yesterday was the big education expo job fair spectacular, and it was simultaneously chill and intense. the event itself had been crazy built up, to the point that all of us were pretty nervy about it. i agonized about little details on my resume, cover letter, teaching philosophy, etc etc etc. i got my fancy online portfolio (complete with those aforementioned documents, a picture of myself, and some lesson plans i have created) all good to go, got the outfit picked out, and went to bed at a reasonable hour. upon arrival i was immediately blown away by the sheer amount of people squeezed into the building, each district with their own table set up science fair style to entice you to come talk with them. add to that the dozens upon dozens of students and young professionals dressed in their classiest outfits trolling the halls looking for job opportunities, and we were probably a fire hazard. so the initial impression was pretty nuts. however, walk up to any of the tables and, though the feel was decidedly varied depending on the district, everyone was generally welcoming and appeared glad to talk with you. i had emailed the locations i was most interested in ahead of time, with my resume attached, and had only heard back from one (and they just said "come to our booth to sign up for an interview!"), but when i arrived at the tables basically all of them had my resume printed and ready - some even recognized my name! i got my interviews lined up and went on my way to eat lunch/panic about interviewing.
the interviews went surprisingly smoothly. it was a little crazy - you get a half-hour time block, and while some places used up to the last five minutes, others had you in and out in 15. sounds like a lot, but it goes FAST. i, like a super nerd, had a binder with extra resumes (good idea) and print-outs of some lesson plans i had done (also good idea) so i was able to provide extra resume copies to those who needed/lost mine, and could show them things that i had done in the class. you sit across the table from the interviewer and they will likely have a list of questions that they write notes on as you answer. smile, be friendly, and have questions prepared to ask them. every single one asked "do you have any questions for me?" BAD IDEA to say "nope." smile, shake hands, say thank you, and get out of there :)
the interviews i had were all very encouraging (yay!); now all i have to do is complete about a gagillion emails/forms/online applications. oh boy.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
how to deal with bullies
this is as much for teaching kids as for teaching us teachers because sometimes, even grown ups can be bullies. this i am discovering being a student teacher. a fairly small, blondish, young-looking student teacher. easy target.
recently, i had an interaction with the family member of one of my kiddos in which i got yelled at. my clinical instructor (ie - the legit gets-paid-for-it teacher in the classroom) was out for the week and i was left as acting head teacher in charge. meaning: if there is a problem, i have to deal with it. and i did. when the family member came in angry, we went out in the hall to talk about it. shockingly, i managed to stay calm and generally eloquent. i sent this person in the direction of someone more equipped to answer the question and went back in the room, shaking in my boots a bit, but also pretty stoked that i hadn't broken down and cried or something. the rest of the day went really well.
now the trick is, how to progress? what if something like this happens again? myguess fear is that it is going to. for now, student teachers: the moral of the story is to keep calm. teach the kids that, remind yourself that. and maybe stash away some security chocolate for after :)
recently, i had an interaction with the family member of one of my kiddos in which i got yelled at. my clinical instructor (ie - the legit gets-paid-for-it teacher in the classroom) was out for the week and i was left as acting head teacher in charge. meaning: if there is a problem, i have to deal with it. and i did. when the family member came in angry, we went out in the hall to talk about it. shockingly, i managed to stay calm and generally eloquent. i sent this person in the direction of someone more equipped to answer the question and went back in the room, shaking in my boots a bit, but also pretty stoked that i hadn't broken down and cried or something. the rest of the day went really well.
now the trick is, how to progress? what if something like this happens again? my
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
i like your ear, miss teacher!
