My first practicum evaluation

Today was, for me, the day that strikes fear into the hearts of student teachers everywhere: the Site Visit. My course director from York came to see me teach and to flip through my practicum binder. I knew going into this that my course director has been happy with all the work I've done in the program so far, and my host teachers have been pretty happy with all the work I've done at A.C.I. so far (they've also been working on the formal evaluation of me that they're supposed to submit by the end of the week and have shared their evaluative thoughts with me--they're all quite good), but when my York life is about to intersect my A.C.I. life things get a little intimidating. Due partly to some procrastination on planning for this intimidating lesson and partly to getting lots of other things done/organized, I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. this morning planning my lesson (which isn't actually too bad compared to some planning/marking nights). When I went to bed, I checked what time the alarm time was set for. Satisfied, I went to sleep.

I woke up just after 7 a.m. this morning. This is not the time I had intended to get up (apparently I checked what time the alarm was set for but didn't actually turn the alarm on). However, I was able to work with this time frame because I knew what I was going to wear today and had my planning pretty much done and the things I needed to take with me pretty much in one place; I just dressed, gathered my things, threw my hair into a banana clip, threw on some face powder to deal with the shiny greasiness, brushed my teeth to deal with the morning breath, and drove myself to school unwashed and unfed and planning to buy lunch from my home form at school (it's a "Christmas Cheer" fundraising week at A.C.I. to raise $ for Agincourt Community Services and my home form has decided to sell food--though our food buyers were both absent today so they ended up not selling today after all). Oh, I also did a quick e-mail check to make sure I wasn't missing any last-minute message from my course director telling me he'd decided not to visit after all...guess he really is coming.

At A.C.I., I did manage to get done pretty much everything I wanted to before class, including creating an overhead on the photocopier (though the first photocopier I tried to do this on broke down on me--@#%$!), setting up a spot for my course director to sit with my practicum binders and a copy of my lesson plan, preparing all the equipment and chemicals for a demo I did for the students, preparing some writing for a note the students would take from the blackboard, looking over some questions I wanted to assign them to work on in groups and making sure the answers given for those questions by the textbook (and the teacher's resource) were correct (though I didn't get through all of them). My course director took a bit of time to show up at the beginning of the period (my host teacher ended up escorting him to our classroom from the main office), so I and the students waited until he arrived. One student asked if I was nervous; I told her, "I'm just teaching," and wasn't really that nervous; I also asked if she was nervous!

Overall, the lesson went well, and the class behaved well for me (my course director even made a note of their good behaviour and attentiveness). When my course director called me aside to discuss the lesson while students worked on their group work, I mentioned being pretty happy with the lesson, but that there were a couple things that we've discussed at York as being very important to lessons that I didn't think I'd included and that I knew I had to work on. Well, it turns out I did actually include some of those elements (yay!) and that my course director knows those elements have to be worked in around the culture of the school and may or may not get into every lesson. I got a glowing written evaluation; a couple things to think about more were mentioned to me (and others to my host teacher separately) but overall my course director was quite pleased. He had come to observe my period 1 class (8:45 a.m. - 9:55 a.m.) and I had 2 more periods after lunch to teach the same lesson, so it was nice to know off the bat that I was on the right track...and having my evaluation in first period kept me from stressing about an upcoming evaluation any longer than first thing in the morning. Incidentally, the student who'd asked if I was nervous also asked how I did after my course director left (he had to leave earlier than the period had quite ended because he had 2 other people to see today, one for some type of "crisis"), so I told her I'd done well and that this was a good class...probably partly because in first period they were too tired to act up :)!

Anyway, I have to go as I am going to see my grade 11 and 12 students play in A.C.I.'s senior Christmas concert tonight, but I wanted to share part of what happened in my day today. Thanks for listening.

Anonymous poem I like re school

The following poem was shared with me today and I like it. Unfortunately I can't get the spacing to work out here, not even in the "Edit HTML" mode, but I guess that's okay :-p.

