Tuesday July 24^th 2012

Day Twelve at Mountain Creek State High School

Each day I come to school I am more comfortable. Today I managed to get from the resource center back to my classroom, which for me was a big deal. All the buildings look exactly the same so unless you really know the school it is hard to differentiate where things are. I am getting to a point where a lot of my classes have or will be getting their term assessments handed out. Here at my school there is a huge emphasize on holding the students accountable. The assessments are all very hands on and group projects. The only thing that is negative about this way of assessments is that I will be teaching less due to class time being obligated to assessment work time. The more I look back, I am now really happy with myself and the fact that I jumped in quick, I want to get as much experience as possible. My students seem to be more receptive when in practice rather than theory. But it reminds me how important this career path is. If I can get to their minds through movement and teach them things that are worthy in practice, hopefully they will take these lessons with them forever. I will be doing more classroom teaching next week which is intimidating and exciting all in one. I love getting feedback from my teacher. She told me that the main thing I need to work on is controlling the class from the beginning. If I can get them to come in and recognize that I am the boss, that it is my classroom, then they will be more respectful when I need them to listen up. I am defiantly going to try new behavior management skills for next week. My students have been really interested in me, which has helped in the fitting in process. Because they are older, there is that fine line of being too comfortable with each other. I believe I need to remind myself often these are not my friends; they are students who need to respect me. I am still working on that part!