As I prepare to start teaching a seventh grade Language Arts class next week, I feel relatively calm and very excited. I must say my cooperating teacher has done a great job of preparing me and his willingness to lead me through any difficulties helps keep me from being too nervous. Also, I am very lucky to have a great group of students to teach.
Learning to balance my time between teaching 3 sections of Social Studies and 1 section of Language Arts will be the most challenging. I seem to spend too much time when planning lessons-thinking about different ways of structuring class time and different types of resources I could use to convey the material. A very wise professor once told me that I should stop overthinking things and just write something down!
The second challenge to teaching at my cooperating school is the designed curriculum I must follow. I believe all Title I schools in this district follow the same curriculum. As with any program, it has it's faults. To begin, the curriculum is mandated and should be followed closely, however, the pacing guide is incomplete for this semester, so teachers are at a standstill, waiting for direction. Also, I am worried about students' performance on the upcoming State Assessments since the designed curriculum fails to include some key ideas students should know and those tests are just around the corner!
On the bright side, I get to plan a unit for a fun novel by Virginia Hamilton. The students already studied her book, "Anthony Burns" and now they are reading "The House of Dies Drear". It is a mixture of historical fiction and mystery all wrapped up in one. As a duel content Social Studies student teacher, the subject of this text-slavery and the underground railroad-interests me tremendously. Not to mention, the students are enjoying the book as well.
At this time next week, I'll be planning and teaching full-time! Sometimes I can't believe the time is here already. I'm sure the time will fly by and graduation will creep up on me like a stranger in the dark!
