hey!! so it's the weekend and i finally get to blogging about teaching...be forewarned, excessive amounts of information are about to be placed here...if you are interested in my obscure teaching life, read on, otherwise this may be one for you to skip.. =)

10.14.03
it was a tuesday...my 5th period is studying the cell organelles. and i am going to teach them.

if you know me at all, you know i'm the mother of all worriers...i want everything to go just as planned, just perfect but in life there are rare occasions where such perfection is seen, especially in a classroom. the nite before i was up all nite, preparing for 5th period to teach by myself for the first time ever...and also preparing my lesson for methods class to present to them...so in a sense, i taught twice that day [although methods seems less intimidating]. i was nervous as 5th period narrowed in on me, and strange things happened that day as well. I came 3rd period (where they reviewed for the test) and then i observed 4th period to help prepare me for 5th...during lunch, a student came up to me and told me that i was the prettiest teacher he's ever had...and he kept coming up to me to talk to me or perhaps just to stand near me...good gracious, i hope he did not come up to get a sniff of my shampoo or something. hehe..so anyways, as that sort of freaked me out and my teacher [who didn't really hear the comments that were made but saw the student near me] told me the student had a crush on me and for me to "watch out" - whatever that may mean. so that may have thrown me off a little...

5th period began...and my teacher is awesome. it's edification time!! he talked to the class prior to me teaching and explained the student teacher process and all that...so the kids could understand where i came from...so he turned it over to ms. nguyen and they started clapping a little...hehe. and then i started...i began by asking how many people did not like to speak in front of the class, and most raised their hands...and then i told them that i felt the same way...or at least used to. but i want to be a teacher, so i need to speak in front of the class...and that since it was my first time, i had a bunch of butterflies...and this is when i instituted the jar of fear [a tiny glass jar] when i held it up, no one seemed to think much of it...but when i told them that it had each of their names in it, they freaked. when i review, i will use the jar of fear to call on people and the person i call will answer my question...so the jar was opened and we reviewed cell theory and microscopes. then i started into the cell types, some cell organelles and reviewed a little on cell membrane and proteins. as i taught, i had this cool powerpoint on cells...but my computer froze...and in the middle of lecturing, the principal comes on the loud speaker and says there is an emergency, mandatory staff meeting after school...so yeah, the day obviously had its obstacles. at the end of the period, my stomach felt worse than at the beginning...maybe because i thought my "performance" wasn't so great...my teacher had a lot of great comments for me and a few things for me to improve on, but overall he said i did very well...so that is great to hear, but being my own worst critic, i didn't feel so confident about it all...but now i guess i feel better about it and i'm not so nervous at the thought of teaching them again...so all in all, it went better than anticipated...oh, and that teacher meeting...turns out someone has bacterial meningitis and the school sent home letters to every student saying just that...there's no better way to start a frenzy i think..hehe. oh well, i think the school is ok and no one should feel endangered...but it was pretty cool to talk about what meningitis is to the classes...

10.16.03
on this day, my other teacher had a substitute...so for 3rd period, i talked to them about how they think they did on their tests...most thought they failed, and it turned out that this is true...sadly. i also talked to them about how many of them studied, and none of them really did...and then i started talking about how i would begin teaching and they got excited about that, but that in exchange for me working hard and trying to make the material interesting for them to learn, they must pay attention and do their work...they agreed, but i don't know how whole heartedly this was done...they seem to think i will be immensely better than the teacher now...but we shall see.

for 6th period, the life science kids had a test the next day and the teacher asked me to do the review. and i did...the kids worked together on it, and with about 20 minutes left, i went over the entire review with them...and it was good and bad. i had to project my voice about 3 times louder than normal because they are a big class with lots of special ed kids, so it's hard for me to have control over the class...but for the most part, they paid attention, took notes and were relatively quiet...more than usual anyway. when i go to school tomorrow, i will find out how well they did or did not do...i just hope for the love of science that some passed.


despite all of the unknown, the thought of missing school kills me...i love being there, despite the odd school boy crushes, the butterflies, the punk sarcasm, the lack of interest in science and the thug-like mentality of some, in addition to none of them really, truly liking school...but none of that matters. i still love it...and that might be the ultimate test of it all...hooray for the odd, funny & lazy high school kids. =)