-----

Did I Miss Anything

Question frequently asked by
students after missing a class
Nothing. When we realized you weren't here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 per cent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I'm about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 per cent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring this good news to all people
on earth

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human existence
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren't here

Hooray for the weekend!

I think I mentioned before that I was on a practicum teaching block (as in I was only at my practicum school and not at York at all) from Nov. 2-15 and then at STAO (which was at a hotel out near the airport at not at York at all) from Nov. 16-17 (well, STAO went until the 18th but we weren't required to go on the Saturday, and by that point I was tired enough and felt I'd gotten enough out of the conference that I saw no need to attend the third day).

This whole week, however, I've been back at York. If you remember back to your school days, you may remember that the majority of the time you were away from school for some time, you usually had things due when you came back, such that times like winter holidays and March Break weren't really holidays or a break so much as an extended time at home preparing to hand something in on your return to school (or procrastinating during the entire holidays/break and then staying up way too late and working way too frantically on your project on the last day/night before school was to start again). Such has been my experience this week...complete with the procrastination. After all, practicum kind of ran like this: wake up, do all the morning stuff like showering and dressing and eating, get to practicum, photocopy if necessary, teach/observe/mark/whatever I'm doing during school hours, spend some time at the school after classes debriefing with the host teacher or attending extra-curricular activities or photocopying resources for the next day, go home, nap for an hour, eat dinner, and then plan the next day's lesson. I suppose if I was more on the ball with the lesson-planning thing there would have been some time in there to work on my own assignments, but at this early stage (when I'm still learning how to put a lesson together such that it can be taught in one period and not five and the kids won't fall asleep and I won't, either) lesson planning takes some time. At first, it was no big deal that I wasn't working on my own assignments; I had a couple weeks. However, when little got done even on the last weekend before my own classes resumed, I knew I was in for a rough ride this week.

Sat., Nov. 18 - My mother-in-law's birthday was on the 17th, but she had youth group obligations that night so we (as in my husband and his siblings and I) took her out to dinner on the 18th instead, then spent time together as a family. Earlier in the day I had to prep for the Sunday school lesson I was to teach the next day. Hmm, but I think I did some housework, too. I know I was occupied for quite a while in the morning with something but I have no idea what.

Sun., Nov. 19 - attended a Sunday school teacher's breakfast (where Mark fed wonderfully way too much good food as usual), taught Sunday school to a class that wouldn't cooperate, came home frustrated, started doing research for one of my assignments (a presentation I did Wednesday), and took some of this research with me to a dinner with the extended family for my mother-in-law in Newmarket, where we spent the rest of the day. I did the driving there and back, giving me some more much-needed highway experience. I hope I didn't scare my mother-in-law too much.

Mon., Nov. 20 - back to school! Nothing was due today, but we were told today about something that was due the next day and we were totally unprepared for...a 5 to 10 minute presentation on some resource or idea we picked up at STAO. Oh, and you're being marked, and here's the rubric. Aaah! Panic! I stay up late preparing this presentation as well as a one-page reading summary for another class (for which I also had to do the reading).

Tues., Nov. 21 - do presentation to a small group of my peers (and we all expressly stated we were going to be nice in our marking of each other) and hand in one-page reading summary. My peers loved my use of LEGO (including the little people) in my presentation. They wondered how close I live to my parents that I was able to get my old LEGO from them. No, actually, I do have my childhood LEGO and Barbies and Cabbage Patch doll and Pound Puppy (among other things) here in my current home...my parents have been gradually giving me some of my old stuff that I guess my nieces and nephews no longer play with at my parents' place. I wonder if I should get rid of the Barbies. Blah, I digress. Today I stay up late working on my presentation on adolescents and religion for my "The Adolescent and the Teacher" psychology course.

