Day 14: Names

Forrest Gump. A critically acclaimed movie that deals with a lot of stuff that happened in the 70's. It is a good movie to see some American history and to promote understanding of disabilities.
However playing this movie at school... well it just shows how different the schools are. In order to watch that movie in school in America, the students would have to be in High School and would still need a permission slip. Here... nope. They just watch it. Even though I don't really agree with the viewing of this movie, unedited, in the school room, there are still connections to the Utah Core. Standard 4 is about seeing how global events connect with their lives.
They don't use permission slips. I guess the parents just trust that the teachers know what the are doing. As if the teachers have gone to school and been practicing their profession for years. As if they were professionals.

I also stared planning some lessons for the next two weeks, which is much more difficult than in the states. In America, there are lesson books and in order to get the children ready for the test you have to follow a strict schedule. Not so here. They teach according to a schedule, but if they need to change or something else takes priority, they can change what they are doing easily. But that makes it very difficult to plan for the future.
I do miss being called "teacher". Here everyone just calls me Laura. That is nice in some ways, however there is less respect and not as much order in the classrooms. I do not know if the name is what causes it, but I think teacher or miss Bennett is what I would like to be called.

Day 12: Feelin the Length of the Year

Warning: This post will be choppy because of all of the things I want to say and the need to get them out!

The rest of the student teachers came today and had a meeting with the principal. I didn't go because I already knew everything she was going to tell them. But I went up to ask her if I needed to attend, just in case. She told me no, but then she said something interesting. We were talking about 5th graders and getting them to pay attention.
"Be glad you aren't here in the spring semester when the hormones are going crazy." How would I deal with that? I mean, these kids will be starting to go through an emotionally tumultuous time that will last until their late twenties! How do I even get them started down that road! Sometimes I worry about teaching because I don't know the curriculum, but teaching is so much more than that. I have to teach them math, science, how to mature well, and sometimes basic social skills. It is much more like being a mother than a 3rd interested party.

Cheating... how do I want to deal with it in my class? I have been in classes where it was only addressed in a one on one basis and in classes where the teacher talks to the whole class about it. It would probably depend on the grade level as well as how many career cheaters I have. Besides. "Cheetah's never prosper!"

Mental math is SO important! I am realizing just how important it is as I am struggling to put problems together in my mind when students are already bringing their completed papers up to me! But Mental Math is MOST effective when the student still knows why and how it works. Not just that it works. (Here is a few online sites to practice math facts. Play Kids Games  Flex Math)

I went to a faculty meeting today, and it was nothing like I thought it would be. I thought it would be teachers discussing their students, patting themselves on the back for getting through another month, or maybe even a mini UEA type convention. Nope. It was more of the same. How can we help these students? How can we reach those?
They split up the teachers into different committees and each was in charge of something different. They each had to make goals and determine how those goals would be reached by the end of the year, and how those goals would help the students in the school. Not just the students in one teachers class. The students in the entire school.
Our group was the data group, in charge of collecting and reporting the data we get from each grade to the rest of the school. One thing we focused on was ESL students. My teacher noticed that ESL students in 5th grade were stuck on a 2nd-3rd grade reading level. So we discussed why that might be, how we could solver it and how we can use the data to earlier discover the children who might need help.
We also discussed the date from math groups throughout the school. Most grades (except 5th who has a pre-test in addition) has a checkpoint then an end of unit test. At the checkpoint to do a re-teach for those students who need it. I like the idea of the pre-test, this way the students who already know the material, or just need a slight refresher, don't have to go through the entire first section with everyone else.

Also, I love being called "Teacher." It is a wonderful term that I feel is honorary.