today has been a tricky day - the weather is icky, and the children are touchy, restless, and lethargic. they also struggled to lay down for naps (as i am typing this, i have one such student perched on my lap!) however, the problem that i have been noticing for the past couple of days is a strange thing to complain about: compliments. my children love me and each other so much they feel the need to let everyone know about it. it is the sweetest thing to see a child walk into a classroom and have his/her peers say "hey, i love your shirt! i love your pants!" and i can't deny it totally brightens my day when a kid says they think my hair is beautiful or that my shoes are pretty. one little girl today saw i had a different water bottle than the day before and loudly cheered "you got a different water bottle, miss teacher! yay! it's new! yay!" totally great. so i absolutely do not want to discourage them from telling their teachers and friends that they appreciate them. the problem is when to do this.
for instance, today during morning circle (when i am talking and they should be listening) one of the children popped up and said "that is a really nice "4," miss teacher" (regarding what i had just written on the board). this spurred a string of 6-7 compliments from the other students, telling me they liked the other numbers and letters i had written, that they liked the shirt i was wearing, that they liked the braids the girl next to them had in their hair, etc. they compliment anything they can think of (yes, even "i like your ear"). i had to remind them that, lovely as it is to tell people you like things about them, circle time is not the right time to do this. we discussed other times that it would be nice to compliment their friends. they all nodded and smiled.
not a full minute later, one of them just had to tell me that they liked my headband. oh well, better that than being mean to each other?
for instance, today during morning circle (when i am talking and they should be listening) one of the children popped up and said "that is a really nice "4," miss teacher" (regarding what i had just written on the board). this spurred a string of 6-7 compliments from the other students, telling me they liked the other numbers and letters i had written, that they liked the shirt i was wearing, that they liked the braids the girl next to them had in their hair, etc. they compliment anything they can think of (yes, even "i like your ear"). i had to remind them that, lovely as it is to tell people you like things about them, circle time is not the right time to do this. we discussed other times that it would be nice to compliment their friends. they all nodded and smiled.
not a full minute later, one of them just had to tell me that they liked my headband. oh well, better that than being mean to each other?
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
phew!
this has been a crazy, crazy day. it all started yesterday when i discovered that our fantastic music teacher, who is great with my four-year-olds, said he wouldn't be in today. he asked if i'd rather entrust my kids to a sub who likely doesn't know what they are doing and/or how to work with little guys and/or how to do anything musical, or would i prefer to keep them in the room. i opted for the latter choice. being fairly musical, i figured i could run my own music lesson (plus, bonus! a couple mondays ago i had to sit through a whole day of how to run a music lesson!). then i found out that the other homeroom teacher would be out in the morning for an appointment, so i would be running morning circle time alone. womp womp. but i was ready. so ready.
i went straight home and practiced "puff the magic dragon" on my guitar to play it with the kids (they do that song in music, and know basically all of the words), and looked over the rhyme they were going to learn in morning circle. i was pumped. i got my stuff packed up and ready to roll, then hit the sack.
thank GOODNESS i was so prepared. and that the sun shines bright in my bedroom. and i'm naturally an early riser. because this fine morning, my alarm didn't go off. i woke up lazily, checked out my clock, saw it was 7:32 am, and my thought process went something like this: huh, really? 7:32? is it a saturday? it's going to be so nice today. should i go back to bed? get up? wasn't i going to do something? OH EXPLETIVE IT'S WEDNESDAY AND I SHOULD ALREADY BE AT SCHOOL! EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE!
so i bolted out of bed, threw on whatever pants were closest to my hand, the shoes that were on the floor, the first clean shirt i could find, pulled a container of some kind of leftovers out of my fridge, threw my stuff in my bag, ran back to grab my guitar, and was out the door and at the school by 7:46.
i was still in "yikes yikes yikes why didn't i think to set my alarm i think i'm still tired but also totally jazzed about today" mode by the time morning circle came along, and (relief!) it went totally well! the kids listened, they enjoyed the rhyme, and during music they did exactly what i asked them to do. and seemed to have some fun. and pretty much rocked "puff the magic dragon." it was amazing.
future student teachers - the moral of this story is ALWAYS PLAN AHEAD. because you, too, may wake up late on a day where you are the only teacher around with 19 kids waiting to hear what you have in store for them.
