Summer in Review

In beginning this blog, I couldn’t help but go re-read my first blog entry.  I figured reading  my first post might remind me of how I felt before summer training really started.  It only took reading the first paragraph of my post to realize how I’ve changed.  I was uneasy, nervous, and scared of this whole new Mississippi thing.  I was just recently graduated and my mind was still back in Davidson.  I was in college mourning, still desperately holding on to my past chapter, a chapter I didn’t want to give up.  Now, I’m more comfortable here in Mississippi.  I’ve got to know my fellow classmates, the town of Oxford, and most importantly, I’ve become acquainted with the Delta, my new home for the next two years.  I believe that summer training has been a crucial part of my outlook on my current situation.

Summer training gave me a routine here.  I’m very much a creature of habit and having structure in my life really helps me adjust.  Before I dive into my thoughts on summer training, I should say that when I think of summer training, I think of summer school up in Holly Springs.  Teaching at HSHS will always be the dominating memory for first year summer training.  I believe that summer school was hands down the most beneficial, most practical, and most rewarding aspect of this summer.  Of course there were many other peripheral aspects that rounded out summer training and added to it’s benefit, but none could add up to my experience at HSHS.  Summer school gave me a much more concrete idea of what life will be like in the fall.  I realize that it will still be drastically different no matter what, but HSHS was the closest thing we could get and the best way to prepare us.

Part of the prompt for this entry asked us how we feel.  Right now I feel fine, but don’t be fooled.  For the past weeks I sported two feelings - stress and exhaustion.  If one wasn’t dominating my life, the other was, and that was only when both of them weren’t already competing for the number one slot.  For the most part, those two feelings have gone away, but that’s because today we ended role plays and last Friday was the last day of summer school.  Never have I realized the work and effort a teacher puts forth.  It really is amazing, and one cannot fully understand until he or she puts on the shoes and walks around.  Regardless of whether I teacher for the next fifty years, I will always view teaching in a different way, and that’s only after one summer of diluted teaching.  

Looking back on the entirety of summer training, I have to say it was helpful.  I believe we are as prepared as we can be in this short period of time.  Nothing can fully prepare us for what’s to come in the fall, but I believe the work that those in charge of MTC did was beneficial.  It kind of freaks me out that the next time I’m in front of a classroom will be the first day of school.  To avoid me freaking out, I’m going to finish with that.

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Ms. K!

In keeping with my Delta pride and more importantly, my Blue Devil pride, I chose to read Ms. K’s blog.  She’s the only second year teaching at my school so I figured it would be an appropriate choice.  My first thoughts while reading posts so very familiar to the ones I just wrote centered on those seemingly expert second year teachers who, only one year ago, were in the exact same place as me.  It’s strange to think of them in this way.  To me, the second years seem like such grounded and experienced teachers.  They’re not just posing as teachers, they actually are teachers.  Reading Ms. K’s first blog entry about arriving in Memphis and heading south for the first time ever was so bizarre.  The only Ms. K I know is the one that calls Mississippi her home, not some foreign territory.  She’s established here, seemingly comfortable and happy, but the girl from the first entry was someone different - someone I never knew.  As I read on, many of her blog entries were on the same topics we had to write earlier this summer.  Once again, imagining her class in the same situation as my current class is just plain weird.  It’s almost like being a freshman in college again and thinking about what the seniors were like when they were in your shoes.  They have evolved so much from that moment.  Naturally, the next thought that crossed my mind was picturing myself a year from now, with me being that (dare I say it) experienced, wise, and established teacher (keeping my fingers crossed) and a whole new set of first years going through what I’m currently going through.

Even though many of our blog assignments were the same, it was nice to read another opinion or viewpoint, especially on the two books we had to read this summer (Delta Autumn and The Reluctant Disciplinarian).  There was one passage in Ms. K’s blog that made me bust out laughing, and I have to reference it here.  It was part of her feedback from watching herself on tape.  It reads as follows:  “I should have someone else tape for me, rather than tape from a table, because while I could always see myself, I could only see two of the four students, so as I'm watching the video, I'm not sure what the other two were doing most of the time.”  When I first read it, I thought I read it wrong, so I took a double take and realized no, she did say four children.  FOUR children.  Her summer school class was four children.  Four children.  And her complaint was that she couldn’t see the other two.  (Sorry if you’re reading Ms. K, I was just flabbergasted - I know you’re an outstanding teacher regardless!)  I believe my jaw dropped initially but quickly closed when laughter took over.  My summer school classroom consistently had about 30 kids in it as opposed to four.  I can’t get over that.  I’m thankful that our summer school experience was more realistic than theirs.  Four children...haha.

