and I helped to judge the school-wide spelling bee with one of the other student teachers! I’m really feeling like I’m part of the school community, and I can’t wait to see what other opportunities I have to get involved at Belding!

This past week was a challenge, but I know that these experiences will help me to become a stronger teacher. In my sister’s words: “If you can survive teaching 8^th graders at CPS, you can survive teaching any other grade.” I’m continuing this experience with an open mind and want to see how I can make myself a better, more effective teacher. I’m hoping that this week goes smoothly, but I’m taking it one day at a time.