Monday July 23^rd 2012                                        

Day Eleven at Mountain Creek State High School

Today had bits of good and bad in it. Throughout my first two sessions I did not do much. However my year 12 REC students were more engaged in the end activity and we all started to talk with each other. I have some of these same students in my aerobics class, and it is really interesting to see how different they are when in a classroom setting. We had them draw a picture of a body and then write what short and long term effects of binge drinking has on the body and where on the body. This was a fun activity once they got into it. My teacher and I walked around and helped them brainstorm, but once they were started they had great imaginations. I loved the pictures so much I had them write their names on them and I took them home with me!! They were defiantly a bit more open and funny about drinking situations than I thought they would be. I think because drinking is more socially accepted here in Australia, it is known that people have drinks often. This class is mainly here to teach them to be safe. Rather than telling our students not to do this or that, we just teach them safe ways to handle them in case they ever are in those situations. I really enjoy the way my teacher handles the classroom and I am trying to pick up on here management strategies. During my session 3, I taught my first theory lesson up on my own (for the most part). My teacher sat in the back and she gave me the floor. It was a year 8 class and our term subject is ‘team sports and team tactics/skills’. I begin the lesson with a brainstorming activity on the white board. Something very embarrassing happened while I was writing all their ideas up. I spelled maybe 5 words wrong! My teacher was helping me spell them and everyone was giggling including me and my teacher. I am so happy and thankful this was my year 8 class otherwise I may have just died from embarrassment! The hardest thing I dealt with today was getting them quiet and staying quiet. They were so very chatty and I have a very difficult time deciding how to handle this in a classroom. I tried new strategies by calling on the students to get them more involved. But even after telling them to stop talking many times, they kept coming back to chatting. I think by the end they were starting to get the point that I was not going to talk over them because some students would start saying ‘shh’ to get the others to stop talking so I could continue. I hope that I can come off firm enough from the beginning so they know not to walk all over me. It really showed me how important it is to set the tone from the beginning. I hate being strict and I hate yelling at students. This is something I will struggle with for a while. I am eager to learn new ways to deal with these issues. After my great weekend seeing both mine and Melissa’s teachers outside of school, I felt so much more a part of the team when I arrived today. I know I have 7 weeks left, but I am already sad thinking about saying goodbye to these people I have growing so fond of.