First Year Teaching Placement: Day Three

          I am one fifth done my placement today and it's passing by surprising fast. I actually don't dread going to my placement everyday, I mean waking up is definitely the hardest part but once I get over that the whole day is a blast really. The day goes by so much faster when you're the teacher, like when I was a student in elementary school or just school in general (especially high school, oh god) days were just so long and it felt like an eternity. Anyway, onto the day! So this morning we started off with the open house where parents were allowed to come in and see what it's like in the classroom from 9 a.m to around 10 a.m. and Miss. Anderson showed my video that I edited and filmed of the students reciting their poetry presentations. It was so funny watching their embarrassed expressions and they seemed to really enjoy watching it. It was such a cool experience, and I know that it helped Miss. Anderson a lot because her voice is slowly going away and she was able to catch a small break. It also made her look really good in front of the parents I suppose because it showcased all the students' work. After that we discussed a worksheet about man made and natural things and the differences between the two. Then it was recess, and after that we had a whole hour of math. It was still the same word problems and figuring out with symbol to use in each math sentence. Math is actually really hard to teach because it seems like such common sense for us but children don't get it at all and it's such an abstract concept for them. But I eventually picked up a few tips that helped the students understand but it's still a long work in progress. I mean math is not easy and especially for me, it's really difficult to understand and grasp the different concepts.
         Then it was lunch and I ate in the staff room again but I sat at a different table with teachers I didn't know. And they were having a staff meeting and it was interesting, they basically discussed issues about the condition of the technology they have and any sort of ideas and tips for teaching. Basic protocols were also discussed as well as numerous other boring, teacher things, catch my drift? After lunch was media literacy where students were split off into different stations and I didn't really know what to do so I went outside where some boys were to see what they were doing and they were playing Pokemon. So I basically joined them because I was so bored, and I wanted to show them that I cared about what they were doing and I wanted them to feel comfortable around me. So I played Pokemon and I had no idea what was happening but it was nice connecting with them. Also I made them do math so it seemed like their card game was some what of a learning experience.
         Finally, Miss. Anderson told me to make an example Mothers Day card so I randomly created one and she asked if I wanted to teach students how to make it and I was like sure! So I taught the students how to make it and I had students read out each of the steps to make it all engaging and stuff and I think that I captured their attention enough. I walked around and children were all tugging at me to help them create their cards and it was overwhelming but so awesome. Everyone didn't want to think of their own original cards so I basically had to help them make theirs and there was this one kid named Ewan and he was literally crying that he messed up his card and I had to do some damage control. But I made his squiggly into a peppermint candy and then everything was okay again so that's good. And then there was this other kid who was obsessed with the illuminati and tried to incorporate it into his logo but I was like no that's no appropriate and your mother would probably not appreciate it. And then this girl made me a drawing (well I asked her for it haha) but it was very cute nonetheless.

Until next time!
Suzy Zhang