Day 13

Success!

Today I taught my students how to come to the floor for a read aloud, how to behave in a read aloud, and what the word important means. They did it!! The first thing I did in this lesson was tell my students I have a surprise for them and showed them the grocery bag that was concealing  The Important Book.  I had a few students guess what was in the bag and then I told them I would take two more guesses and that was all. After the last student guessed, I told them we were going to move to have class on the floor today and, as expected, they were surprised. I told them that, when I tell them to, they will stand up, move into the aisle, come to the floor, and sit down with their lips zipped. After I explained the steps and used gestures to show what I meant, I had a student model it for the class. Then I had row 1 do it, then row 2, row 3 and finally row 4. They were able to understand what I was having them do, do it, and stay quiet throughout the whole process! I was thrilled! When I finished reading the book and reviewing 'important' I sent the students back to their desks to create their own important sheet. On this sheet they selected a fruit of their choice to talk about. Here they will write what is important about the piece of fruit, three things that are also important, and then come back to the initial important piece they started with. This part of the lesson needed a little more instruction.

When my supervisor and I debriefed my lesson, he told me he was so proud that I had such a huge success with them; they came to the floor and listened during a read aloud. They did it! Now that I have that basis, it will be easy for me to jump into re-reading the book and spending time on the vocabulary. It didn't occur to me that the book was not culturally relevant to the students: it talks about spoons, snow, and grass. They haven't experiences those things. I completely overlooked that, but now I know what I should bring in next time I read this. I want to re-read the book next week sometime because I feel I didn't reach the students the right way because of their limited English. They are able, they just need more from me in order to be successful. The next time I teach this, I will be very specific about the word Important and make it clear that that is the word we are focusing on. I will write it on the board and refer back to it while reading the book. In addition to modeling how to think about what important means, I will model saying what I am thinking so my students can hear my thoughts.

While I was teaching there were four staff members watching the new strategy I was doing with the students. I was not expecting an audience! It was kind of exciting to have them taking pictures of me teaching. I will try and get ahold of them next week so I can post them.

Later in the day, my supervisor and I had a conversation that was really inspirational for me. He was telling me how much he believed in my ability to overcome any difficulties in my path and succeed. He told me that in my lesson he saw me have a huge success and knows that it is possible for me to do that in the future again. He encouraged me to focus on the positive (graduating soon, finishing my course work, working with my students, teaching interesting lessons) and not the negative. He told me that he believes there is huge success in my future and he believes in my ability to get there. Now I just need to listen to him and believe in myself and focus on what I want. I want to finish student teaching successfully and graduate on June 9th. I WILL do this! I can do this. It was endearing to hear what he had to say about me and my teaching ability. I think I needed to hear that. Actually hearing that someone believes if  your ability AND you, is so powerful. I am very glad he shared his thoughts with me.

Today I taught a lesson to my students and I found what I need to focus on in order to be successful. Over the next four months I will be working on making my lessons better and focusing on graduation. It is so close! I can't mess it up now.