Week 2

As week two comes to a close, I am finally starting to accept Gettysburg as my home. I can navigate my way around the town and can make it the 3 miles home without a GPS.

Unfortunately for me, last week there were several school closings and delays which pushed back Mr. Abma's first unit a couple days. He wanted to teach the first unit in hopes that I would get to see the kids in their natural environment. This was very helpful as I was able to see the students true personalities and get  an impetus in classroom management. There are a few students who may or may not be a hand full, but I am up for the challenge. One day, Mr. Abma told a student that he did not like his attitude, and that he did not have to be in his class if he didn't want to. The kid said "fine I won't", stood up and kicked a chair across the room. The student's name -- Tyler. Should be an easy one to remember.

Today was their unit test for Ag science, the class that I will be picking up next week. After the test, I had about 40 minutes to do what I wanted to for the day. I chose to do an activity similar to the one I did on our "first day of school" lab. I had the students draw something that represents who they are, and introduce themselves to me. I went around the room and joked around with each of them about their drawings and got a couple good laughs. One of the kids said he liked to cook, and boy did I pick his brain. On the back of the card, I had them write down their favorite movies, TV shows, foods, songs, and sports teams. I hope to incorporate each in any way I can.

Afterwards I introduced them to the material we are going to cover next week -- cells. We basically just went over what a cell is, the types of cell, the microscope, and any other general questions they had. Next week I am going to use Mike Petrun's interest approach from communities of practice with the jello and candy. I am also going to do Annette Sprenkel's egg osmosis activity.

I have also been trying to get healthier by taking advantage of the schools gym and weight room. A few of my Ag Science students are baseball players, so I chose to attend one of their practices BEFORE SCHOOL and show them a few fundamentals and that I could stay play a little bit for an out of shape college student. For those of you willing to play sports, this is a great way to establish rapport with your students. I was amazed at how some of them turned around -- instantly wanting to talk to me about sports and I could tell by their body language the next day they were much more comfortable.

My advice for the week -- take interest in what the students are doing. They don't know you, and they are almost afraid to make eye contact. I saw a kid over in the shop welding when there wasn't a class in there, so I went over to check it out. He just finished making a deer out of scrap metal, it is pretty nice. But I showed him my auto-darkening helmet I got at convention, commented on the deer, told him I too like to hunt, and now what do you know? We are best buds. Even if you don't care what they are doing, fake it until you make it!

I hope you guys are all having a good time at your schools and are taking advantage of what they have to offer. Miss everyone and looking forward to talking on Tuesday!

Week 1

This week we all eagerly started attending school at our cooperating centers fresh off the pre-internship seminar and equipped with our binders of lesson plans. Unfortunately for me, all I did this week was observe classes -- plus we had a snow day on Tuesday and a two-hour delay on Wednesday.

One good thing about the week though was that I got to see what classes I would be teaching. I could not be happier with the group of kids I have been given. They are all well behaved and seem like they are legitimately interested in agriculture. Most of them have backgrounds with animals.

During a few of the classes, Mr. Tindall had the students complete book work. This was my only opportunity to really try and teach them and help them. I just walked around, asked each group how they were doing, and helped where I could. I also provided words of encouragement to the students who felt like "it was stupid".

One thing I noticed was that a lot of the kids lose attention pretty easily. I will make sure my classes address engagement and that I keep the students involved as much as possible. Some of the kids have asked me "when do you start teaching? do you start today?" Hopefully once I do start I can make the class as fun as they hope.