It is so hard to get back into the routine of teaching and going to school after two weeks off, one being at the conference and the other being home for spring break. After the conference, I felt so inspired to come back and teach the students what I had learned. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel inspired to teach them the new activities, but after being home for a week, it’s hard to get back into being here. The only thing I keep thinking about is getting home. I was torn for a while about where I was going to go after graduation, but after being home, it just made me reaffirm my decision to go back for a little while. Who knows? Maybe being down here for the next month may make my heart feel that much more torn.
Today was just another day at the school. Nothing fantastic stood out that was really noteworthy other than a few comments.
The first class was also introduced to the benefits of physical activity. All of my classes will have a portion of personal fitness incorporated into their sport themed unit. This way, I hope to have the students more engaged in the activities because they won’t be working on the same thing each class period. However, this class decided to do softball/baseball as their sport theme. This will be a nice change and an opportunity for me to teach something I haven’t ever taught yet.
I finished this class with the Cupid shuffle. It also took this class a little time to warm up to a newer activity. I have been surprised at the students’ responses when I asked them if they have ever done this dance before. Only a handful of students raised their hand. Maybe this isn’t a newer dance like I thought! Before starting this activity, I got on my soapbox before any issues were raised with holding each other’s hand. I also gave them the option to just dance beside their partner. After they learned the steps to the partner portion of the dance, after a full rotation, I had a brilliant idea to have them switch partners. This worked out better than I thought. They really enjoyed the switching of partners part and it also helped them to get more comfortable with other classmates. There was an odd number of students so I didn’t really think about that one student who might feel rejected if they couldn’t find a partner and it just so happened to be the same kid almost every time. I even got in and danced so someone would have to partner up with this student.
Adapted PE was so much fun today. I decided to bring out the scooters and play scooter soccer with them. We only ended up having two of the students because the other two were either sick or testing. It was such a blast and a great workout for the legs. You know that sensation you get once you have been on a treadmill for a while and take a step off? That is what it felt like after moving off of the scooters. My legs were so sore! I think the aids, my colleague, our cooperating teacher, and I had more fun playing than the two students. The one girl would go off and hide. If we went after her to give her the ball or get the ball, she would get off her scooter and start walking away screaming. The other girl was just content on sitting and scooting on her scooter. She didn’t really participate in the activity. It was also nice to see one of our cooperating teachers use the rolling chair to participate as well. It was a nice change up for the day.
The honors class did self and peer feedback as well as direct teaching. I absolutely love this class! I can get so much stuff done with them! We did the stations outside and they gathered the concepts quicker than the other classes. However, there was a lot of resistance to doing the pushups and the crunches. I think this is because they do them during their regular warm up. I should’ve chosen different exercises for that so it wouldn’t be similar to what they are already doing.
We finished the class doing the cupid shuffle as well. It is really nice to have this class on this day because the other classes can leave you disheartened and feeling dejected. I know this isn’t the normal class, but it is still nice to have. When instructing them to do the dance, they were attentive and engaged. They really like to put their own spice on the dance and it is nice to see them feeling so comfortable with themselves and with each other. I don’t think that what we had done during this semester has really influenced it. I could see the chemistry in the class before I even started with it. However, a few things have changed over the course of the past couple of weeks that I have enjoyed watching them develop into.
It’s hard leaving the honors class and coming to this class. However, I have to thank God for the wonderful optimism He has provided me with. I love the fact that I can look at each class as being a new beginning and a new challenge. I don’t really like to dwell on what happened before and believe in just moving forward (even if I am upset immediately after the class). All of that blows away before the beginning of the next class I have them.
Today, the third class was a struggle to get through the stations. I had a lot of kids off task or just not doing the activity. They were more content to stand there and talk to their partner than engage themselves in the activity. I reminded the students before we started that one of their rules was to try everything at least once. This helped with the first portion of the class, but when we got to doing partner feedback, they seemed to lose sight of it. I even had one student say, “Miss can I be done because I already tried it once.” I just know that things probably would have been better had I had different activities for both self and peer feedback. I also think that I didn’t explain to them very well what each teaching style was and how they use it. Next time, I will have to make sure that instead of sacrificing quality for speed, that sometimes things need a little bit more explanation, especially when it is new to the students.
Regardless of how hard I try with the Spanish speaking students, there will always be a language barrier between us. I will give my instructions in English and then after they have all started, I will go talk to the Spanish kids and give them the instructions in the best Spanish that I can. They still just laugh. It’s probably my accent because they say that I am speaking just fine. Maybe it’s that segregation that has them still not wanting to participate a lot during the class. They may not be used to being included in other classes and therefore think that they can just talk during my initial instructions. I know I have to find a way to get to them so no student is feeling left out or left behind. This will be my struggle with this class.
I don’t know why it fazes me anymore whenever I hear our one cooperating teacher making comments to the students. Today it was directed towards a student who didn’t do his jumping jacks correctly. The teacher said to him, “I thought adapted was this morning” (referring to adapted P.E.). I was completely taken aback by this. I know that the teacher was just joking, but sometimes the teacher may not realize the kind of effect those comments could have on a student.
I will leave you with this one final funny moment. I walk in every morning smelling like my perfume. However, by the time I am done at school or even just one class for that matter, I leave smelling like the guys’ cologne. I have a different smell for each class because of what the guys are using. Where we sit is so close to the locker room that just sitting there, you get huge wafts of their cologne. Eventually, those molecules will stick to our clothing and make us smell like them. The same goes with the girls. As soon as you walk closer to their door, you just have this over abundant smell and mixture of different perfumes. It is quite a spectacle to experience.
Until tomorrow!
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