Sunday, 19th, to Tuesday, 21st

Sunday, 19th August 2012

Today was awesome!! Late Saturday night, we decided that a trip to the Dandenongs would be in order today (Sunday). The weather was a tiny bit unfavorable; there was a touch of fog. We had a bit of a slow morning, though, and so by the time we made it up to 'Sky High', a cafe and function room, the sky had cleared up enough for me to get a pretty cool shot of the city from a pretty decent distance:

Although I would have preferred a bit more clarity, I was still pretty excited about the view from the lookout:)

At the top of the 'Mountain', there were several activities including; a cafe, a function room, a bush maze, a wishing tree (with a cool myth behind it), several other carvings/statues/art, as well as a variety of walking trails. I was ready to go on a photo hunt/hike, but everyone was pretty cold, so we piled back in the car to do some more exploring.

On our way back down the other side, we drove through a cute little tourist town called 'Olinda', which gave the definite feel of the main stretch of Leavenworth (people from Washington). Lots of adorable little shops, unique, varying, with a ridiculous number of tourists. The plan was to stop in Olinda for lunch and shopping, but after seeing three different tourist buses parked down the street, we decided to press on. 

We stopped in another little tourist spot called 'Sassafrass'. Same idea, although a few fewer shops, and a lot fewer tourists. After having an absolutely fabulous panini at a little cafe (with a hilarious waiter), we trotted off down the street to find some exciting and absolutely AWESOME shops.

Obviously, the one to which I am referring was one of the coolest toy shops I have ever seen in my life. Not only were there muppets decorating the shop from floor to wall to ceiling, but when I walked it Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog was playing. I almost melted it was so wonderful! Sam - I took a video of it for you:). Also throughout the shop were an incredible number of puzzles, games, and building things! I found a particularly cool item; a to scale replica of the trebuchet designed by Leonardo da Vinci. I know it works because I played with it for quite a while. heh. The shop also held TONS of wooden toys. Dolls, blocks, and many other things, but mostly it had wooden 'house' stuff. What I mean by this is miniature, wooden replicas of everything in a house, so children can play house effectively. Mixers, ovens, fridges, computers, AWESOMENESS. 

Why do I keep using that word? I do not think it means what I think it means....

Anyway. After Sassafrass, we headed home, so we would have time to wind down and relax a bit before I needed to head out to Netball.

Tor and Cathy picked me up plenty early (Blake!) and got to netty with twenty minutes to spare. However, we didn't have three of our key players (two of which are tall boys). We were unperturbed, and played like madmen anyway! Unfortunately, we were destroyed. Absolutely murdilated by the other team. Specifically, by the woman who played Goal Shooter and threw the ball like an extension of her own hand, and it ended up exactly where she wanted it every single time. The final score was 28-13 or something ridiculous like that. Relatively certain I stopped looking once we hit double digits because I was celebrating the little things (like making double digits).

Went home, finished my blog from the previous week, and went to bed.

Monday, 20th August, 2012

Monday was a pretty normal day:

Woke up exhausted. Dragged myself out of bed to the shower.

Ate. Dressed. Walked to school.

Taught some lessons, poked fun at Blake a bit, and came home.

Ate a delicious dinner, prepared for my lessons for Tuesday, and tried to go to bed early (but didn't).

Tuesday, 21st August, 2012

Wow. Today was quite a day. I had my first observation with my supervisor today, and I felt relatively prepared. Unfortunately, I didn't really know what to expect because 1) every supervisor is different and has different expectations and 2) my kids are a tiny bit unpredictable. Mostly 2. 

I had a pretty clear plan for the day, so when a schedule change came in four minutes before school started, I could easily switch around our schedule to match the change. 

To start off the day, I did a whole class lesson on editing and revising papers. My kids do tend to do a lot of writing, but there's not always a lot of time to publish the writing. This week for literacy rotations, we decided to allocate time for students to learn and practice editing, revising, and publishing their own work.

