Today marked the end of my first week as a real, live student teacher. While most of the week consisted of me observing, I did get to interact and work with the ELL (English Language Learners) quite a bit compared to my Language Arts classes. I am exhausted but somewhat fulfilled, in realizing that what I
thought God wanted me to do, seems in fact what He really me to do. I don't know if that makes any sense, but since Kindergarten, I always
thought that I wanted to be a teacher. From my first day in kindergarten to the day I graduated college, I said that
when I grow up, I want to be a teacher! However, you never know if that is truly what you're meant to do until you actually do it. Well this week I actually
did it, and I absolutely love it. While Middle Schoolers can be difficult, I have to remember how many crazy changes they are going through all at once. I also have to remember what I was like in Middle School and what I felt and then all the compassion in the world seems to just flow out of me for this age group. Especially working with the ELL kids. I truly believe that working with them is living out the gifts that God gave me, at least I like to think so. Working with them comes with such ease, I already know the names of all 30+ of them. They are crazy, funny, kind and loud all at the same time.
They acknowledge when I talk to them in Spanish, and they make fun of me when I don't know how to say something in Spanish. They work so hard trying to learn English and are just a joy to be around. I'm so happy to finally be teaching.
The Cons so far however....
- Apparently, today I looked pregnant. One of my 7th grade Latinas, Dulce, came up to me as she walked into 3rd period today and asked "Mrs. Hendrix, are you pregnant?!?!" in a very loud, and serious voice. A part of me wanted to cry and the other part just said, "NO! I'm not pregant thank you very much!", in as kind of a voice as possible...
- I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain prepositions to my 7th period, 6th grade ELL class today. I tried using doughnuts and clouds as visuals, all unsuccessfully. One Latino, made it very apparent that I wasn't teaching well, by expressing that opinon in front of the entire class...
- One student thought I was born in the 1970's (which makes me 30 something) while another thought I wasn't much older than a 7th grader...I just can't seem to win with them.
- I've had to work with 2 substitutes in the ELL classes this week as my CT was sick...both of them were a little crazy...nice, but crazy
- One boy in my 7th grade Language Arts class, walks into class on a daily basis now and calls me only Jimi Hendrix...who knows how I will try to convince him to call me by my actual name
That's all for now, I'm sure more "kids say the darndest things" moments will be blog worthy quite often as my student teaching adventure continues...
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