Community Building

I was given the opportunity by one of the teachers I am assisting to teach her class this past Friday. A way to not only make Fridays a bit more relaxing, but a way to develop relationships the children would not otherwise develop between each other are through "community building" exercises.

For this particular community building exercise I talked to the class about birth order and how it effects their personalities. I Eventually divided the student into groups depending on their birth order. Each group discussed what stereotypes were associated with certain birth orders (it took a moment to explain the term "stereotype to the class).

Towards the end of class I had them all write what their groups came up with on the board and let each group agree or defend the stereotypes associated with their birth order. At this point in time the class basically lost their collective minds. The youngest who were described as babies would shoot back at the oldest explaining to them their bossy qualities. You could of sworn every single one of the middle children were the martyrs of their family, baring every misfortune.

The community building exercise was a good way for me to gain experience presenting lesson plans, while being able to connect with the kids.

Bus Drills

Today was bus drill day. I remember those days, I also remember getting detention because I kept jumping out of the emergency exit door instead of "properly" exiting the bus.

Buses today don't even have those awesome emergency exit doors in the back of the bus anymore! It was a bit disheartening to find that out. For the "drill," the kids just had to sit in the bus and hear a bus driver lecture about bus safety. Jumping out of the emergency exit at the end of the lecture was the best part of bus drills when I was kid! They're really missing out.

Individual Help

I spent some time today working with an ESL student with an in class test. It was a new experience to see the thought process of a student who understands the material but is struggling to translate what she is thinking into English.

The student was certainly capable of understanding the material, but the language barrier is a hurdle that appears be very hard to overcome for some students.

Grading Papers

The majority of my time in one of my classes is spent grading quizzes. Thankfully all of the quizzes and tests I grade are multiple choice true/false so I can rely on a master key.

From my point of view, grading is a nice way to make the time fly by. If I were the actual teacher and had to take home papers to grade I would not be as excited. ...

and no, I do not use gold stars. :)

Spelling Bee

This last Friday was the schools yearly spelling bee. The middle school I work at consists of only 7th and 8th grade. The spelling bee incorporated both grades. I was surprised by how many students participated in the spelling bee (about 40 or so).

There were some pretty tough words thrown out there the kids had to spell that I definitely would have spelt wrong. The enthusiasm coming for the student audience was funny to watch. Towards the end of the bee, when there were only three students left, the crowd was going nuts!

I was able to participate in the bee while a teacher had to attend a meeting. I was in charge of making sure the students were in their correct order when it was their turn to spell.

It was pretty fun day.

Teaching My First Class

The other day I was able to teach a class for the first time. The teacher I was assisting for this particular class was out for the day and she instructed the substitute teacher to have me handle the lesson for the day.

It was an interesting experience that allowed me to get actual face time teaching in front of a class. Luckily the class I was teaching were a bunch of good kids so it went pretty smooth.

I walked away with the though that becoming a good teacher takes plenty of practice and does not happen over night.

Career Advising Event

This last Wednesday I attended a Nonprofit Foundation and Government Career panel. The panel consisted of 5 professionals who worked primarily in the government and nonprofit sector. One panel member was a CIA recruiter while another worked with the Make A Wish foundation. Each panelist spoke for 7 minutes and gave the audience a brief history of how they came to be where they are and what their jobs entail.

I am not particularly interested in government or non-profit work, but the panel was interesting enough. For someone who is interested in these fields the panel would have been an informative event.