Letter to Myself

Dear Scott,

Here is the deal, you are about to learn a lot over the next few months. The first thing you should know is that you are not nearly as prepared for all of this as you might think that you are. I strongly suggest that you take a good amount of time to really sit down with the books that you will be teaching and delve into them thoroughly. This isn’t to say that I didn’t read them or anything, but genuinely look at the stories and really develop where you want you units to go as you read.

Next, develop your lesson calendar as completely as possible as early as possible. I did so for our freshman and it made the semester go by much more smoothly, even though some things changed as the semester went forward (know that this is going to happen frequently and that it is ok when it does). For the seniors, however, I kind of developed the lesson a bit more on the fly. While this has worked out just fine, it has resulted in some very stressful evenings.

Another warning that I have for you is that your students are not going to ask you what homework they are missing or what their grades are until you near the end of the semester. This is crunch time for them and they’re ready to see what all they need to do to pass your class. Don’t wait for them to begin asking. Stay on top of your grading as best as possible and hand out progress reports whenever you get the chance to do so. I have been doing this more and more lately and it seems like most of my students are starting to be more cognizant of where they stand and are starting to buckle down and get a lot accomplished. While this is great, just make sure to do it all semester, as opposed to the last half of the semester. With that, make sure that when you do hand out progress reports, you are ready for the onslaught of students coming at you for make up assignments. Have handouts printed out and ready to go on these days (this has been my biggest problem all semester, don’t let it be yours).

Lastly, and related back to some of the first advice that I gave to you in this letter. Make sure that you have a point for each of the lessons that you teach. Allow your lessons to come together in a culminating activity, project, essay, test, whatever you decide for it to be, that genuinely makes sense when related back to the topics that you have discussed. These discussions that you do with your students are going to go great, but allow them to mean something for them. Allow those great discussions to be more than filler. There is a lot of great stuff there, I’m fairly pleased with where it is ending up right now, but let it happen for you.

Scott, just make sure that you enjoy yourself and are relaxed as possible out there. You are going to get along just fine with most of your students and, if you treat them with the respect that they deserve, they are going to love you. Don’t let that opportunity pass you by, as the more they like you, the harder they are going to work for you. Let it happen.

Sincerely,

Scott

A Classroom to Myself

Over the course of this semester, one of the things that I have found most interesting is how much the dynamics of the classroom change whenever my CT leaves the room. Now, I want to preface where I am going with this by saying that I respect my CT very much and I am incredibly grateful for everything that she has done for me over the course of this semester. That being said, I absolutely love the days that she has to be away or step out of the room for one thing or another. It is amazing the amount more relaxed I become when I have the classroom all to myself. I feel like I become less self-conscious of what I am doing, and become more conscious of what the class is doing. This week was one of those weeks.

Due to her involvement in AVID, my CT frequently has to take a day or two every now and again to travel for meetings around the country. This past week she was away for two days: Wednesday and Thursday. The first day I spent with my seniors and the second was spent with the freshman. With my seniors, we are reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  The instruction format that I have taken on for most of my lessons with this book has been very much like that of a college classroom: a bit of reading, a bit of writing and a lot of discussing. This day was largely discussion based. With my CT out of the room, I felt as though this discussion came along incredibly naturally. I wasn’t focusing so hard on what types of questions I needed to ask, I simply asked questions and really spent the hour talking to my students about the book. It was great! They were incredibly responsive, had done their reading and we were able to have a genuine, relaxed discussion about the book.

The next day was spent with the freshman that I have been working with. Now, this is the class that I have been with since pre-student teaching, so we are already fairly comfortable around each other whether my CT is in the room or not, but this day was especially relaxed. The students have started working on their last project for the book that we are reading, so most of the class was spent answering questions about what was expected of them. They are going to be making a soundtrack for the book (I will post the outline and project on the wiki later this week so you all can see more clearly what we are doing), and one of the students had a question regarding an extra credit portion I put on there for creativity. Somehow we got on the topic of something Taylor Swift does in her album and I jokingly professed my love for her body of work. All of the students thought I was dead serious and when I broke it to them that I was not, one of the students lost it so much that she was crying. Possibly my biggest accomplishment of the semester.

Again, this is not a knock on my CT. Being able to receive her feedback on my lessons is incredibly beneficial. Sometimes, though, it’s nice just to have the classroom to myself.

Nearing the End

I'm going to do my best to balance my level of gratitude and frustration in this post. As we begin to approach the end of the year, there has been a shift in the classroom that, for some reason, I had not done a great job of anticipating. The light switch seemed to go off in a sense. We are all getting tired and can all see summer just around the corner. Driving home instruction, especially for seniors who are ready to move forward with the rest of their lives, can be like pulling teeth on some days. I don’t know why I didn’t anticipate it because I have certainly been in the same position almost every year for the last seventeen years of my life.

We all feel this way at one point or another, no matter how much we may have enjoyed the school year as a whole. What is more, is that we are also, technically speaking, seniors ourselves. We want to get through this semester so that we can start with the next chapter of our lives just as much as these students do. Plans are beginning to fall into place for man and we are starting to have some sort of idea of what we will be doing just a few short months from now. It is exciting, but it is also difficult not to let it distract us from where we are right now.

All of this being said, I am incredibly appreciative of those students who do continue to show up to class and who do continue to put in a ton of hard work. They are the ones who continue keeping me in check and realize that I still have a lot to work for this year. It’s not over yet. We may be a month out, but they understand that we still have a lot of work to put in. It is exciting to see those students who have struggled throughout most of the year find a sense of urgency to get caught up with their work and stay focused in class.

On a somewhat related note, I had the honor of writing my first letter of recommendation for one of my students this past week. She needed somebody who was not technically one of her teachers and could function as a reference from an outside community member. And she chose me to write it for her. Now it would have been nice if I had more than two days notice, but I’m not going to complain too much about that. It was a real honor to be able to recommend a student for a scholarship, especially one who is as deserving as she is.

I suppose the point of this blog post is to just let you all know that if you’re feeling the end of the year weighing upon you, you aren’t alone. But we need to get through it on a strong note. The stronger we are getting through the year, the stronger our students are going to be as well.