Con pena de dejar mis clases.

Last week was my last week of teaching. My first thought I had about not teaching was " oh yeah ..." sort of feeling, but now that I'm actually in the back of my classroom, observing and helping only, I really miss teaching my little ones. My CT and I. we both have been sort of co-teaching, whenever she was not ready for the class, I jumped in to help her and it was very nice to be able to do it by myself. I'm still helping her with classes and evaluations, which also make me feel more productive here at Joyner.
It is funny to see my students to come into the classroom wondering who is going to teach the lesson today. They are always very curious of  how these swapping positions occur:)
Today, will be my last official day of teaching since I have a test to give to my 5th graders.  With this group, 5th grade, I have had really good experiences. Although they are very chatty and sociable, they are very respectful and love being in the Spanish class. 
In the other hand, I had my 4th grade class, which class was one of my biggest challenges while being at Joyner. However, things has got a lot better when I finally decided to listen what they wanted for the class. The problem was that they always refused to sit down on the carpet and that was an established ruled for them. A rule that was causing me so much trouble and headaches when I had them. One day, I let them go to the tables to sit down. The only requirement for the class was to be still and pay attention to my class.It seems it worked beautifully and my students' attitude toward the class changed dramatically since that day.So, something I learned last week was that listening carefully to you students is a great tool to improve not only your classroom's management, but also it helps to improve the quality of you teaching time as well. 


  

Wonderful times

What a great week!****Spring Break***:)

This week has been my spring break! Yes! I took a short break from school and it’s been really good. I feel like I am ready to go back to school and to give the best of me to my students.  This free time has allowed me to work on my portfolio, which is due soon. So, I can say that this last week has been very productive not only because it helped to recharge my batteries, but also it gave the extra time I needed to start working on my personal work.

April is an exciting month, because I’m almost culminating my student teaching phase which has brought me a lot of satisfaction and happiness. I am very happy for the things I accomplished during these last months at Joyner. I know this is not the end of my personal growth but the beginning of a long journey in education.

Now, after getting to know my CT deeper, I can say that she was and still is such great person not because she helped me when I most needed, but because she taught me that teaching is not about knowing all the answers. Teaching is not being in front of a classroom just to say whatever you want to. Teaching is a constant preparation full of joy and sadness as well. I learned that teaching is more than teaching students something, teaching is letting students find ways to succeed and become proactive in their own process of learning.

I know I heard myself saying about not getting a lot of feedback from my CT. The truth of the matter is that the feedback and support was always there and it was just me being used to get everything easy and fast so I can fix a problem, a problem that was my concern only. I got the feeling that I learned to listen and digest the feedback given. I learned that the only way to grow as a person is by learning from our own mistakes. It is ironic when I catch myself doing some reflection about a LP that went ok, but perhaps it’d have been even an excellent LP, if I could have done this instead of that. I call these reflection moments ironic because I remember when I was in school and I had to do my own reflections for a grade, I always felt that such reflections were a waste of time and energy. Let me tell that the time and the experiences I had obtained from my student teaching have opened my eyes to see the true meaning of what a reflection is.

Reflection to me means improving the quality of your teaching, techniques, approaches, even relationship with your students. Reflection is a tool that helps me grow as a professional and also as a person. It gives me peace and faith when I do my reflections about my teaching. Peace, because I know I’m trying the best I can to reach or improve something for my kids and faith because it makes me feel that I can really help my students’ learning development by modifying my LP to meet my students’ needs.

Experiencias..:)

Nuevas experiencies:

This was my unpredictable exciting week. To start, one of my 4th grade student felt so bad that I had to call the office and I ended up calling 991 paramedic’s stuff, to the principal assistant that my classroom got fully crowded in less than a blink of an eye.  Actually,   I was so thankful that my CT was next door because she came in right away and told me what the procedure is in such a case. I was actually not nervous but worried for the kid.  The situation was just a minor thing, but the moment was a little bit scary.

In addition to the previous incident, I also had to send another 3^rd grade student to the office for ice packets because she got a bruise from getting bumped into my document camera by playing with another student!  This incident happened when I was doing my second transition  and these two student sneaked into my stuff and were so curios about doc camera that one of then put her face down the light bulb while the other student accidentally move the camera towards her face and bumped it right above her eye. I saw it and I was speechless because I was about to call on them to get out my stuff when this incident happened right in front of me. I was really upset with these two girls because first of all, they knew that they were not supposed to be playing with the teacher’s stuff and secondly, there were not following my entrance procedures. So, after filling all the papers for the incident, again, I talked with my class and I did a review of all the rules and entrance procedures that they are supposed to follow when arriving into my classroom.

Definitely, I learned a lot about paperwork and procedures when these instances happen.

Finally, I have no complains  ;) about my classroom management. I think I’m improving the techniques of how to take control of the whole class. I’ve been reading a lot of articles and books to get tips of how to handle all these different behavior situations in class. I know I’m still an apprentice and I have long way to go, but I am very happy to feel that I’m becoming more and more capable to do this work.  Also, I’m very excited because I started hearing a lot of good feedbacks about me and my teaching at Joyner School.  I’m actually been invited to assist one of these teacher retreats; in which only some teachers get to go and be part of this event. I’m very excited because the Principal assistance has officially invited to go to this retreat. Estoy muy contenta !!:)

Okay, I have to go and work my plans for this coming week. Adiós

Hola!
I just finished reading these two articles about classroom management and teacher- burnout, and then I thought how wonderful would  also be for you guys to read this!
The second one has really good advices for students behavior.

http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2011/07/16/teacher-burnout/

http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2009/12/26/why-you-shouldnt-care-if-a-student-misbehaves/