Reflection Five

Week Five Reflection
Leigha Tracey – BSU Student Intern
For the week of September 16-20

Participation/Observation (20)

This week is ISTEP and Terra Nova testing at Clay Jr. High School. We had an amended schedule for a majority of the week. I felt that it was interesting to see the amount of planning that goes into standardized testing. The kids seemed more annoyed and bored than stressed. It was obvious that some students, most likely those that suffer from test anxiety, looked frightened and anxious. Others merely filled in the answer sheets and stared into space. The school as a whole was sort of chaotic, but everything ran smoothly. The schedule was a bit hard to understand or get used to, but there were no major problems. The funniest thing was lunch. The lunch periods were staggered, so some students had 50 minutes for lunch, while others had 25. The “cafetorium” and the gym were packed with students. It was fun doing lunch duty and watching all of the mini-drama’s occur.

I spoke to Mark during my review about relationships with school colleagues. This is something I am wary of for many reasons. I know my reasons for keeping my distance for the time being as I am an intern and as I see it, a guest. I wonder how I will effectively cultivate relationships with fellow teachers in the future. This is something I will have to carefully consider. In the short time I have been exposed to public school teachers and administrators (aside from my mentor teacher – LUCKILY) in my university classes, meetings and lectures – I find them to be a hostile and negative group. I do not want my enthusiasm poisoned by the negativity. I do believe that the profession has a legitimate complaint, but I feel that action and positive solutions are in order. I also know myself and my inability to sit back and not try to solve problems could be problematic. So, I am meditating on how to keep my distance and still participate.


Teaching (15)

Teaching this week was limited due to the testing. I was a substitute for a science class for two days. I enjoy substitute teaching. In addition, I worked with our class on their projects and returned graded projects. Next week I will be taking over the newspaper class, so I did a lot of lesson planning this week. I plan to introduce the students to a concept called “maestro.” It is a newer concept in the field of journalism and I would like to see how the students do with learning, implementing and interpreting the maestro concept. The concept develops leadership skills, critical thinking, transference, peer learning, and creativity.

Notes

• My five-week review went very well. I did get some valuable feedback on what was going well and things I needed to work on. I am feeling encouraged.
• I am noticing, especially during lunch duty this week, that kids (in general) smell. I don’t know if it is feet, funk, lack of deodorant, puberty, GAS…. they just smell.
• I have Mark to give/model some techniques for giving directions. I know that it is unrealistic to expect that students will understand all directives all of the time, but I am hoping to increase the odds!
• Substituting is FUN.
• Standardized testing is hard on the kids. I remember it being bad and I see that hasn’t changed.
• I have been working on my professional reading log and completed two more tasks off of my intern experience log list.