Wed., Nov. 22 - do presentation to about 25 of my peers on adolescents and religion...it is part of my group's larger presentation on moral development (the other 3 people in my group do their parts on adolescents' moral behaviour in competition and cheating, the role of the peer group, and whether morality can be taught; I also do the conclusion and play the part of a girl at age 8 and age 15 in a skit in the peer group part of the presentation where I first say I'll never smoke and then turn around and smoke after all). Get a little unnerved by a presentation by 4 of my other classmates on adolescents and promiscuity, but calm down some after talking further with one of them. Get bored out of my skull by my "teaching the intermediate and senior sciences" course in the afternoon, and the fact that I've had very little sleep lately doesn't help...actually have to visit the washroom at one point to splash cold water on my face in an attempt to keep myself from nearly nodding off at various points in the class...it works for about 10 minutes. Stay up very late working on an 8 page (double-spaced) paper due the next day.

Thurs., Nov. 23 - print off 8-and-a-half-page-not-including-references-list-or-title-page paper and upload its file to my school's FirstClass system so I can edit it in the education program's computer lab at lunch. Edit it in pencil on the bus ride to school. Attend more boring "teaching the intermediate and senior sciences" course in the morning; instructor not happy about our attitude from the day before; this morning does go better than the previous session. At lunchtime, rush to the education program's library to find its computer lab occupied with a class. There are only 8 computers in the library outside of this lab and they are all taken. Ask a classmate who is finished printing his paper if I can borrow his laptop to edit my paper. He connects me to the school's wireless internet system; I type in the pencil edits I'd done; I manage to commandeer one of the 8 non-computer-lab computers from a classmate once I'm done editing so I can get onto the library's network and print my paper off their system (since I can't print it straight from the laptop). Go to class not having been able to grab any lunch, but at least I have crackers in my backpack. Hand in 8-page paper that I am more happy with now than I was with the unedited version before I got a couple hours sleep early this morning. Stay up a little to work on a 4 page (double-spaced) paper that is due the next day, but this one doesn't take nearly so long as I am pulling information for it from 3 assignments I've already done (including the presentation I did Wednesday). I manage to go to bed by 11:45 p.m.--not bad at all--but of course I'm already really, really tired from having to stay up all the previous nights.

Fri., Nov. 24 - hand in 4 page paper on my theory of adolescent religious development. I am pretty happy with this paper. Once I hand it in, all I want to do is go home, but I stay because I'm really not a class-skipper...plus the class is going to go for drinks and lunch at the end of class and I really need that release and to be a little bit social. Class ends and I go to Blueberry Hill (or just "The Hill" now according to one of its signs that I guess keeps getting too many letters stolen to keep the long name up there) with some of my classmates (when everyone finishes trickling there in dribs and drabs, we finally have about, oh, a dozen of us there). I have a pound of honey garlic wings, fries and a Pepsi while my other classmates have other various kinds of pub food; some have beer and some do not. I do not because I drove to class today due to an errand I have to run after class and after lunch (well, I hate beer anyway, but if I hadn't had to drive afterwards I might have had a hard lemonade or something). I knew the night before and this morning that driving maybe wasn't the best idea due to how tired I am, but I am totally fine in the morning. On the drive back, with lots of food in my tummy and the sun shining in just the wrong way for my tired eyes, things don't go as well as I want them to, but I manage to get to my practicum school and home in one piece. Oh, yes, I stopped by my practicum school to pick up some marking that I'll be doing this weekend. My host teacher for the classes in which I'm doing this marking is not there today so I don't have to spend time talking to her, and I don't go see the other host teacher because I don't teach her class until Tuesday, so I can go see her Monday. I go home and sleep. Then I get up and write this blog entry. I'm not planning on doing anything more productive today other than grocery shopping, which we will do soon.

I am so looking forward to going to bed tonight. My whole class was dreading this week because of all that we have due, and prior to this week I sometimes mentioned to my classmates, "If we can survive that week, we can become teachers" (because this week could be the hardest thing we'll experience this year...as far as we know we'll never have this kind of convergence of assignment due dates again, plus next semester is longer so the due dates get more spread out). Well, the week is over and we have survived...let me tell you, there were a lot of glasses clinking in toasts to that at "The Hill" today. Well, the Pepsi fountain pop wax cups didn't clink so much as "mush," but still :). Now for three more weeks of practicum...which will seem almost relaxing in comparison. I just hope I can recover enough before Monday hits and I have to start teaching again!