This week was the first week I started teaching in one of my cooperating teacher's classes. And despite the fact that I should have been nervous, I wasn't on Monday. Like everyone who knows me, knows I should have been a nervous wreck but with a bunch of people praying for me, I firmly believe that that is the reason I was calm. I did send a quick text to my mom to pray for me but that was the extent of my freaking out. I just buckled down and completed the first lesson I wanted to accomplish and was prepared for class to begin. After that first lesson, I was totally pumped about teaching! To hear that all the students were actually interested in the book, Touching the Void, was just awesome. I read it beforehand in a day - it was just that good! But that's just my reading speed, I know that isn't the speed it will take us to read the book :)
Today I had to be gone from the school to attend a diversity-technology conference. To be honest, I was bummed because I didn't want to miss class. I decided that I would create a presentation using Google Drive and break students into the groups I had seen them in. I then assigned each group a different mountain (I googled top 10 deadly mountains to make the list interesting!). The mountains were K2, Mt. Everest, Annapurna, The Eiger, Matterhorn, and Mount McKinley. I asked them to find specific information: geography/description of the mountain/height, first known ascent, deaths, any interesting facts, and at least one picture of the mountain. I was nervous to find out how this had gone, especially since I wasn't there to answer any questions.
Skip forward to the conference: I'm just going to touch on the last 3 speakers we had because I feel like I learned the most all day from them. Speaker 1: Jennifer Adams (seriously, check her website out! http://www.jenniferlynnadams.com/). From her, I learned a lot about identity and how important it is for students to know who they are. Everyone has a story that has helped to shape who they are and it's important to take time to find out people's stories. Identity is not how people see you. Identity IS the things, talents, skills, whatever that when you use them, make you happy and you enjoy doing it. And each person has a message to their story, hers was "The Power of Words". I don't know that I have figured out a phrase that perfectly describes mine, but when I do I'll let you know! I'm thinking something to do with books, like George R.R. Martin's phrase "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." If you knew my story, I think that would make sense :) If you ever do want to know my story, let me know and we can meet up and talk!
Speaker 2: The 2014 SD Teacher of the Year, LuAnn Lindskov. She had 10 tips to teaching that I would love to share with you.
1. Build relationships with your students. Obviously this means appropriate ones, but it's more than just knowing who they are. It's getting to know them and what motivates them to learn and how they are doing.
2. Have high expectations for yourself & your students.
3. Learn from your mistakes (they are made on a daily basis) - strive to be a better teacher tomorrow than you were today.
4. Surround yourself with positive, like-minded colleagues.
5. Model lifelong learning & share your joy of learning.
6. Make your connections to real life.
7. Have a sense of humor.
8. Show your students that learning is fun & celebrate it.
9. Keep a "memory box" of notes, photos, cards, emails, etc to remind you why you teach! (And do not call this the "when I want to quit box"...negative implications)
10. Teach service to your students. This can be to look out for one another on the local level but also on a national level. Her example was talking about hungry people in other countries and her students pointed out that there is a hunger problem right here at home in America, and often in your own city. They asked to fundraise and do a backpack program for these individuals.
Speaker 3: This was actually a Google Hangout with a few of the 2013 Teacher of the Year Recipients: Brian Curtin (Illinois), Andrea Fox (North Dakota), Lauren Eckman (Georgia), and the host was with us in the room, Katie Anderson (South Dakota). Just getting to talk with teachers about different concerns we had (by the way, the were all English teachers....score!), a lot of what they were saying really resonated with me. Plus Google Hangout would be a cool way to have students get to speak with an author, definitely going to look into that!
Jump to after the meeting: I get an email from my cooperating teacher and she mentions that a student told her that they liked the assignment and would love to do more assignments this way. I not ashamed to admit that I totally started cheesing out! I'm so excited to go back tomorrow to keep teaching and learning! I'm just so pumped!!
Here are some quotes that we got throughout the day that also really hit home.
"Teaching is not what we do; it is who we are." Dr. Jill Biden
"Teach students, not subjects."
"Kids before content. Love before all." Sean McComb
" I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou
And to add my own two cents:
