Anticipation/ Survival

How are you? We may want to use the teaching phases: Anticipation, Reflection, Disillusion, Survival, Rejuvenation (Know that people will be responding to your posts and offering their insights and advice.) Start with what is working? What challenges did you face this week? (classroom management, discipline, content...) What whoo-hooo celebrate a success? (about your kids, your team, your school, your own successes) What advice have you figured out?

So since this is the second/third week of this blog and I am just NOW responding should clue you in to some insight on how I am.

Hello, my name is Sara and I am a BT 1.5. I finished my student teaching last December and I taught as an interim teacher and then a full time teacher at a different school where I finished out the school year. Over the summer I got married and moved to Raleigh, where I got a job teaching 6th grade Science.

Starting with Anticipation, this is my first time teaching 6th grade (I student taught/ interim taught 8th grade and then 7th grade) so I am looking forward to a new age group. I am also excited about the 6th grade Science curriculum which is focused primarily on the Earth Sciences, which are my favorite to learn about and study! We are at the end of week two and we have done two labs already. So far, my students really enjoy working together and are demonstrating great collaboration, critical thinking and communication. I anticipate more lab activities and the chance to incorporate more BYOD (which has been adopted county-wide) activities in our classroom. As the weeks progress I know I will have to mix up some of the student groupings (as the honeymoon phase wears off and personalities start to clash) but I am hopefully that this will result in students getting to know and work with more of their peers. There are at least five elementary schools that feed into this middle school, so many students are still trying to make friends.

I am feeling like I am in survival mode in regards to all of the extra "stuff" I am supposed to keep up with, create, file, document, etc. Oh man- when the professors said that the other stuff (PDP's, IEP meetings, whatever new teaching philosophy the school/county is focusing on) is what will take up more of your time then actually teaching- they were not kidding! All of the extra tasks and jobs they tack onto the classroom teacher can be overwhelming. I am really appreciative of all the experience I received through UNCA, student teaching with an amazing veteran teacher and starting a teaching job mid-year with an EC team. All of those experiences make me feel confident as I am planning the rest of the school year.