I officially met my MT over the past week. Last June I thought we were a perfect match, but now I think that we are almost too much alike to be a perfect match. We are both strong personalities that work better on our own, and don’t necessarily like sharing our role with others. I’m trying to be very unlike my usual self this past week, trying to eat lunch with my ‘colleagues’ and show up early to chit-chat before meetings. My MT behaves very much how I usually do. She takes off for her lunch break, shows up just before our meetings and jets out just as they are over. She has been here one day over the paid days—the day before the first day of school! I find myself socializing with a lot of other teachers to learn the ropes and then help my MT when she’s around and willing to put me to work.
On Wednesday, we had this crazy literacy summit out in North Bend at the Cedar River Watershed educational center. It took ages to get out there, but it was pretty and they fed us a nice little box lunch. The talk was nothing special to the location, but it was explained to me as a “welcome back treat” to all the teachers. We got an overview of the school-wide reading assessment. It was really useful as a new teacher, because it definitely caught me up to speed on all of their testing protocols, which are ever so important these days.
Thursday was a “nuts and bolts” meeting. It had really nothing to do with the student teacher interns. It was a lot about teacher committee decisions that we could not vote on, schedule changes that we could not vote on, etc. But it was a good chance to see what I’ll be in for, the behind the scenes of teaching.
Then we had a nice 3 day weekend thanks to labor day, which my MT informed me that she was going to take full advantage of and suggested that I do the same. On the day before school, my MT and her dad were getting the classroom all put together. I kept offering to help with these creative artsy things which is where my talent shines (think: job board, name tags, table numbers, etc), but she kept me mighty busy with her busy work… the things that required no intelligence at all. But yet again, I am trying to be open-minded and take in as much as I can. It is difficult to know exactly what my role is as a student teacher. I know we are supposed to be ‘just observing’ but my principal told us directly that she wants her interns to active participants in the classroom. And then on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, my MT treats me like the room mom. I guess I have a month to figure it out :)
On Wednesday, we had this crazy literacy summit out in North Bend at the Cedar River Watershed educational center. It took ages to get out there, but it was pretty and they fed us a nice little box lunch. The talk was nothing special to the location, but it was explained to me as a “welcome back treat” to all the teachers. We got an overview of the school-wide reading assessment. It was really useful as a new teacher, because it definitely caught me up to speed on all of their testing protocols, which are ever so important these days.
Thursday was a “nuts and bolts” meeting. It had really nothing to do with the student teacher interns. It was a lot about teacher committee decisions that we could not vote on, schedule changes that we could not vote on, etc. But it was a good chance to see what I’ll be in for, the behind the scenes of teaching.
Then we had a nice 3 day weekend thanks to labor day, which my MT informed me that she was going to take full advantage of and suggested that I do the same. On the day before school, my MT and her dad were getting the classroom all put together. I kept offering to help with these creative artsy things which is where my talent shines (think: job board, name tags, table numbers, etc), but she kept me mighty busy with her busy work… the things that required no intelligence at all. But yet again, I am trying to be open-minded and take in as much as I can. It is difficult to know exactly what my role is as a student teacher. I know we are supposed to be ‘just observing’ but my principal told us directly that she wants her interns to active participants in the classroom. And then on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, my MT treats me like the room mom. I guess I have a month to figure it out :)
I am pretty scared for the first day of school becuase I have been told by all of the teachers that our school has such a diverse student population. It is quite possible that half my students will not fully understand English, and within those 10-15 ELL students about 6 different languages could be represented. I worked with ELL students in Northern Ireland and I have seen how hard it is to teach a class with at least 5 ELL students that have only months' practice at their new language.
My MT keeps reasuring me that it will be just fine. She is incredibly calm about the first day of school. In fact, she came in just 5 days before the first day of school. Compared to all the other teachers running around the school, I feel like she either has it down or we are really in for a whirlwind once school starts!
My MT says that the first week will be a 'celebration.' She likes to make it fun and the entire 2nd grade won't be running on their usual schedule. One thing that I thought was cute was how my MT was saying how she always plans her first day, then wakes up in the middle of the night terrified that she hasn't done enough! So she usually over prepares and over prepares just in case the lessons go quicker than she expects. She says its better to have more than not enough.
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