Monday, September 21, 2009

Sho 'nuff!

My friend Betty pointed out that it was time for me to get something new on the blog. She was hoping for more of the dream story but at the moment I am still working on chapter 6. I have been pretty busy with student teaching responsibilities and I have neglected my creative endeavors. The good news is that I have half of chapter 6 written and I am trying o get the second half complete in a manner that moves the story forward in a good way. I am happy to report that I have begun my first Croc comic in over a year. It was neglected for quite a while but I am working on Croc's teaching career. Don't worry.... he will definitely be eating people. I just want you all to know that I am being creative when I get a second to think but most of my seconds are filed with lesson plans, teaching and retarded homework for my university classes. I am working as hard as I can to get another story chapter up here but you will have to be patient. :)

A lot of you have asked questions about my student teaching and I feel that I owe some words to you. My student teaching is taking place in Roseburg, OR. I am working at a school called Hucrest in a 4th and 5th grade blend. Blends are a little crazy because kids need to get certain grade appropriate curriculum. Luckily the teacher I am working with has awesome teaching partners that help him get this done. It does mean a lot of switching for the kids and a lot of the day we don't have our entire homeroom there. We are coping though. I have been teaching 4th grade science since the second week of school. I am responsible for the entire lesson; from knowing what is going on to making sure all the materials are ready. I like working with these kids. They are nice and do a decent job of following directions. I am staying pretty busy making sure I am ready for school with my teaching assignments and lessons.

The university requirements are driving me crazy. That is all I really want to say about it. I do not understand why the state of Oregon requires 2 work samples be done in order to get a teaching certificate. Shouldn't I be more concerned with attaining the teaching experience in a safe environment and less concerned about a huge paper that nobody seems to do anything with? I should go ahead and say that I have a huge issue with busy work. What I have been led to understand is the work samples I am responsible to create do not really change anything. Nobody asks to see them before employing me and the state does not give me feedback on the job I did. Maybe you have no idea what a work sample is..... I should tell you. A work sample starts an an in depth study of the school, community and students I am working with. From there I talk about my plan for teaching, assessments and the lesson I do. Then I give results, of the unit I taught, for the class, a small group and a few specific students. Then I write about why things happened as they did. It is a 100 page P.O.S. that never gets critiqued and does not really get used after the certificate is attained. In fact, the lessons section is a synopsis and not the actual units. I am creating lessons to teach from but I will need to rewrite a narrative of these lesson plans for the paper. I have no problem creating lessons, teaching, and evaluating my progress for my own edification but to put together some polished crap that nobody will pay much attention to kind of makes me want to smack people. Anyone need a good smacking around? I am just saying that these time consuming work samples should be worth something after I get finished. Someone should care about all this work. Otherwise it is one more hoop...

If I could leave the work sample out of the mix I would say that everything is going swimmingly. I like my coordinating teacher and all the teachers I am working with. I like the students. I am enjoying having people to talk to after I get done with my day. I like the chickens and enjoy making up stories about the house bunny. It has not been as terrible to be stuck in Roseburg as I thought it would be. How are you finding yourself? Is your life going well? If not, how can you take steps to change that?

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