Student Teacher Visit

For my Student Teacher Visit, I decided to pop over to Elizabethtown High School to see my Cohort bestie, Mr. Thomas Gabel. My main drivers in wanting to observe Mr. Gabel teach were that I wanted to see his teaching style, how he and his CT ran after school practices, and how a program in the same area as Manheim Central was different. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this visit and enjoyed my time with Elizabethtown FFA, especially telling Mr. Gabel's students we were engaged.

    Prior to this experience I had only ever seen Mr. Gabel facilitate workshops for various events. Given Gabel is probably one of the best facilitators in our cohort, I wanted to see how this teaching style compared with his classroom teaching style. Honestly, I was really blown away by how different these two types of teaching were for Gabel. Before, when I saw Gabel facilitating he was theatrical and a ball full of energy whereas in the classroom, he was super chill and relaxed with his students. His students fed off of this energy and seemed comfortable in the space and with Mr. Gabel. Ultimately, I think this showed how well Gabel knows his audience and his setting. With a workshop, you don't have a relationship with the students and have limited time to teach what you need to. Being full of energy and grabbing attention is vital to make the workshop effective. Alternatively, in the classroom we have developed relationships with students and tend to match their energy. Overall, Gabel's adaptive teaching style helped him connect with his students and create a positive teaching environment.

Something I really want to tip my hat off to was Gabel's Coaching of his Parliamentary Procedure team after school. Parli Pro isn't always the easiest ting, especially for brand new high schoolers. I stayed for one of their afterschool practices and quickly realized how much time and effort Mr. Gabel had been putting into this team of students. Especially, after a long day of teaching, staying positive AND productive through a practice can be tough. Mr. Gabel stayed closely focused on his students and was extremely encouraging to them. Further, he kept them on task when they started to get silly and goofy with practice. While practice was fun and exciting Gabel was still able to maintain that sense of "we have business to do here", which has untimely led to a successful team.