The middle school experience

Well, my middle school dyad experience is almost over, and I have mixed feelings about leaving. On one hand, I spent more time grading than interacting with students, which I think is less helpful to my personal growth. I am glad I am moving on to a different MT whom I see more eye-to-eye with. On the other hand, I wish I could spend more time in a middle school science classroom of a different teacher at the school, since MS science is my planned destination.

Next year, when I look at my 6th, 7th, or 8th graders and try to figure out what the heck to do about their behavior, I will be practicing trial by fire. Maybe I'll get really lucky and whatever district I am working for will have lots of extra helpful middle school behavior management. I plan to have engaging lessons so as to avoid behavior problems, but between now and next September, I need to figure out how to act tough and confident, cause if you show adolescents any fear or nervousness, they will milk that and make your life miserable. Not all of them, but a high enough percentage of them to make your days extremely difficult.

I know I want to teach MS science, the content, and I am OK to deal with the negative aspects of adolescents in order to get the positive interactions as well.

5th Friday questions

Learned:
That there is a myriad of classroom management strategies and they have to fit your personality. I am not a quiet person, or an invert. I am an extrovert and can be pretty loud. We'll see what kind of classroom management I will use. I'll probably use the "If you are listening, do this action" a fair bit. I also learned that if something is important to you as an individual, you find a way as a teacher to fit it in to your instruction. Outdoor science experiments and active group building are important to me, and I will find a way to fit them in, I think, I hope, I pray. Maybe not the first year, but I will fit it in.


Still want to know:
I want to see more science lessons than I have seen so far. I have only seen one, and only the very beginning of it. I want to examine the contents of the kits that districts have and figure out how they use them in a meaningful way.


Anxious:
Seeing enough science taught. I wish I could do my entire placement in a middle school/junior high science classroom rather than only a couple months. That is where I want to teach. If I had done the secondary certificate, I would have had to do my main placement in a high school. Because I am doing my the K-8 certificate, I have to do my main placement in an elementary school. How come we don't, in WA state, have a middle level/middle school certification program? It's a unique age, and I wish I got to spend more time in that age classroom practicing. I am afraid I won't see enough science lessons at the middle level to do a good job as a science teacher my first year, despite my extensive science background.


Excited:
To start my placement in the junior high next Monday. I am really looking forward to it.

Phew, this is hard!

I am having a very hard time keeping up with everything. There are so many different systems and routines built into the 5th-grade day and they are all managed, maybe micro-managed. How will I ever get them all down? Or is the best answer to just say, OK, well, I'll explicitly teach them these things, but if it does not work, I will not freak, because you know what, no matter how they get from Jane's class to Jean's class, they will most likely all get there in one piece with little sidetracking (hopefully). These are not kindergarteners, the classrooms are not that far apart, and they are very unlikely to get lost. The intentional sidetracking probably won't happen till later, and hopefully by then, I will have the system figured out so I can call the kids on it.

They will figure it out eventually. The hard thing is that you have to teach it to them, and in order to teach it to them, you have to understand all the complexities and nuances that are part of the classroom management plan for 5th grade. It is intensely organized. But legitimately so.

Another thing, how is it right for an administrator to be up talking about 10 and 2 strategy (you talk for 10, they talk independently for 2, then you bring them back), keeping exercise involved in the day because it is one of the Brain Rules, (from the book, Brain Rules) as is a stimulating environment with lots going on, and then proceed to talk at you for an hour or so with no exercise breaks or anything that follows the Brain Rules. Most teachers that I know are not used to sitting down listening for the whole day. They stand, they roam the classroom, they interact with students and teachers, and it is hard for them to focus for that long; they are not used to it.

Maybe that's just environmental educators who can't sit and listen for long, but I tell you, I never thought I was one of those kids who always needed to move until I went back to school after teaching students in informal education settings for 5 years or so. I am fidgety, I need to move, or talk a lot, one of the two. Is that OK for me as a teacher to be that way? Am I setting a bad model because I cannot sit and listen for longer than 20 minutes without massive bouts of fidgeting or raising my hand to share?