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Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The woes of 5th grade

Actually, teaching fifth grade hasn't been that bad. It's been pretty exciting trying to piece together the parts of a partially written lesson plan. It's been fun to watch the kids humor you as you improv your way through said lesson. It's been nice to see all 30 students smiling at you as they're thinking, "This lady needs to get her s*#@ straight before she tries to teach us." My response? Don't worry kids, next week will be different.

So what are the "woes" you ask? The woes came when a little girl said, "The new boy is cursing under his breath. He says that he hates white people." I thought that I was going to vomit. My studies at the university did not prepare me to handle race issues. It taught me how to write a lesson plan and how to teach multi-cultural classrooms. Nothing in the text about bigotry and hatred.

Woe is me.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Good-bye 3rd grade, hello monsters

So it's been a while since I've had time to blog. Joe and I went to Florida for the holidays and both caught a horrible flu strain. We were immobile for what seemed like forever. Fortunately I had my mother to take care of me and poor Joe had to fly back to San Diego in the midst of his illness to pick the puppies up from the kennel. I came back a week later and started student teaching.

I had a portfolio that I needed to finish in order to graduate so I've been busy with that and planning curriculum for my little third graders. Teaching is very time-consuming.

Anyways, I finally finished my student teaching yesterday. Hooray! That means I have finished all the classes that I need to take to get my teaching credential. I can get paid now!! Woo hoo. Now the only thing that I must do is "clear" my credential with an advisor. That part should be painless. I think that I just have to meet with someone about something soon.

I start my long-term sub job this Monday for 5th grade. Their teacher is on maternity leave until June. She came in to an observation of me before Christmas break and she deemed me good enough to take over her class.

Her 5th grade kids are significantly larger than those of the 1st or 3rd kind. The 5th grade has developed senses. They can smell fear. I guess I just have to put on my tough guy attitude and hope that they don't see past my facade... beause that would suck.