I Got to Teach Today!!!

So, for the first week at the elementary school, I got to simply observe, and occasionally write something on the white board and correct a math paper or thirty. Although I really appreciated the opportunity to observe, I have been really anxious to take on a little bit of teaching. I found it somewhat difficult to go from feeling as though I practically had my own classroom at the middle school to being nearly a stranger at the elementary school. Things have changed quickly, however, as I get about four notes a day about how I am now "best friends forever" and "best student teacher ever" from my students. I smile and keep all of the in a special box.

Today, however, I did get to teach. I was not prepared to teach reading, (ISAT testing held my lead teacher over), and was rather intimidated by the thought, having only seen it modeled once, but I just asked the kids what to do and they walked me through every step of Open Court Reading. What made me the happiest was that I could speak at a regular indoor voice, (or even softer), and the students remained attentive and followed along and participated throughout the entire lesson.

Even later in the day I was also taken by surprised when I was asked to take the larger group of students into another classroom to teach the first lesson of a novel unit I had neither seen nor read. (I knew we were starting a novel unit, but I did not realize it would be today)! No worries, though. I winged the lesson the best I could, feeling that overall things went really well, for which I was truly and extremely grateful since my supervising professor happened to show up. Every teacher needs to be able to exhibit a fine amount of flexibility...She told me...Followed by a good job. I was relieved.