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Teaching Prep
Aug. 31st, 2010 11:50 pmThe last few days I've been shuttling back and forth to Wherever School. It's nice not having to drive 50 minutes each way!
I have a student teacher this semester. She's taking my two English 9 classes from the first day. Student teachers always make their first few weeks extra busy for the mentor teacher. Everything takes twice as long because I have to explain to the student teacher and let her try various tasks. Even simple stuff like making copies or dialing the phone (with its attendant access codes) takes longer. And I have to review and comment on her lesson plans and class materials, introduce her around, tour the building facilities with her, and so on and so forth. This is what I've been doing a lot of lately.
When school starts, I'll be observing her in class and taking notes and stopping myself from interfering. (Feedback and tips for improvement come after class, of course.) Eventually, when she's clearly able to handle things on her own, I'll start absenting myself and things will get easier, but until then, I basically lose most of my prep time.
I'm glad to have her, though, because I'm also teaching English 12 this year, and it's a brand new class in the district, so we're all kind of floundering. (And the extra time I'll have later will be helpful.) Budget cuts mean that we don't have enough books to hand out to the students, so I only have a classroom set. In other words, my choices for reading assignments are 1) read them out loud in class, or 2) hold silent reading time. I'm also missing one entire supplemental text--Coleridge's book on Greek mythology. It's required reading, but the books are nowhere to be found.
We're reading MAUS this marking period. With a class set. I have no idea how the hell we'll do that.
A group of us English 12 teachers met to map out the first marking period, week by week, for which I was grateful. I know where I'm going, and I can work out the fine details myself.
I don't have to make English 9 plans or copies, which sounds nice at first until I point out that I spent nearly an hour going over and commenting on N----'s English 9 lesson plans, and doing my own would have taken maybe fifteen minutes. C'est la vie. (See what I mean?)
I also put my classroom back together and made plans for media literacy class. Just need to track down that Coleridge book and I'll be pretty set.
I have a student teacher this semester. She's taking my two English 9 classes from the first day. Student teachers always make their first few weeks extra busy for the mentor teacher. Everything takes twice as long because I have to explain to the student teacher and let her try various tasks. Even simple stuff like making copies or dialing the phone (with its attendant access codes) takes longer. And I have to review and comment on her lesson plans and class materials, introduce her around, tour the building facilities with her, and so on and so forth. This is what I've been doing a lot of lately.
When school starts, I'll be observing her in class and taking notes and stopping myself from interfering. (Feedback and tips for improvement come after class, of course.) Eventually, when she's clearly able to handle things on her own, I'll start absenting myself and things will get easier, but until then, I basically lose most of my prep time.
I'm glad to have her, though, because I'm also teaching English 12 this year, and it's a brand new class in the district, so we're all kind of floundering. (And the extra time I'll have later will be helpful.) Budget cuts mean that we don't have enough books to hand out to the students, so I only have a classroom set. In other words, my choices for reading assignments are 1) read them out loud in class, or 2) hold silent reading time. I'm also missing one entire supplemental text--Coleridge's book on Greek mythology. It's required reading, but the books are nowhere to be found.
We're reading MAUS this marking period. With a class set. I have no idea how the hell we'll do that.
A group of us English 12 teachers met to map out the first marking period, week by week, for which I was grateful. I know where I'm going, and I can work out the fine details myself.
I don't have to make English 9 plans or copies, which sounds nice at first until I point out that I spent nearly an hour going over and commenting on N----'s English 9 lesson plans, and doing my own would have taken maybe fifteen minutes. C'est la vie. (See what I mean?)
I also put my classroom back together and made plans for media literacy class. Just need to track down that Coleridge book and I'll be pretty set.
