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Before school started, I was wondered if I was really ready. How well had my college classes and student teaching prepared me for my own classroom?
Looking back, I thank God for all of those classes that I took (I've used lots of what I learned on a regular basis), but I've learned that no amount of classes can ever prepare you for actual teaching.
- Where was the class on how to deal with parents?
- Where was the class on how to manage a grade book? How to handle grading all the papers? How to keep track of and deal with missing assignments? (None of my cooperating teachers talked about this with me.)
- When did they cover how to deal with constant tattling?
- Where was the lesson how how to deal with triplets in your classroom?
- What is the best seating arrangement to minimize chatting? I haven't found it!
- Where do I sit the kid that no one wants to sit by?
- What do I do with the little diva who constantly stirs up trouble? Mom thinks she's an angel...
- Where was the class on how to organize your teaching resources?
- For our classes, we were taught to plan one unit for one subject at a time, but where was the class on the logistics of planning for every subject for an entire week?
- When will I be able to stop spending my weekends lesson planning? When will I be able to use my preps efficiently?
- What am I supposed to do when I don't have enough textbooks for each student in my class? When the school in general is seriously lacking resources? Resources that I have been taught to use and rely on? (We don't even have a set of children's dictionaries in the school... or a computer lab or other technology resources that can really enhance teaching and learning... but I guess my elementary teachers didn't have that technology "back in the day" either, and somehow I learned something.)
Some of these things you simply could never be taught; you have to learn them and figure them out on your own. I found the answers to many of these questions (sometimes the hard way) within the first month or so of school. I finally found a system I like for tracking missing work, and for making sure parents are aware of it immediately. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with a few nightmare parents (like the one who invited herself to yesterday's Halloween party). I'll do the best I can with the resources I do have. I'll keep moving seats until I find the magic combination. The triplets are getting better. I still have to do my lesson planning at home, but as I'm becoming more familiar with the texts, it is getting easier. I still struggle to keep up on grading papers but that's getting better, too... but how the heck do you grade handwriting???
I'm finally starting to feel a little more confident in my abilities as a teacher. While classroom management is not 100% where I want it to be, that's improving by leaps and bounds as well. They are starting to take me seriously. I've upped my expectations, and they're starting to get that I mean business. For example, they used to think that they had all morning to complete simple tasks like handwriting, but I've kept track of the students who are consistently the last ones finished (mainly because of chatting and lack of focus) and, quite frankly, I nag them. I've moved their seats near each other and I stand *rightby* them when we do class work so I can keep them on task. You know what? They whine at me a little bit, but the work is getting done at an acceptable pace!
I Think I'll start ending each post with a "Teacher Tip." These will just be little tips and ideas that I've found have worked in my classroom, so they might work for others.
TEACHER TIP #1:
Here's an idea for keeping track of missing assignments: I was struggling with keeping track of missing assignments, but didn't feel right giving students a zero without giving them one more chance or, even more importantly, without letting the parents know that the work was missing. Every morning I check in homework with a class list I made in Word using the "table" feature. I can immediately see who is missing the assignment (as opposed to finding out at the end of the day when going through my "hand in" basket), and handle it right away. I keep this list on a clipboard, along with a few extra copies of the assignment. Also on my clipboard are my "Oops! I forgot to turn in my homework!" notes. These are little notes that I copy onto brightly colored paper and then cut apart (I get three per page). The note, which gets attached to the missing assignment and requires a parent signature, warns that the student will get a zero if the work isn't completed and turned in. If the student still has the assignment, I attach the note to their copy, but if they're lost it, I have those extra copies right on the clipboard! This way, I'm covered because I gave the student another chance AND I let the parents know! If the work doesn't come back, at least I'm covered if I have to give a zero.
