Chapter 8: Working with School Personnel

What I Believe About:
Getting to know my school and surrounding community...
Working with my principal...
Working with other teachers...
Working with paraprofessionals and paid aides...
Preparing for substitute teachers...

This chapter ties in to almost everything I'm doing in the other education classes I am taking this semester.  One of my classes is about school-family partnerships and the importance of understanding the community, and the special education class I am in is currently focusing on relationships with other adult supports.  Because of that, I'm not going to get into what I believe about these things too deeply.  Some highlights are that the community can be a great resource for the classroom, creating partnerships throughout the school is critical to a happy and healthy work environment, paraprofessionals are great sources of support but can sometimes isolate the students they serve, and subs will love you forever if you have clear plans laid out for them.

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In what ways, if any, has the chapter changed my beliefs?

I can't really say that this chapter changed any of my beliefs, but it definitely elaborated on some that I already held.  My favorite thing about this book is how practical everything is.  All of the advice and strategies are explicit enough that I can easily figure out how to apply them.  I'm also a big fan of lists, which this text offers plenty of, so I know this will be a book I refer to a lot in my first few years.

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This is a really short blog post both because I feel more comfortable with these topics and I don't think I learned anything completely novel from the chapter and because I have my first day with my students tomorrow!  I will mostly be observing, but I will also have the opportunity to help facilitate peer editing groups and some other activities.  I'm excited to finally meet the classes I'll be teaching this semester, and I'm looking forward to meeting with my mentor teacher again and getting to know her better.

Wish me luck!

Introduction to my Field Experience

I met with my mentor teacher for my pre-professional seminar's field experience today.  She seems awesome, and I'm really excited to work with her.  She's been teaching for four years, so she still remembers her student teaching experiences clearly enough to have sympathy for me.  I'll be teaching at least one of her 10th grade English CP classes (American Lit II: 1914-present) and potentially some lessons for her theatre elective.

My first unit is going to be on Death of a Salesman, and then after that I get to work on poems by Robert Frost.  The scary thing is that I realized I have no idea how to teach.  I have to create classroom lessons for this entire unit, and I have no idea how to even begin.  She suggested I start with an introduction on the concept of the American Dream, so I'm working on that right now, but I also have to find time within the first day to teach drama terms... we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, if anyone has any great suggestions for things to include in my Death of a Salesman unit, let me know!

URL Explanation

As part of my English major, I took an American Literature class. It was with one of my favorite professors in the department, and we read a lot of different works that touched me in ways I wasn't expecting in a survey course.

One of my favorite pieces from the entire semester is a chant from the Zuni people, a Native American tribe. It's called Sayatasha's Night Chant. The entire thing is beautiful, but I found this part especially moving:

May you be blessed with light;
May your roads be fulfilled;
May you grow old;
May you be blessed in the chase;
To where the life-giving road of your sun father comes out
May your roads reach;
May your roads all be fulfilled. (as recorded in the Norton's Anthology of American Literature Vol. 1)

After we read it, my professor made a habit of ending each class by saying to us, "May your roads reach." I've since taken it on as one of my personal mantras or prayers.