Day 9

Today marks the first day of my first FULL week of student teaching :)

As the classes progressed throughout the day, I was taking on more responsibilities and starting to find my authortive voice with the students. Granted I am not teaching full lessons yet, but I am still responsible for the students because they are my students. Eventually I will be teaching 100% of the my classes.

Today I turned in my Professional Growth Plan and got that off my plate which was great.

A lot of what I have been doing is just walking around the class while the teacher is instructing and helping to manage the students. Many of the students are quite squirly and, in my personal opinion, are testing me to see how I will react since I am new to them. I have found that taking objects away from them has worked because then they won't get off task with whatever they were playing with.
Something I would really like to do eventually is rearrange the desks so the students are in groups rather than in rows. I feel this would promote more thoughtful collaboration because students would be able to talk with each other where they are rather than having to move to be next to their peers.

Later in the afternoon, we met with the principals daughter who studied in Washington state for twenty years and speaks fluent English. Meeting with her helped us sort out some money issues. She said she would be able to help us figure out where to get the best rate for exchanging travelers checks which was good to know.

Living in Macau has been an enlightening experience. For example, it's made me realize that we may take things for granted in the United States, such as large hot water heaters. I hope to learn as much as I can about the community in which I live before I head home in four short months.