Payday is always a good day, unless of course you don’t get paid. Thankfully my new job doesn’t exhibit the same tendencies I’ve become used to and we got paid bright and early this morning! It was nice to check my bank account at lunchtime and already see the deposit. Now the question is do I go shopping for some camera accessories, kitchen appliances, new clothes or buy plane tickets first? I think I’ll start by booking my flight to Vietnam!
In my last post I mentioned how awesome my new class is. That trend has continued! I also hinted at “missing a few walls;” well, that’s because I work in a 3-wall classroom (I’ll get some pictures up soon). Its reminiscent of my own elementary school experience but I find that it keeps 90% of my students more aware of how distracting they are and teaches them to focus with minor disturbances.
Of course, there are a select few that seem to always be spaced out. Then again they are children. Its hard to say whether the spacey ones are worse at English because they space out or if they space out because of their lack of comprehension but in my 4th week I definitely know who I’m going to have to work extra hard to engage. Today I did have my first intervention for an avid nose-picker helping the student realize how disgusting of a habit it was, especially since she’s eating her boogers in 4th grade!
At the end of the day there was some discipline that lead to even more drama. My co-teacher laid down the law with one student but when removing them from the room I was surprised to find a plethora of followers gawking at the situation. Needless to say the whole crowd lost about 10 minutes of playtime while I reminded them about our school motto C.A.R.E. (Choose Actions that Respect Everyone)
Regular meetings help keep me in the loop with everything happening around the school. I have weekly team meetings to discuss our plans for the following week and my two co-team leaders are always available as a resource. My program director is an amazing resource too and I am going to be sad to see him leave in a few months. Luckily I’m taking advantage of his knowledge now since we just sat down and discussed my future as an educator, something that I haven’t had the opportunity to really do since college! Everything about this school so far has been superb and it looks like although I may become busier, I’m confident the job itself will keep getting better!
Election Speeches with 4th, 5th & 6th grade sitting attentively
