Book Talk

For today's blog I will discuss an interesting change in how the library now approaches students.

I'm not sure if this is a state-wide focus or just a Gilbert Public School district thing, but the school I am interning with puts an enormous amount of attention towards reading. Every day the school shuts for 20 minutes and everyone reads. The children are expected to set goals as to how much they read each quarter (every student has their own personal goal). So when I heard that the librarian was going to come in and do a "book talk" I wasn't really too surprised.

5 minutes into his talk a few thoughts occurred to me. 1) The librarian is using technology that would have never been in a class room a few years ago. 2) The covers for youth literature looks cool! The youth fiction cover art I remember weas always these odd looking hand drawn or what looked like water color pictures and always in pastels!

It was an interesting "book talk."

Half Days

A little while back I was able to experience my first non-student half day. I now understand how teachers can end up the way some do after years of service.

Coinciding with the half day was a take your parent to school type day as well; so not only were the kids acting crazy, but the room was packed with parents.

In one of my classes, the majority of the students are what most would consider underperforming students. Personally I think it's counterproductive to throw all the slower students in one class, but that's beside the point. As the class was progressing, one of the students decided it was a good idea to start drawing on the back of a girls neck was a highlighter. This student who was drawing did not have his parent with him, but the student who was being drawn on did!

I was shocked a student would do that in front of another students own parent! Crazy kids.

Downtown Career Fair

Today I attended the internship and career fair that was being held near ASU's downtown campus.

It wasn't the largest career fair I have ever attended but was by no means sparse. The businesses that did attend ranged from credit card to travel web based companies. I also talked to a man from a naturopathic school of medicine, they were looking for students to enroll in their medical program.

Although I didn't find too many businesses that I would be interested in interning or working for it was nice to see a variety of industries. The only real issue I did have was the majority of the business representatives I did talk to were mainly there for customer service or call center jobs.

First Day of Class!

My first day of class was interesting to say the least. It brought back many memories of my middle school days, which haven't been too long ago but long enough for me not to cringe at the thought of 7th grade Spanish class anymore.

I started the day waking up at 6:30am, which for a long term night person (and loving it ) was a drastic change in pace. :) I arrived at school about a half hour before classes began and was introduced to all the teachers I would be helping out throughout the semester. I will be helping 4 teachers in total throughout the semester, ranging from 7th-8th grade.

I'm not sure why I didn't expect it, but I was surprised to see how each class and teacher had their own unique personality. One class could be filled with excitement verging on chaos while the next could be a routine by the book structured class.

I am excited to see what the rest of the semester has in store for me.