i went straight home and practiced "puff the magic dragon" on my guitar to play it with the kids (they do that song in music, and know basically all of the words), and looked over the rhyme they were going to learn in morning circle. i was pumped. i got my stuff packed up and ready to roll, then hit the sack.
thank GOODNESS i was so prepared. and that the sun shines bright in my bedroom. and i'm naturally an early riser. because this fine morning, my alarm didn't go off. i woke up lazily, checked out my clock, saw it was 7:32 am, and my thought process went something like this: huh, really? 7:32? is it a saturday? it's going to be so nice today. should i go back to bed? get up? wasn't i going to do something? OH EXPLETIVE IT'S WEDNESDAY AND I SHOULD ALREADY BE AT SCHOOL! EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE!
so i bolted out of bed, threw on whatever pants were closest to my hand, the shoes that were on the floor, the first clean shirt i could find, pulled a container of some kind of leftovers out of my fridge, threw my stuff in my bag, ran back to grab my guitar, and was out the door and at the school by 7:46.
i was still in "yikes yikes yikes why didn't i think to set my alarm i think i'm still tired but also totally jazzed about today" mode by the time morning circle came along, and (relief!) it went totally well! the kids listened, they enjoyed the rhyme, and during music they did exactly what i asked them to do. and seemed to have some fun. and pretty much rocked "puff the magic dragon." it was amazing.
future student teachers - the moral of this story is ALWAYS PLAN AHEAD. because you, too, may wake up late on a day where you are the only teacher around with 19 kids waiting to hear what you have in store for them.
Monday, February 28, 2011
hey, i'm in charge here!
whoa. just finished my first day as lead/head/main/kind-of-a-big-deal teacher in the classroom. and it went soooo smoothly. it was ... almost easy? which kind of freaks me out. the actual head teacher left the room for most of the day, and the kids transitioned fairly neatly to going to me with questions instead of her (success!). really, it wasn't until she and i chatted about an upcoming meeting that i sat back and thought "dude, i totally just ran this entire school day. sweet. and nobody cried or broke anything. things may have even been like, learned. zing." (my inner monologue is, apparently, not particularly eloquent). nevertheless, it was a great feeling.
let's just hope thisrush fluke trend continues.
let's just hope this
Friday, February 25, 2011
will you wear white, jenny jenkins? > i am wearing white, white, white
on monday, while my students enjoyed a day off, i had to go to a day-long lecture about using music in the classroom. i actually learned some good things:
- when teaching a new song, a really effective way to help them learn is to sing it to them, in full, while they listen and do some kind of simple movement/finger play.
- if a song is coupled with movement, teach the movement first and, while they learn the moves, sing the song each time. they will pick it up faster than if you did it call/response line by line.
- when keeping a beat, it is easiest for kids to maintain it by tapping on themselves or on the floor; however, the tapping must be on anything but their shoulders - somehow, that is harder for them than even walking on the beat (something to do with the angle. try tapping your shoulders right now, with your right hand tapping your right shoulder - it's actually harder than it sounds).
- when using songs to practice things LIKE keeping the beat, go ahead and use good songs (classical, folk songs, etc.). they can do "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" to a recording of "in the hall of the mountain king" just as easily as to a cheesy, childish tune.
- when it's the kids' time to sing, DO NOT SING WITH THEM. they are expert echo-ers, and can do it in a split second, but they won't retain the music if you always sing along with them. call and response is fine, but describe it to them like talking: they are not supposed to talk while you are talking, so they are not supposed to sing while you are singing!
