The best-laid plans...

One of the classes I'm responsible for teaching this practicum block is a grade 9/10 split class. It is a science class run at the "essential" level. When I was in high school, we had advanced, general, and basic level classes; now those levels are called academic, applied and essential (well, they are at the grade 9 and 10 level; grades 11 and 12 have their own designations for the levels). In other words, my essential kids are the ones who supposedly can't even handle the applied level science course. I say "supposedly" because my host teacher and I feel that the students in my class have been mis-placed. It is easy for us to say this because there is a total of 3 students in this class, so we get to know them pretty well.

Anyway, this "essential" class is the one I still had to plan for when I got home from my sanity-inducing time out with friends last night. I had some resources from my host teacher and was reminded by him that any essential class really is a literacy course, regardless of the subject; I just had to put it all together and wrap in any ideas of my own that I had. I think the lesson I ended up planning was a good one, and I even managed to include a literacy activity from some Ministry of Education resources and my way of doing the water current/electrical current analogy that is suggested by the curriculum and that I incorporated into a York assignment earlier this year. I was kind of nervous about the lesson because it was going to be
the first time I actually taught these students (my block has been going on for a while, but they've been doing research on a poster project my host teacher assigned before my block started), but I could see it going well.

You know what they say about the best-laid plans. At the start of first period, my host teacher received a package he'd ordered for this class a while back: a kit for these students to assemble a working electric motor as a group. He seemed keen on having them start that today, so I went along with that (he did eventually give me the choice as to whether to do this or not, but you could tell the motor thing was what he wanted, and it was a great idea anyway). Okay, lesson plan out the window. Then we actually went to the classroom when it was time for class, 2nd period. Remember I said we have 3 students in this class. Well, 3 students were absent from our class today. Motor idea out the window for today, at least. The students had a poster due today, too (which made me wonder if they all skipped because they weren't done, but my host teacher doesn't think they'd be like that), but I guess they'll just have to bring them in next week, seeing as tomorrow is a PD Day.

That is my story about how an entire class skipped on me. Then I ran a lab with my 3rd period class, cleaned up after it, waited after school for 20 minutes for a student who said he'd show up and never did, and drove home in the worst snow I've driven in yet (but that was fine thanks to my Young Drivers skillz :)). The end. Oh, the exciting life of a student teacher :).