The Friday Five: Survival of School Week 1 Edition
O.K., so here I am on Friday night. I have my car back (it's quiet again!), and hopefully my adopted school's football team has won their game by now. After only five days in school, I've learned quite a bit already. So that's my inspiration for this week's Friday Five: five things I've learned after only a week at school:
1. Signing in and out daily, wearing a name badge (and a temporary one at that because the office ran out of the ones for student teachers and doesn't seem compelled to make any more), adult hall monitors, random morning bag inspections for the students, being warned to avoid the cafeteria because it's gross, "balanced" displays of subjects such as politics--yep, I'm in public high school.
2. Eighth graders can be "adorable" (something you've gotta take my word for, Dave E.).
3. Even if you sit with, talk with, and help out the 10th grade history class with their writing assignment, they still won't cite their references properly, if at all--and if a substitute teacher is involved, all bets are off.
4. The aforementioned writing assignment may contain hilarious items such as a slave originally from Sweet Home, Alabama, and push the limits of historical fiction by having the main character, a doctor, treat General Washington for a bullet wound. When not a single source states he was injured at the Battle of Germantown. (Also came across a story that wanted to do very bad things to Washington and probably warrants a sit-down with the guidance counselor.)
5. I'm checking books in and out, looking up resources, brainstorming with teachers, creating a kick-ass welcome board for the library, making avatars (didja notice?), putting comments on toast (see previous post), making wikis for teachers and students, and helping them set up blogs. I think not only am I learning things, I'm actually remembering and applying some of the things I've learned in the past two years of the program.
I still may have no idea of how to define my philosphy of education (one of this week's homework assignments), but darn it I can do an awful lot of this job.
Have a great weekend, my dear blogreaders.
1. Signing in and out daily, wearing a name badge (and a temporary one at that because the office ran out of the ones for student teachers and doesn't seem compelled to make any more), adult hall monitors, random morning bag inspections for the students, being warned to avoid the cafeteria because it's gross, "balanced" displays of subjects such as politics--yep, I'm in public high school.
2. Eighth graders can be "adorable" (something you've gotta take my word for, Dave E.).
3. Even if you sit with, talk with, and help out the 10th grade history class with their writing assignment, they still won't cite their references properly, if at all--and if a substitute teacher is involved, all bets are off.
4. The aforementioned writing assignment may contain hilarious items such as a slave originally from Sweet Home, Alabama, and push the limits of historical fiction by having the main character, a doctor, treat General Washington for a bullet wound. When not a single source states he was injured at the Battle of Germantown. (Also came across a story that wanted to do very bad things to Washington and probably warrants a sit-down with the guidance counselor.)
5. I'm checking books in and out, looking up resources, brainstorming with teachers, creating a kick-ass welcome board for the library, making avatars (didja notice?), putting comments on toast (see previous post), making wikis for teachers and students, and helping them set up blogs. I think not only am I learning things, I'm actually remembering and applying some of the things I've learned in the past two years of the program.
I still may have no idea of how to define my philosphy of education (one of this week's homework assignments), but darn it I can do an awful lot of this job.
Have a great weekend, my dear blogreaders.
Comments
10th graders....Kate, I have classmates that still don't cite properly. I just don't understand it. Especially when there are tools like EasyBib (which the university library has a copycat of) that take out the guessing game of formating. I have given mini tours of the library website to other students several times. (And to think they got this information during orientation and I didn't because I transfered in. heh)
These students used NoodleBib (which I wish I'd had when I was struggling with APA format) and did bibliographies, but they totally missed the in-text citation requirement for their assignment. And pretty much any other requirements. Sigh.
I never used the library as an undergrad, mostly b/c I didn't have a clue about it. Sad, isn't it? I've certainly made up for it these past few years.