Reflection 1/9/09

This week was a great week back. I had been worried that the week would be hard because everyone was used to being on break, but it seemed like the kids had been refreshed a little bit and had more patience with sitting in class. My guided lead is over so I went back to observing a little more than I had previously been doing. It was a little sad for me because I really got into being the classroom teacher for so long. I'm really excited to watch in language arts though, because Historical Fiction is what they are doing and that is one of my favorite genres. My CT came up with an awesome unit plan for it this year and I'm really enjoying watching it executed for the first time. It's nice to see an established teacher revamp her unit and notice things within it that are good and things that needed some variation. I will be doing this a lot in these next few years, so its nice to see what goes into it from her point of view. I also got the opportunity to sit in on a PD that was going over the new science curriculum. I enjoyed this because it was another example of teachers who have been teaching for a long time doing things I will be doing a lot of. I liked listening because they chose this curriculum for specific reasons but they are noticing a lot of holes in it. This part of the job is never done, even if you have been teaching for ten years. I think it was nice to see that because I really enjoy planning and changing things up.

I had my first spur of the moment subbing moment this week. It was awesome! (not that my CT was sick, but having to sub without planning on it for over a week) Things went really smooth and when I saw a problem I dealt with it. I was extremely proud in that regard, because I was questioning what to do when a student was messing up the class. I called down to the office and sent him there because he was ruining a moment when the students were able to play a game instead of work, and he simply did not like being out. He had been doing things like that all day, and does them pretty much every day. I had told the class that if they couldn't handle it we would read instead. Instead of punishing the whole class I think I made a better choice, and looking back on it I should have dealt with him sooner in the day.