Journal 1; Sept. 2

Journal #1

9/2/2010

Today is my second day of student teaching. I am part way through the day and am making lists of what I need to prepare for tomorrow. What I am beginning to enjoy about this experience is how organized it is making me. Every detail needs to be planned out for me at this point…. back up ideas, approaches to how to do a demo, where and when I will put out the supplies I need for each class. I am constantly writing notes and reminders to myself in several different places. I find myself thinking, so this is what it is like to be organized. I am an Art Education major, art, making part of me innately unorganized and the other half, education, needing to be organized at all times. I am making the transition from student to professional and I am happy to see the changes it is making within me. For example, the organization I was talking about. Another example, how much more confident I am in using the tools from my education classes in a real classroom. I naturally am a quiet person, but when I am in a teacher’s role, I am not hesitant to boost my voice level, to give instruction, to give my opinions and advice to students.

My cooperating teacher gives me helpful and welcomed feedback at the end of each teaching session. At this point, I am teaching for two periods straight, having a break, and then taking on another two periods in a row. So each day we have a brief meeting after each block, go over strengths, what I did well and what I could work on. I was happy to hear her feed back about my classroom management. As a teacher, I want to be taken seriously and do not want the students to think that I am here to befriend them. There is a certain mix between discipline and fun, and at this point I am still trying to keep things more serious so the students get used to working with me as a teacher. The last thing I want to do is ruin that by not taking my own position seriously. I believe that at some point when you have established a base relationship with your students, you can begin to incorporate humor into the classroom. Some classes will receive this well and still be able to work and successfully complete assignments. Other classes will not be able to handle this and will get off of track. Right now I am still establishing that base relationship. I know with a couple of my classes that I am unable to let up the reins, and that is all right, I just switch up my classroom management as it fits each class.