Although I have been into PHS before, this past week marks my first official week as a student teacher! I have begun the process of getting back into a routine and I could not be happier! As I continue along, it becomes easier to get up in the morning (most likely because I'm in bed at 9:00 out of pure exhaustion). This past week has been an interesting first week of student teaching because it was exam week at PHS. During exam week, the students have a half day of school and 1-2 two hour exams. Each content area teacher has to proctor a different content area's exams (I would guess that this is to discourage cheating, but I am not sure). While my CT has been in/out of meetings and proctoring exams, I have had the opportunity to plan/prepare for the upcoming weeks!
I am so grateful for the chance to be able to prepare for my future lessons during the school day, because I understand that this is not the norm. My CT has made himself available to me to go over these plans and let me pick his brain. One of the most surprising things that I have learned this week was how much I needed my CT to help me plan. This is not a bad thing by any means. I did not realize how important it would be for me to see my CT as a fountain of knowledge. He knows the students much better than I do, so it was important to me that I run my lessons by him to make sure that they would be engaging to the students. He has much more experience teaching this content than I do. I looked to him to help me brainstorm and give me ideas about what would work/wouldn't work. It became apparent to me how important working cooperatively together was.
I am teaching three American Literature classes. As I flipped through the textbook, I was astonished to find that I had not heard of (much less read) many of the pieces that I would have to teach! I was familiar with most of the authors of these pieces, but not the actual literature itself. I made it my priority to become familiar with these texts to the point where I would be fully prepared to teach them. I read the texts and then I read the questions that the students would have to answer and tried to answer them myself. I then went online and did some research about these texts and then reread the literature. If there was something that I did not understand, I felt completely comfortable asking for my CT's opinion on the piece. I made it my business to know these pieces inside and out and to be able to interpret them using different critical lenses.
After this week, I have learned that I am not afraid to ask for help. There is no use in pretending that I know what I am doing, if I do not. I am surrounded by knowledgeable teachers who have been more than willing to answer my questions. I would rather ask too many questions than not enough. Just as you cannot be over-prepared for a lesson, you cannot hurt yourself by asking too many questions. "Is this activity going to be too simple for the students?" "Is this writing prompt worded in a way that will best engage the students?" "Are the students going to be okay with each reading a paragraph of the text aloud?" "Are the students used to sharing their writing?" I just think that I am not asking these questions just for myself, but also for the students. I don't want to give them an activity that is too simple, or a writing prompt that is vague, or ask them to share their writing if they are not used to being asked to do that. With every question that I ask, I am learning more about my students. Each question that I ask, makes my lessons even stronger.
