A fairly boring Friday turned into an interesting Monday for me. Friday's highlight included me geting a little face-time with the principal as he came in to do an observation on my cooperating teacher. I got to see what he looks for in his teachers and how he assesses the progress each class is making. A lot of the principal's notes were on one student. He's been a bit of a difficult child all year and they were going to brainstorm ways to keep him engaged at their post-conference. I did get to teach another lesson to the 5th period U.S. History. Basically just reading with them and adding to what they were reading.
Monday turned out to be one of the most interesting days I've had all year. I showed up at my normal time expecting to just work with much of the same. The twist came in the form of MSP testing. My cooperating teacher knew I wouldn't be doing much that day so he had it worked out for me to go across the street and join the high school classes. I went for the first three periods watching a couple different teachers and classes. First period was a world history class with mainly seniors. He gave a lecture on the start of WWII. I found his techniques for teaching a bit awkward, he was pretty 'gruff' with the students but they seemed to respond to him pretty well. Senioritis had hit pretty hard and many of them seemed to be off task but they got the material nonetheless and answered his quiz questions. 2nd period was U.S. History and they watched a movie and filled out a guided note sheet. I then went into another teacher's room and got to watch him teach a senior class about consumer law.
Each teacher I spent time with Monday morning had 30+ years of experience in teaching. They are looking for an easy way to transition into their retirement. They gave me a lot of good advice. They said to stay involved with the kids and not try to be pushed around by them. A large classroom of seniors can be pretty intimidating.
I liked how the high school teachers interacted with their students. They were fairly tough on them and didn't put up with them not working. The first teacher did have an air of playfulness about his taunts and criticisms and I think the students picked up on that and didn't take it too personally.
I will take what the high school teachers did by being able to push their kids a little bit, and give them a bit more challenging tasks, but make the note-taking and quick questioning a firm aspect of how I want to teach.
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