So, it seems that blogging has dropped way low on my list of things that I must get done in a week. Many of you might know that I just had a baby. Enough said.
I also started student teaching! It is a lot of fun but also very challenging. Which is good. I like a challenge. But boy, I'm exhausted. Since January 5th I have been at Parkside Elementary school in Austin, Tx. It is a great little school and I already love it dearly. The students and staff are all so friendly and welcoming. The teacher I'm working with is really great and he understands that I have a newborn at home and completely understands that I might show up to school half dressed one day because of lack of sleep syndrome. Seriously, some nights I get two hours of sleep. It's been quite interesting to see how much I am capable of accomplishing on two hours of sleep. Nevertheless, my teacher says I'm doing extremely well. And I have to admit, I was doing really well. Until yesterday.
Let me pre-cursor this by saying that yesterday was so awful I actually reconsidered being a teacher. For real, y'all. Yesterday my supervisor came to observe me and evaluate my work and progress thus far. This is the first time she has ever seen me teach and I'm surprised she didn't boot me out of school after witnessing the horror and catastrophe that was my 1st grade class. Oh my hell. So it was basically like trying to heard a bunch of ants. It was a very dark, gloomy, cold, rainy day in Austin so that most awful thing happend. No recess. When outdoor recess is cancelled and indoor recess is put in its place, the children turn into wild, ferocious beasts. Indoor recess does not nearly get out all of the energy that elementary school children have and therefor it is nearly impossible to wrangle them and teach them a decent lesson. Luckily, almost all teachers have issues with children who don't get their fix of recess so me being a student teacher wasn't the problem.
So, I read the 1st graders the story of the 3 Little Pigs. And then, in groups, we acted out the story of the 3 Little Pigs. It might sound like no big deal, but oh my goodness. Those 1st graders can turn the tears on and off in 2 seconds flat. So, one student got bumped into. Tears. Another student didn't get to be the wolf. Tears. I wouldn't let another student go get a drink of water because he had already gone twice before in that class. Tears. The list goes on and on. The whole time, my supervisor is clicking-clacking away on her computer, taking notes about everything I am doing. Disaster. Also, one little boy decided it would be a great idea to stand up on chairs and jump off. We also had an episode where two little girls were trying to pull the loose tooth out of another girls' head.
Mass chaos.
So, my supervisor said she will send me notes. I'm sure they will be about 3 pages long.