After reading Ms. K’s blog, I felt good.  It gave me hope for my future as a teacher.  I’ve seen Ms. K, and she’s good.  She’s real good.  But in the beginning, she was just another first year teacher, like everyone in my class.  It’s comforting to know she started in the same position as me.  All I have to say is thanks Ms. K, and see you in the fall!!!

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Part II - The Sequel

I guess the first video was so good that it demanded a sequel.  Or maybe I should call it a re-make? I’m totally kidding.  The second video was just as painful to watch as the first, even if I did do a better job.  Regardless of an obvious improvement, I’m still a first year teacher (really a fourth week teacher) and lesson perfection is far from my reach (if ever even attainable).  There was one part of my lesson where I called on a student to read something on the overhead.  He refused, and I let him get away with it.  I even had a role play that addressed this situation, and I didn’t do anything to reprimand him.  When the moment appeared on the video, I wanted to jump into the computer and shake myself.  DO SOMETHING MR. PREACHER!!!  The most common word in summer school is consequence.  I should have thrown a choice in his face with a nice juicy consequence on one end.  Anyway, that part was not fun to watch.  Other than that I noticed some improvements.  My confidence was much better.  I appeared calm and not as nervous as before.  On the other hand, my energy and enthusiasm for this lesson wasn’t the same as the first lesson I recorded.  That might be the difference between a first period lesson and a fourth period one (on a Monday too).  My movement in the second recording was much better as well.  There was one point when I walked to the back of the room and planted myself in the corner.  I looked confident and in charge of my classroom.  I liked that.  I had more students help me do random things like passing out worksheets, but I still erased the board and tore down one of my activities myself.  It would have been nice to assign a student to do it, but I was up at the board already so I figured I’d just do it myself.  In my second recorded lesson, I spent too much time on guided practice which resulted in not enough time for them to adequately do independent practice.  There was one activity that, in retrospect, I should have completely cut out.  It wasn’t really that beneficial and it just wasted time.  As much as this whole recording ourselves and watching it sucked, it was beneficial, and I’m glad we did it.  One of the more painful activities will be re-watching these videos a year or two years from now.  I hope I can handle it.  The horror might be too great.

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And the Oscar goes to....not me.

I was definitely dreading this blog.  I remember the day I taught the lesson I recorded.  At the end of the period I walked back to my computer, stopped the recording , and thought to myself, “I really don’t want to watch that later.”  Anyway, I just finished the video, and I survived.  I survived watching myself, and I survived the lesson that I taught.  It’s definitely a weird feeling to watch yourself teach and view it from a perspective other than just your eyes.  The lesson I recorded was my phrases and clauses lesson where I tried to be as enthusiastic about the topic as I could, hoping that some of my enthusiasm would transfer to my students.  It seemed to work to some extent.  I wish the video could have captured the entire classroom and the microphone would have picked up the noises of the classroom better.  As I was watching, I began to write what became a long list of comments on how I was doing.  I wrote down the good and the bad.  For example, I noticed that in the beginning of the lesson, I pace back in forth in front of the classroom.  It’s a clear mark of my nervousness.  I always going into the lesson somewhat nervous.  Sometimes it goes away during the bellringer and sometimes it sticks around until the students begin working on their own.  I’m not quite sure what the secret is to make it go away early on, but having a well planned lesson always helps.  My phrases and clauses lesson was well planned (I think) so by the notes, I feel like my nerves stopped being so obvious.  I was a little iffy between my set and the notes.  I passed out all the worksheets myself which I now know is just a bad idea (at least for our class).  I always have a student do it now.  I also erased the board myself which I usually don’t do.  Why do that stuff when the students are there to do it for you?  One thing I noticed I do way more than I thought I did was raise my own hand when I want them too.  It’s like a nice visual reminder that I want to see hands and not mouths.  At the same time I throw my hands up in the air more than I thought.  That might be specific to this lesson, but I’m going to keep that in mind for future lessons.  I move my hands more than I think I should.  It’s sort of distracting, but maybe it’s part of my nervousness shining through.  This blog assignment was not the most fun.  As I said before, watching yourself teach is not fun.  I found my gut tensing up, especially at certain parts I remember going badly.  Its like watching a scary movie the second time around and you know something’s about to happen but you don’t know exactly when.  But whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  And tomorrow is the 4th of July...which is awesome. 

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