Day One
It didn't hit me that I was really going to be teaching first grade until I was holding F--'s hand and walking down the hall toward sthe other First Graders. It actually hasn't really hit me yet.
I would describe my first day as trying to hold water in my hands. When one child would stop talking, another one would fall out of her chair. When we had stopped giggling, it would take 5 mintues to get back on track and even then we are on the slow track. The things I took for granted in Houston are way beyond the current level of my students here. I'm sure it's mostly the age difference, but still.
Most taxing, but completely adorable, is T--. It is T--'s second year in first grade, although he claims to be six. He still has trouble writing his name and seems to lack the understanding that letters have sounds. He was up, tapping on my arm or leg every 5 minutes. "Hold one one minute, T--," I would say. "I'm helping K--." Ten seconds later he was back. The funniest part was when I was trying to teach the consequence system. He was the only one I could convince to act poorly, even though everyone wanted to. After I had him knock his chair to the floor and refuse to flip his card, I told him that I was going to flip it twice and he needed to take a timeout. He looked up at me, starting to cry, and I realized that although he had understood that we were pretending for the first part, he totally missed that we were pretending for hte second part. T-- takes 25% of my energy, instead of the approximately 5% that he might fairly be given. But he sure is a cutie.
I need to be stricter tomorrow. They listened for a little while when I acted angry with them, and running through my head was my CS saying, "Be dispassionate towards dicipline. Teach them that it is about choices." In tomorrow morning's lesson, we are going to make our privilege cards and then we are going to talk about choices and read "Strega Nona," where Anthony makes a poor choice. Then we are going to think about other choices that Anthony could have made and we are going to write a new ending to the story. We'll see how much of this actually happens, but that is one of my plans for the day. Yay! Basically, I'm doing today, second edition.
My students can tell you that we "work hard, get smart," and that we sit in "Listening. Learning. Position." They know we get marbles but seem to be unclear on how. So much to do. So much to do in our new rows. Advide to new teachers: no on the groups. No. No. No.
I would describe my first day as trying to hold water in my hands. When one child would stop talking, another one would fall out of her chair. When we had stopped giggling, it would take 5 mintues to get back on track and even then we are on the slow track. The things I took for granted in Houston are way beyond the current level of my students here. I'm sure it's mostly the age difference, but still.
Most taxing, but completely adorable, is T--. It is T--'s second year in first grade, although he claims to be six. He still has trouble writing his name and seems to lack the understanding that letters have sounds. He was up, tapping on my arm or leg every 5 minutes. "Hold one one minute, T--," I would say. "I'm helping K--." Ten seconds later he was back. The funniest part was when I was trying to teach the consequence system. He was the only one I could convince to act poorly, even though everyone wanted to. After I had him knock his chair to the floor and refuse to flip his card, I told him that I was going to flip it twice and he needed to take a timeout. He looked up at me, starting to cry, and I realized that although he had understood that we were pretending for the first part, he totally missed that we were pretending for hte second part. T-- takes 25% of my energy, instead of the approximately 5% that he might fairly be given. But he sure is a cutie.
I need to be stricter tomorrow. They listened for a little while when I acted angry with them, and running through my head was my CS saying, "Be dispassionate towards dicipline. Teach them that it is about choices." In tomorrow morning's lesson, we are going to make our privilege cards and then we are going to talk about choices and read "Strega Nona," where Anthony makes a poor choice. Then we are going to think about other choices that Anthony could have made and we are going to write a new ending to the story. We'll see how much of this actually happens, but that is one of my plans for the day. Yay! Basically, I'm doing today, second edition.
My students can tell you that we "work hard, get smart," and that we sit in "Listening. Learning. Position." They know we get marbles but seem to be unclear on how. So much to do. So much to do in our new rows. Advide to new teachers: no on the groups. No. No. No.
posted by Jessica at 10:54 PM
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