The lesson went pretty well, but do to the wide range of skills in my classroom, some students were finished in under five minutes, and others could complete it in ten. This presented a problem when I was beginning to do my whole group corrections, in which one student at a time came up and corrected a sentence on the board. While one or two students was up at the board, however, the rest of the students began to get distracted and lose focus/interest. After slowly trudging through the rest of the corrections, I set the students to work on revising some sentences; making them more interesting, more clear, or more specific. Some of the students absolutely took off with this idea; changing, embellishing and emphasizing parts of the sentences. Other students were unable to grasp the concept of 'better', 'clearer', or 'more interesting' words and word choice. However, for those students, I was happy with them making any changes to the sentences that maintained the meaning. Whew.

After finally catching on that the kids were almost all the way out of my grasp, I called a halt to work and had them sit on the floor for fruit time with their revised sentences. In my experience, revisions for the sake of revisions tend to get pretty silly, so I assumed that students would enjoy sharing their changes with the rest of the class while we all enjoyed some fruit/down time. 

I retrieved them, if only just enough to get them started in their literacy rotations, which is already planned, and only requires circulation throughout the room by the teachers and occasional help (aside from the focus group).

Then recess (whew, take a breath, drink a large mug of hot chocolate).

When the students came back from recess I began to introduce a new topic based on the unit we began yesterday. There needed to be a lot of student participation, but also paying specific attention to peers. I never have a problem getting student participation, but attention of the class as a whole was wandering faster than their eyes in a lolly shop. 

Unfortunately, I didn't handle it very well, and began to get frustrated. Because I still haven't spent a lot of time alone in the classroom, several students are still keen to find where my boundaries are discipline-wise. I was poked and prodded by kids sticking several toes out of line and then quickly pulling them back in and smiling. I was more frustrated, and the kids could tell. 

The absolutely worst part was that I could tell they could tell, and I knew I needed to stop reacting in order to stop them from pushing, but I just didn't do it well. 

Eventually we went outside for a break from the classroom monotony. This was going well until two boys began to pick on pretty much everyone. When I walked over to them, one ran and one walked away saying, 'I can't hear you'. I was absolutely furious. At this time, there were about 10 kids playing Octopus, two girls crying, two boys bullying and ignoring me, and everyone else watching how I handle the situation carefully. 

I sent everyone back inside. 

Although there was a bit of complaining, for the most part the students followed the aide back into the classroom. However, the two boys, now holed up together in the tube on the playground with sticks, refused to come. This is the kind of outright defiance that really ticks me off:

Me: Time to go back to class.

Student: No.

Me: Yep, everyone's going in because we're going to work on maths next.

Student: I'm not going, and you can't make me. 

The very worst part about this is that he's right. I can't make him. I really don't have the authority to and it's not my place to make judgements about discipline or contacting parents at this school. 

I realize now what I should have told him was, "You're right, I can't make you. It's up to you to figure out what the right choice is. You'll like the consequences to the right choice, but you won't like those of the wrong one."

Instead, I said, "Okay, then I'll go get someone who can."

Once I got the students back into the classroom, I asked Blake to go get the boys, which took all of two minutes.

Of all of this struggle, the part that stresses me out the most is that I had to go get help. I understand needing help to handle an entire class, but needing help in order to get two fourth grade boys off of the playground is something I wouldn't expect for me.

Later, when I was having a discussion with the class, Blake had to step in again. Reminding them that I am also a teacher, and that they should respect me just as they respect him. I am so grateful that Blake was there, because chances are, I would have been eaten alive. 

To me, however, the fact that a student teacher had to call in back up in order to get kids to listen tells me the student teacher isn't prepared for....well, anything. This is the real struggle I'm having right now. UGH. 

Thank god for Bob and Judy, though. Judy came to pick me up after school, and I had a calm, lovely, relaxing (except for the bit with Apple TV) evening with them eating dinner, chatting, and looking at photos. Thank you both so much! 

Tomorrow is a new day! I'll be firm, and keep them engaged. This is my goal for Wednesday. I can do it!

Thanks for listening to my self-pity! Talk to you all soon!

With Love,

Megan