- when selecting songs to use in the classroom, pick songs you like. you are going to be stuck with them all year, so don't pick stuff just because "you think the kids might like this kind of thing." if you would get bored of it after 30 days, ditch it. Example: "will you wear white, oh my dear, oh my dear, will you wear white, jenny jenkins? no, i won't wear white 'cause the color's too bright, i'll buy me a fol-de-rol-dy-tiddle-le-ol-dy seek-a-double, use-a-cause-a, roll-a-find-me, roll, jenny jenkins, roll" is much more fun than "i am wearing white, white, white, and you are wearing white, white, white, and we are wearing white, white, white, so the color we love is white, white white." ick.
the speaker also made some semi-crazy and even controversial points (there was a heated debate over the benefits v. costs of using silly songs like the hokey pokey in the classroom, believe it or not) but i thought that the general points he made (that i listed above) made good sense. i am committing them to memory for when i teach new songs to my kids.
- when teaching a new song, a really effective way to help them learn is to sing it to them, in full, while they listen and do some kind of simple movement/finger play.
- if a song is coupled with movement, teach the movement first and, while they learn the moves, sing the song each time. they will pick it up faster than if you did it call/response line by line.
- when keeping a beat, it is easiest for kids to maintain it by tapping on themselves or on the floor; however, the tapping must be on anything but their shoulders - somehow, that is harder for them than even walking on the beat (something to do with the angle. try tapping your shoulders right now, with your right hand tapping your right shoulder - it's actually harder than it sounds).
- when using songs to practice things LIKE keeping the beat, go ahead and use good songs (classical, folk songs, etc.). they can do "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" to a recording of "in the hall of the mountain king" just as easily as to a cheesy, childish tune.
- when it's the kids' time to sing, DO NOT SING WITH THEM. they are expert echo-ers, and can do it in a split second, but they won't retain the music if you always sing along with them. call and response is fine, but describe it to them like talking: they are not supposed to talk while you are talking, so they are not supposed to sing while you are singing!
- when selecting songs to use in the classroom, pick songs you like. you are going to be stuck with them all year, so don't pick stuff just because "you think the kids might like this kind of thing." if you would get bored of it after 30 days, ditch it. Example: "will you wear white, oh my dear, oh my dear, will you wear white, jenny jenkins? no, i won't wear white 'cause the color's too bright, i'll buy me a fol-de-rol-dy-tiddle-le-ol-dy seek-a-double, use-a-cause-a, roll-a-find-me, roll, jenny jenkins, roll" is much more fun than "i am wearing white, white, white, and you are wearing white, white, white, and we are wearing white, white, white, so the color we love is white, white white." ick.
the speaker also made some semi-crazy and even controversial points (there was a heated debate over the benefits v. costs of using silly songs like the hokey pokey in the classroom, believe it or not) but i thought that the general points he made (that i listed above) made good sense. i am committing them to memory for when i teach new songs to my kids.
Friday, February 18, 2011
things fall apart
after several idyllic weeks, it was bound to happen: this past tuesday the kids were crazy. essentially all of them, in fact. maybe it was the weather; maybe they were undergoing sugar withdrawal from valentine's day. whatever the source, today they all decided not to listen to me. even some of my best kids.
they all felt the need to chatter and move around. i had to have two of them go sit at the table. when the other class came in, they were equally funky. their head teacher had had a bad night the night before, and their teaching assistant was out sick. at one point i had to physically restrain a kid! it was rough. an exhausting.
so what did i do? that day i just did my best to keep my cool, and the next day i reviewed the rules of the class with them. and, amazingly and thankfully, it worked like a charm. the rest of the week they have been a million times better, and have only needed quick reminders of our rules to keep on track.
phew. now it's friday afternoon, and they are all peacefully napping.
they all felt the need to chatter and move around. i had to have two of them go sit at the table. when the other class came in, they were equally funky. their head teacher had had a bad night the night before, and their teaching assistant was out sick. at one point i had to physically restrain a kid! it was rough. an exhausting.
so what did i do? that day i just did my best to keep my cool, and the next day i reviewed the rules of the class with them. and, amazingly and thankfully, it worked like a charm. the rest of the week they have been a million times better, and have only needed quick reminders of our rules to keep on track.
phew. now it's friday afternoon, and they are all peacefully napping.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)