We finally made it. I am sad that my time at Thurston high School is coming to a close, for now, but am elated that I will soon be a “real teacher”, as some of my students have put it. I can’t believe how fast these tweve months have passed. I began the program feeling like i wanted to learn to teach math and get to know kids, and I now know that that is exatly what I wanted to do. My time at THS has been amazing. The staff there, my mentor teacher, and especially the kids have been awesome. I am happy to say that I feel like my student teaching experience this fall has far surpassed my expectations in every way. I have grown and developed so much over the past fifteen weeks that it is unbelievable. I can’t believe how comfortable I have gotten in front of students, my biggest fear coming in that I would not be able to do so. I truly wish I were simply a full time teacher at Thurston at this very moment, though I am sure being a sub for the remainder of the year will be a great experience. I look forward to beginning my career as an educator, especially the part where I get paid for it rather than having to pay for it:-)

This past week was great becuse of the buzz that was going around Thurston High School all week due to the success of the football team. They had made the state finals for the first time in school history, and the entire school was excited about the possibility of winning their first state title on Saturday at reser stadium. It was awesome to see all of the school spirit, of which my high school seriously lacked ten years ago. The community was in huge support, and the whole city of Springfield was rooting for the Colts. It was a lot of fun to be apart of, especially since many of my students were Varsity players. The sad part was, they ended up losing their only game of the season in that State Championship game yesterday. I felt horrible for the players, who I knew just played teir hearts out. It was exciting being apart of a winning program for once (I went to Springfield High School).

Last week I administered my first set of finals, and some of them were pretty brutal. It was a short week because of Thanksgiving and my birthday was on Monday, which was quite a pleasant day. Both of my classes took it upon themselves to remember my birthday and lead themselves through a Happy Birthday song for me. It was pretty cool and I might have even blushed. Monday was strictly a review day for the final exam, for both my Algebra and Algebra II class, and it really bothered me that many of my students didn’t take it seriously. For many of them, i.e. all of the freshmen in my Algebra I class, it was their first final exam ever and didn’t realize what kind of preparation was necessary. My Algebra II class was a bit of a different story. They had a typical distribution of grades for their final, again, which had to do with the fact that many of them understood the importance of STUDYING for a final. My Algebra I class bombed their final, as a class. The average score was a 63%, which kind of made me feel like I failed my students. My mentor teacher explained how common such a result is, especially on the first final in an Algebra I class. She made me feel a lot better. I ended up curving the final, with the thought that maybe it was a bit too hard as well. In the end, students performed in a similar manner they had throughout the term, in comparison with the rest of the class. Next time around, I want to have more Final prep than I did this time. I now realize how unfamiliar such a largely weighted test can be for many high school students.

This past we I have been having more trouble keeping my Algebra I class under control than normal, behaviorally. They are mostly freshmen, so their rowdiness is somewhat expected on a daily basis, but recently they have been worse than normal. I have developed some really good relationships with my students in that class, and for a few weeks I felt like things were going much better than they had started. My dilemma is that I think that because I have developed such good relationships with many of my students outside of mathematical content, that now when I ask them to behave and pay attention so the class can learn, many of my students aren’t taking me seriously. Maybe they feel like because we are “cool” outside of class that they get cut more breaks? I am not sure if this is the main cause for the increase in disruptions in class, but I do feel it is a contributing factor. How do maintain good relations with my students and be sure they will respect me when it is “class time”?

So I am walking down the hall at Thurston high School Friday afternoon after school when i see a little group of Freshmen boys and girls standing around conversing. As I approach this group of students I recognize a boy named “Chad” who I had taught at Thurston Middle School in the spring. We are buddies and I often slap him a high five when our paths cross during any given day. Except this day was apparently not any given day. On this occasion, I give him a head nod and “what’s up” as I pass his little group of peeps. At that moment, he replies with a “what’s up Mr. O” along with a swift slap of my ASS. I must admit, I was immediately in shock. Now I’ve played sports my whole life, and have had my ass slapped more times than I care to share, but that is a different scenario. This was at school, in front of a bunch of students. I truly didn’t feel like Chad meant anything disrespectful in doing it, but nonetheless, I quickly spun around and said, “Hey man you can’t be doing that” in a very serious tone. I could tell he understood the awkwardness he had just caused, so I continued on. Looking back, I wish I would have quickly asked him to take a quick walk with me so I could explain to him the seriousness of the situation. Unfortunately, I almost didn’t know what to say, so my actions probably weren’t as effective as they could’ve been. At least next time a student slaps my ass I will know better how to react…. or maybe not?

