Behind the Scenes Work of Teaching

 Week 2

Though this week ended up being a short one, I still have a lot of interesting take-aways and things to reflect on. Monday, the district was closed to honor Martin Luther King Jr. day and Friday the building had to close due to air quality concerns. Additionally, this was finals week for students so they had half days Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Tuesday morning Mrs. Anderson had some car trouble and ended up being late to school. While obviously this wasn't ideal for her, it worked nicely for me because it allowed me to see how to effectively approach a minor "emergency" if I ever found myself in a similar situation. She basically called in coverage who took charge of the classroom until she arrived shortly after. My biggest take away here is how well behaved her students were during this time. Anderson has set clear boundaries in her class displayed through her students' respect and kindness towards the substitute. Students were calmly sitting at the desks going over the mornings tasks. When Anderson arrived, the students began their YQCA training (their final).

Mrs. Anderson and I also spent a good amount of time talking about boundaries between teachers and students on Monday. The conversation was sparked by a local teacher being under investigation for questionable messages sent with a student. Especially as a young teacher, its important for me to be cognitive of my relationships and actions around my students. Mrs. Anderson stressed the importance of being careful who has access to things like my phone number and social media. To put it clearly, she said the best way to protect myself and my students is to limit any unnecessary digital contacting. 

I think my favorite part of this week was being able to help grade some SAE projects from Mrs. Anderson's Introduction to Ag class. Grading these projects, I basically personally discussed the project with the student and looked for essential items. This was super exiting for me because I was interacting one on one with students/ learning more about them. While these students won't be "mine" semester, it was still really interesting to learn about their projects. While not every student had wonderful SAE, I was genuinely shocked at the quality and uniqueness some students presented. 

While I was pretty bummed school was cancelled Friday, I am excited for the semester to start Monday morning with a fresh group of students. 

One of my biggest challenges thus far...
becoming a morning person 

Funny Moments From This Week

• Mrs. Anderson had car trouble Tuesday morning so I had to go rescue her; only to get halfway there and her car decides to start
• The first day of the semester got pushed back because the school failed their air quality testing and canceled school
• I witnessed a student wrapped around another student's ankle being drug around