Student Teacher's Log Blog: Unclog the Toilet!

Over the past 3 weeks I've learned a lot about teaching, and a lot about grade 7s. I'm having an amazing experience and learning some valuable skills through trial and error. This blog will help prepare you for grade 7s, and the challenges and rewards you will face.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

Unclog the Toilet!

The world is full of crap, lets clean it up!

Posted by Ms. Alstein at 06:55

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Ms. Alstein: I'm back to school to become a qualified teacher! I have a passion for teaching and hope that one day I'll have an impact on my students lives.

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So it goes...

I started off my practicum on my favourite day of the year, Halloween. I was a little nervous about this since I take Halloween very seriously and think about my costume 365 days of the year. Fortunately I have been placed at an art school where Halloween is a very big deal for them as well. My first day consisted of..a dramatic reading of "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe, where I jumped out with a mask on at the end of the story and scared the Bejeezus out of the kids! BAH HA I love it! THEN...it gets even better...we had a class party. One of the students was the DJ, another group "the party planners," and the rest brought food. We danced for a good 45 minutes until lunch. The best lesson I taught that day was how to do the moonwalk and the robot (believe it or not they considered this "cool" I think I found my inner age, 12). Following lunch the party branched out to the rest of the school, which includes 60 grade sevens. 60 grade eights, and 60 grade sixes. In total there were 120 students dancing in the gym all afternoon, with a hired DJ on stage. This school rocks.

Week 2

During week 2 I felt much more comfortable teaching. Grade 7s are unique, I feel like their brains develop at a different rate than their bodies. I can see the socializing/flirting going on while I speek. I mean, I can't blame the guys, they're noticing girls for the first time in a different way, and the ratio of girls to boys at this school is 5:1!! If I think back to my grade 7 experience, if I was at a school with a ratio of 5:1 boys to girls, the only number sense and numeration I would be interested in is phone numbers! However, these tweens are pretty well behaved, and I think I almost have their respect. It's challenging to try and be the perfect teacher in a month, it takes a while to get to know your students and the characteristics of their age group.

I taught a really cool art lesson on a mixed media piece. I was able to bring in my mixed media art to show them, and they loved it. It's ind of nice to go from showing my work to the hyper critical professors in my undergrad program at MAC, to highly approving group of students.
Their artwork was very successful, meeting all expectations, with aesthetic appeal and a high degree of creativity. They captured the "essence of nature," and wrote artist statements as a personal reflection tool, and a lesson on language.
If anyone would like my art lesson plans for their own DI lessons, I am more than willing to share.

Week 4

I can't believe it's over. I think I'm too sensitive to be a teacher. I'm already crying over the thought of leaving these kids. I have so much faith in them and I want to be there to see their finished projects, and their progress throughout the rest of the year. I love the school I'm at, and I'm learning so much about teaching during practicum. No offense OISE but our placements are the reality, this is where we really learn (although Caroline and Serge you guys do teach us some amazing stuff). I had a goal after my first week at practicum. I have one LD student that is to many people in the school "a challenge." I love a challenge, so I decided to make it my challenge to have him showing improvement in language arts. He's an amazing artist, a class clown (which, despite the fact that he disrupts the class, has forced me out of the classroom a couple times to hide my laughter), and a talented actor in drama. He struggles with writing. Maybe it's because I can relate to this, being a semi-talented artist and poor writer myself. Or, maybe it's because I have a passion for helping those who struggle. Whatever the reason may be, I've got a bee in my bonnet and I won't stop until it's out.
So I gave him a choice. He had a choice to stay for help after class to work on his biography on Helen Keller. He didn't show up several times, having an excuse every time when teachers told him he had to stay. Then I gave him the choice, expecting him to leave..and he stayed. Then he came back the next day..he asked his mom if he could get out of his after school task of picking up his brother because he wanted to work on his biography. This was a big leap. He didn't stay for long, but he stayed, and now I have to leave. This breaks my heart. I really wish I could stay and help him for the rest of the year, he's not "different" he just needs a bit of help. We all need help sometimes, and as cheesy as it may sound, he's really helped me as well.

Week 3

Week 3 was the best so far. I know all the students' names, know their strengths and weaknesses, and am becoming more emotionally attached. This is making me sad about the thought of leaving. I would love to work at a school like this one day, where are is incorporated into all the subjects. Even science is taught through the arts. I'm teaching an art class on surrealism, where they are keeping a dream journal, and making art based on two random words selected from a hat. I showed them a clip of one of my favourite surrealist films "Le Chien Andolou," for obvious reasons (if you know the film) I couldn't show them the whole thing. The fact that they loved the film and wanted to keep watching it made the lesson a success to me. The film is from 1929, and I would think it would be semi-boring for this age group, but they loved it. Their art is in preparation for their field trip to the AGO to see Chagall, I really wish I could be there with them to see their reactions to surrealist art, especially after the lesson I've taught them on surrealism.

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