Reflection Ten

Week Eleven Reflection

Leigha Tracey – BSU Intern
Carmel High School
November 4-8, 2002

Goals

• Determine schedule
• Develop unit plans
• Begin teaching
  

Observation/Participation (15)

Week eleven marks my first breakdown “bad” week. Other suffered from my bitch virus as I struggled with how to effectively ask questions and get them answered. At the beginning of the week I felt overwhelmed and frustrated with not knowing. My past life as an instructional designer did not prepare me well for “going with the flow.” I am used to identifying and seeking answers from subject matter experts. This approach only served to frustrate me and inflict my poor attitude on others. Of course, when one thing goes wrong it all gangs up. On Tuesday at our meeting I learned that Sue Engledow had a bad report about my special education rotation. Then I proceeded to insult Karen Taff at our meeting. NOT my best day. After some sleep and self talk I tried to turn the tides.
I wrote to Sue Engledow and attached a copy of my week nine reflection with a lengthy explanation of what I had accomplished during my rotation. I have yet to receive a response, although I had requested that she reply. This troubles me, but I did get a response from Barb Graham and that made me feel better. I sent an apology to Karen Taff and met with her on Friday to talk. I think that the air is cleared, although I still feel badly about how I treated her. I met with Tony Willis and Jim Streisel to outline the content they wanted me to cover and began teaching. I also met with Joe Stuelpe again and clarified several questions that I had. His responses did not waylay my concerns, but I got the impression that he wasn’t concerned. I took that cue (FINALLY) and just did my own thing, showed him my plans and work and then went with it.

Overall, I am just happy that this week is over. I am hoping that those I ran over this week have a forgiving nature and a short memory. I also learned that I have to silently synthesize the difference in climates between my corporate life and the public school system. I think collectively teachers dislike corporate’s as much as they do administrators.

Teaching (20)

Luckily, my problems this past week were not in the classroom. I started teaching my journalism classes and a government class. I took some time to talk to each of my classes. I introduced myself, told them a bit about what I was doing and basically interviewed the classes to see where they are having problems, if any. The students were open and even excited. I am only going to be here a short time, so I didn’t want to come in strong as though I was going to work them to death for fun! So, I took an approach that was recommended to me by a friend and CHS teacher. I think that the lessons I did last week went over well.

My only conflicts are with the advertising team and the web team on the Hilite staff. I gave each group an assignment and neither group made any efforts toward these assignments. There are two boys, one from each group that are VERY difficult. One is just angry and everything seems to be a frustration for him. I am not sure why, but it certainly tests the patience. The other boy on the web team has this fantastic personality in the sense that I have never run into anything like it. He isn’t really disagreeable, but he isn’t able to answer a question clearly. For example I asked him to tell me about certain aspects of the website and he went on and on about last year’s redesign. Okay, reword questions asking him what he thought the team wanted to accomplish this year – more about what they had changed last year. At this point I am assuming that nothing has been done this year, so there isn’t anything to say. So, I asked him to prepare a breakdown of duties. This was a HUGE struggle and what I finally received from him was less than acceptable. FIND WALL. BANG HEAD.

As for the advertising team, I think we sort of have a plan going and a scheduled time to meet. This is a good thing and will help get them organized. They all complained that their lack of communication was hurting the ad sales, so I am hoping that they can get into a routine and that a few of the projects I assigned will help them.