Fourth Week of School - Monday, September 21, 2009

Today was one of the first days that I really had no energy or excitement about coming to school. Possibly because it was Monday, but also because there has been more time spent in the past few days over behavior issues and classroom management, as opposed to actual teaching and learning. My master teacher felt it too, and said that there will definitely be days like that and to get used to it. He also said that Mondays can be particularly challenging, because the kids are so wound up from having two days off (he said just wait until they come back from winter and spring breaks). Anyway, it just seemed like a fair amount of the day was just going routine matters, going over protocol, etc. I was able to supervise the class in computer lab while Mr. M attended to other matters, but I am anxious to do another mini-lesson.

Mr. M also said that in a way its a shame that the first month of student teaching occurs in September, since he said it usually takes three to four weeks before the kids settle down, and that the MOST rigourous teaching and learning occurs in October and November. On the plus side, he said that February through April are also peak learning times, so hopefully, when I take over the class full-time, they will be in full learning mode.