I'm bad at keeping promises.

I said I would update last night, but I decided to see friends instead. I'm here now. Happy? I thought so.

Today I completed the second day at DMS. Yesterday was fabulous. I could hardly contain my jubilant self as I left the school. I called everyone I knew and told them how the students were wonderful, my CT is hilarious, and the school is so simple and small.

Today I'm a less jubilant and more...defeated.

Honestly, I have had all these expectations of what student teaching would be. It was going to be hands-on and a professional learning opportunity. I was going to make great friends with my CT and get so much experience. I imagined I would develop relationships with my students and they would be so sad when I left. Today I got frustrated.

UNA requires us to do 201 observation hours before we graduate (not including student teaching), so obviously I am really over the observing thing. I'm ready to get involved with the students! So naturally, when my teacher just told me to observe today, I was ready to scream. It makes the day pass so slowly when all I'm doing is sitting in a chair. I have nothing to do during the day.

I am sure it will get better, I mean, it has to. I'm just down about it right now. I'm ready to get the ball rolling!

The bright side is that there's no where but up!! :)

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming." -- Goethe

New Year's Resolutions don't work out so well.

I know I said I would be updating more about my experiences and my own research done outside of the classroom. My busy schedule has not permitted me to be able to do that. I do have some updates, though.

I am no longer at Florence High School/Middle/Freshman Center. Tomorrow I will begin a new internship at Deshler Middle School. The positives of this is that it is only English, it is only six classes, and I have a planning period! The negatives are that I had to leave all the students and my CT that I have gotten to know at FHS and it is sooooo faaaaaaaaar awaaaaaay. I will go from driving less than ten minutes to about 20-30 minutes (depending on traffic). I have been told that I will absolutely love it, though.

I have to say I am really looking forward to it. I think the schedule will be much easier and I will be able to get acclimated much easier.

I will update tomorrow (I PROMISE) with how I feel about my new placement.
Prayers are appreciated. :)

One week and counting!

One week from today I will begin my student teaching at Florence High School, and this Friday I will be meeting my teacher and getting some textbooks. I am so nervous and excited! The butterflies in my stomach are going crazy at just the thought! I just can't believe it's already here!

In the meantime, I have been looking online for different lessons or units to help me LEARN theatre information. I found one unit on set design (one of the classes I will be teaching). It seems pretty neat. There are a lot of terms I am not familiar with, though. I am hoping the textbooks I receive will help out with that in an easier way. I've tried looking up a lot of them, but I keep getting distracted.

Also, one of the pages I like on Facebook is a page called Scholastic Teachers. I like this page because they post a lot of questions that either they ask or members ask. There are usually so many people to answer that it gives a lot of insight and ideas. This page also helped me find two other pages: Secondary Solutions and Hunger Games Trilogy Teaching Resources. Both of these pages have so many other helpful teaching resources. Who knew Facebook could be so useful to teachers?!

After browsing some of these pages, I came across this lesson:
J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday

I love the idea of playing up author's birthdays, especially someone like J.R.R. Tolkien. I also like incorporating the film and the text of The Lord of the Rings, and then taking it back to whatever the class was reading beforehand. I think it helps to break up the monotony of the same thing every day. What do you think about this lesson? I think I'm a little in love with it currently because I'm reading The Hobbit. :)

Lastly, I want to end with a quote for every post. Feel free to comment about the quote or anything in the blog. I'd love to have followers and people to talk back about what I post. Hopefully I'll have some meatier posts as I get into student teaching!

"It is not what is poured into a student that counts but what is planted." -Linda Conway

First Post [and last post] of 2011

It is approximately 8 o'clock New Year's Eve night. I have spent these past few hours working on this blog and debating what I wanted to post first. I thought I would post my goals for this blog.

In 11 days, I will begin student teaching at Florence High School. I will be teaching with Mrs. Dalrymple at Florence High School. I will have eight classes consisting of the following: English 12, Explorations in Theatre, 7th & 8th grade theatre, 9th grade theatre, Theatre III/IV, and Set Design. It is a full schedule to say the least. Did I mention that I have very limited experience with theatre?

This blog is meant to document my experiences as a student [and aspiring] teacher. This next semester holds a lot of learning opportunities for me and I want to capture as many of them as I can. I would like to be able to see where I was before I began and where I will be in May.

I would also like to use this as a chance to share some of what I learn outside of the classroom. I frequently view videos, links, lesson plans, and articles that I would like to discuss, but no one on Facebook cares very much. :) This will be my place of doing so.

I will share this on Facebook, but not until I get it going. I would like to update every day or every other day. That is one of my resolutions for 2012: get better at updating my blog. Let's see how long I'll stick with it. :)

I am pleased to begin this. I am ecstatic [and terrified] to begin student-teaching, but I looking forward to the next semester in the front of the classroom.