First Year Teaching Placement: Day Seven

         I can't believe that there's only 3 more days of my teaching placement! It's a very bittersweet kind of feeling because I'm excited for it to be done because it's quite a bit of work and very exhausting but I'm very sad to be leaving the little munchkins because I've developed a bit of a relationship with some of the students. Anyway, onto the day! So first we read a book called "Not Norman" and the students had to listen to Miss. Anderson read it and then identify the main point of the story, and I had to help the students a lot with that. Especially Quentin and Drew because they never know what to do, and they always ask me for help so I always help them. Then we did some math problems about ordinal numbers and a worksheet. And I had to help the same five struggling students with their math worksheets and yeah that was okay. Then I believe it was lunch, and lunch is becoming like a routine where I listen to the teachers talk about the strike and just eat my lunch. But now they're noticing me a little more and talking to me now so that's nice.
        After lunch we had literacy centres and I got to explain the different stations so that was cool, another teaching experience. And then I just went around and looked at what the students were doing and helped them and what not. After that we had measurement and it was a substitute teacher and she was an old lady and she was not good at all. She had a very old school method of teaching and the students had to sit for a long time and the were getting all antsy and couldn't pay attention for long period of time so they would act up a little. Then she was holding a clock and it said 11:45 but she said that it was 12:45 so I told Miss. Anderson and she was like "excuse me, it actually says 11:45" and then she whispered to me "okay, I better leave the classroom before she hates me even more." Haha, Miss. Anderson always stands up for me it's so nice and funny. Then for the last period we had computers which is basically the students going on the internet and playing some games, mostly snail bob.
       There were a few problems today that I had to deal with, like Antonia. She is a drama queen and leaves a trail of drama behind her everywhere she goes. It's difficult to be really nice and understanding to her and strict at the same time but I kept my cool the whole time so I don't look like the enemy in her eyes. She was literally crazy like she was standing on the table, and rolling around on the ground, and she kicked a girl in the shin, and she ran to my crying about her monkey bar problems at recess, it was so overwhelming. Anyway, I think I somehow helped her out in the end which is good, but that left me thoroughly exhausted so yeah.

Until next time!
Suzy Zhang