Week 10: Short and Somewhat Bitter

When Times Get Tough

Another week in the books, but this is one that if I could redo I would in a heartbeat! This was not one of the greatest weeks of my student teaching internship. It started off fair but ended with an uproar. My week was already shortened because of the SLLC Convention, so this meant I only had three not even full days with my students. Wednesday was the actual whole day we had that was shortened for the musical preview or an early dismissal.
The SLLC convention was a great experience not only for myself my students as well. It was my first time seeing how this convention was ran. I really enjoyed hearing some of the stuff that my students were saying. They told me about some of the legislation that was being discussed and what not. It was great to see how they were thinking and what their opinions were on certain topics. Another part I thoroughly enjoyed was doing community service at the Ronald McDonald house in Hershey. It was nice because my chapter and I were able to give back, even though it wasn't that much. We cleaned and sanitized different common rooms and picked up trash outside. We even had a nice littler helper who was there for is three year checkup of being cancer free. It definitely made me realize its the little things in life. I really enjoyed eating breakfast with our county representatives and legislators. I thought this was a great opportunity to see what was going on in our local and state government. However my favorite part was getting to go to the capital. I never though a building could be so darn beautiful and expensive! I loved knowing how it was jammed pack full of history and stories. Talk about taking a girl out of the North for a moment! It as amazing!
Animal Science was still working through the work that the sub gave them and then we moved forward but with the shortened classes made trying to get through things impossible. However we made it through vitamins and started into the importance of minerals and the difference between macro and micro minerals. I have noticed that this class is better when they work in groups and I am unsure why. I do not like putting them in groups especially when I do not assign them because then I have groups talking/gossiping rather than doing their work.  However they do get the work done rather than having them do the work on their own. I do have this one student who really upsets me because she refuses to do her work and then when I call her out on it she tells me she doesn't understand what is going on after I asked for questions as a group and individually. It is so hard not to get frustrated with her but I feel as though that just causes her to get attitude and defensive. I am still working with her but with the marking period ending next Tuesday I just do not see her having the ambition to come to me to get her assignments done. I guess we will how that goes next week. I just do not like turning students away.
In Ag Environmental awareness we started to plant some more vegetables. I really think my students enjoy planting, which is good because they will plant more and then transplant the plants into four packs to sell. They are grasping a little more concept on planning where to plant.  We are trying to show that in order to have a business they must have a plan. So in this case them planting and knowing when to plant and the sell date counts as a overall business plan. I touched on co-ops but with these shortened period is truly makes it impossible to get through the information for them to better understand this process.
I also picked up two sections of Ag Mechanics I. This was interesting because I picked them up on our shortened periods and it seemed to go well. I got a basic understanding of where they are at with small gas engines, and as I assumed they really do not know too much. However this did lead me and Mrs Jarema to a new finding. For my community-based project I am going to write an article in the town newspaper and create a flyer for the school to bring in lawnmowers for the students to repair and maintain. I was going to do a career fair but with little timing we decided to change it and open this unit to the community. Its great because it takes care of this assignment, but most importantly it helps the students really retain and understand how to repair and maintain a small gas engine. I am pretty stoked about it, but before we can get to the shop we have some class work to do first.
On top of this shortened week, one of my lovely sections of Ag Mechanics II decided that they really wanted to push my buttons to see just how far they could push before I would break. Let me tell you, they broke me. We were still doing safety demonstrations of the oxy-acetlyene torch and my students decided they were going to be extremely disruptive, disrespectful and just annoying to the one student taking his test. After countless times of talking the students I finally sent them up to the classroom to think about what they were doing. I should have known better because when I called on them they decided to shut me down by being disrespectful to not only me but the student who was struggling.  On top of that I had a student think it was absolutely necessary to be on his cell phone while he was in the shop! I lost it! I sent them up and literally couldn't handle my anger that I just started to weep, in front of the struggling student. Bless this student's heart, he knew what was going on that he was trying to keep me distracted, but being overwhelmed I just couldn't gather my thoughts in time. So we cleaned up and headed up to the room where the rest of the class was, and I decided to pull the one student aside and speak with him one on one. That backfired hard! He literally told me I was a terrible teacher, which broke my heart even more.
This is when I brought myself to a decision, I had to address this situation at the beginning of the next class, and so I did. I sat there and yelled (unfortunately the mean teacher side came out) and explained the reason the safety was taking so long. I also established a new rule that if we are going to the shop that they must turn in their cell phones at the beginning of class and I will hand them back out at the end when they are in their seats. Since it was only one day I am waiting to see what next week will be like, but it had to be done.
Overall this week was a tad crazy, but I made it through. I have realized that sometimes you just need to come on strong to deserve some respect, but also for the importance of the students learning. I can say that I am pleased with the way I handled things but I am sad that it had to come to this. Might I add that I appreciate all people who are in the profession of teaching, because it definitely isn't easy! I am still waiting to see what the next week brings, hopefully well-behaved mechanic boys and a better week.

Bermudan FFA Chapter at the State Capital Building

Giving a helping hand to the Ronald McDonald House 

Planting and Labeling Vegetables