It was such a long week, and a ton of things happened. Since I haven’t written since Monday, I’m basically just going to list some of the things that happened and reflect on them at the end.
Actually, now that I’m trying to write, the whole week is such a blur, that I don’t really think I can go day by day. I actually could delete all of this, but I think this incoherence demonstrates the state of mind I’m in as well as how much happens in one week. Let me just list some things that happened:
• On Wednesday, a student was not doing her work in class, and I told her that she needed to get back to work. She then remarked that class was over. “No,” I replied, “Class ends at 3:15, and it’s only 3:00. You need to get back to work.” Her response: “You ain’t the teacher. You’re just the assistant teacher. The assistant. Now What?!” I went into the hallway and told a hall monitor to take her out of my classroom. That was that.
• Also on Wednesday, I got to meet with parents of two of my students. Both meetings went really well. One of the parents was from a student in my social skills class. After talking, I suggested that it might be helpful if she comes and actually sits in the classroom during the next class period. She said that she could make it Monday—I’m looking forward to that.
• Also on Wednesday, I had a meeting with my TFA Program Director. As always, it was quite helpful, and we went over some of the things I need to be working on and prioritizing. Mainly, I am going to work on ensuring that my students in my inclusion classes are not getting left behind and that I am tracking their data and using it to make informed decisions.
• Thursday was particularly crazy. We had a meeting scheduled during the day for the Special Education department. The district is really coming down hard on our folders for our students (basically, the collection of legal documents that catalog important things regarding our students’ disability, the evaluation of those disabilities, and the education plans for them). Needless to say, we were told that we have to focus on this for the next week. I really need to finish a reading diagnostic in my class on Monday, so I got permission to go to that one period. Other than that, I will be doing legal paperwork for the next week while at school.
• After school, I spent time at the TFA office tracking data and meeting with my PD, who had observed my class that day. The meeting was useful, and we discussed how I could better integrate social skills and literacy into my social skills class. I’m really excited about that class.
• I was tracking my data for my math 1 inclusion test, and the numbers were looking weird. Therefore, I stopped after a while in order to wait to ask my co-teacher today. Sure enough, I had been working with the wrong test. FML. The good news: I have the correct test now, and I don’t think it should take me too long since I’ve already kind of gone through the process and have a system for myself.
• Today: I did paperwork all day. I have Pandora on my phone, so we listened to my Jackson 5 radio station for a good part of the day. After my phone battery went down too much, another teacher turned on his iTunes. A different teacher brought donuts for everybody (Krispy Kreme!). After fumbling through how to look through the folders, I started to get a lot more efficient towards the end of the day. I will be seeing the folders a lot throughout the year, so I’m happy to see that I’m getting better at working with them.
I think that’s mostly it. There were ups and downs as always. Some of the students who I’ve had problems with are starting to warm up to me. I think the positive system is working more and more. I think the tickets worked especially well for the students when they were actually able to turn them in for things; therefore, I think the concept of the tickets will be less abstract for them in the future.
As I said, I started tracking my data this week—it does not look too good. The good news, however, is that the data will help me to pinpoint the things that I need to do better. I am still optimistic that it will be a great year. Although I am not excited about how effective I have been so far, I am excited about how effective I can become by learning from my mistakes and continuing to work hard and more efficiently.
In other news, I am the co-faculty advisor for the new mock trial team at my school. We had our first meeting this week. I’m really looking forward to it and will talk more about it as it gets underway.
So yeah, the week was quite busy. There were some tough things, but I had plenty of moments when I realized how much I love being able to work with these students. Both exciting and challenging, these kids give me a definitive reason to get out of bed each morning.
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