I only taught Monday through Wednesday this past week because we had parent-teacher conferences half of the day Thursday and all day Friday. The conferences went really good and were actually a lot of fun. The only part of the conferences that I wasn’t satisfied about was the fact that of the seventeen students whose parents signed up to see me out of my seventy students, about 14 of them had A’s so far this term. In other words, most of the parents that I would have liked to talk to face to face, whose kids weren’t doing so hot, didn’t bother to sign up for any conferences. A correlation here? Absolutely. I truly felt terrible for some of my struggling students whose parents I had previously contacted or attempted to contact to set up a conference, but apparently didn’t care enough about their child’s education to even respond. It just goes to show why some students value their education as little as they do. If your parents don’t care, then why should you?

On a good note, I did enjoy meeting many of my students parents and grandparents. I liked seeing parents light up when I told them that their child was doing excellent and/or were a model student in my classroom. Those kinds of conferences felt quite rewarding and made me feel like I was in the right place.

On Wednesday this last week I missed my first day of teaching. The entire math department at Thurston High School took Wednesday as a professional development day in which half of the day was spent with the technology coordinator of Springfield Schools and the other half spent designing the new Algebra 1 curriculum for next year. My mentor teacher wanted me to join them for the day so that I could see what kinds of things they do on such days. It was a good experience for a couple of reasons. First of all I got to learn more about how to utilize certain technologies within the classroom that I am currently teaching. We took a workshop on ways to maximize effetive use of document cameras in the math classroom, which I truly enjoyed and felt like i benefitted from quite a bit. Also, I got to experience writing sub plans for the first time. One thing that I realized for sure was that all of the times I have heard that having a sub  is more work than just being at school, that was absolutely true. Everything from writing detailed sub plans , to getting back to school and having to catch up on correcting papers and recording grades, these things definitely make for more work. It took me two+ days to finally get back on track. It was a really good experience though, for multiple reasons.

This past week was probably my best one yet. I didn’t have any major behavior issues during the whole week and my students did quite well in both quizzes I gave. One thing that seemed to work out really well for me this week was sending home progress reports to parents. I had my students take home a progress report in each of the classes I taught. They were required to get them signed by their parents and returned to me as an assignment. Though I wasn’t required to do this, I got great reactions from parents and parental communication for some of my borderline passing students has made a turn for the better. I put my contact information and the website that grades are kept on them too in case parents had misplaced the original information I had sent home during the first week of school. We are now officially half way done with the first trimester and I feel extremely comfortable at Thurston High School. I have been informed by my mentor teacher, who also happens to be the head of the math department, that they will be hiring a math teacher next fall for sure and she wants me to apply. I feel like I couldn’t be in a better place for my student teaching experience. 

I had my second observation this week, and it went really well. I got a lot of positive feedback as well as some really usefull ideas on how I can better my lessons. I feel I am progressing pretty well so far, but feel a bit guilty as well. The thing is, my supervisor is a retired teacher who also teaches at Springfield High School in the mornings, and so an only come to watch me teach my fifth period class. My fifth period class is an Algebra II class, which is quite well-behaved and interested in learning math. I feel like if he watched me teach my lower level class, which I act much differently with since their behavior is a daily obstacle I must overcome, his comments may be different. I feel like I am probably not doing as good as my supervisor may believe since he hasn’t had a chance to see me with my other class.

On another note, I was at the Oregon football game on Saturday and must have run into about six or seven of my students. It was quite awkward, especially since one of my students I saw was drinking a beer while crossing the street. He didn’t see me and I didn’t let it be known that I saw him. I had had a few drinks earlier in the day, but wasn’t doing so when I ran into my students, thank goodness. Saturday really reinforced the importance of watching my actions closely whenever I am in a public setting, like a Duck football game.

I had to write my first referral this week. A kid in my class cursed at me after I asked him to leave the room after about six attempts to get him to stop distracting his neighbors. I felt terrible about it at first because all I’ve been trying to do so far this term is to not punish my students. It finally came to that and so far seems to have been for the better of the class. The next day I spent about twenty minutes restating some ground rules with the class and letting them come up with “appropriate” consequences for their actions. The talk went really well and my students’ behavior has truly shifted in the right direction. More so, the troubled students grade has risen from a horribly low F to almost passing in less than a week after his parents got news of the referral and of his lack of effort so far this term. I hope it is my last referral of the term, but with my third period class, there’s no telling.