Chapter XXII: Practicum Preparation

The last two weeks was all about preparation. We, teachers, can never get enough it. For pre-certs, like myself, sometimes two weeks of preparation isn't enough, most especially after it was PLANNED. I write really well, my ideas are creative, and I was ready to present it; but when it comes to the actual event -- teaching -- things do not always go as planned.

Bless my teachers' hearts -- theyve been very helpful in educating us what to expect out there. They spend countless hours each week teaching us one thing: preparation. But when it comes down to it, they haven't taught us that no matter how prepared we are, plans can go flat, kaput, zilch.

I know that right now I sound extremely bleak. but in reality, I am not. I feel just the opposite. Because what I planned, what I prepared for, went uphill and the practice was a success. Let me explain:

The unit that my Mrs. Dearly's working on with the children is on butterflies -- painted lady butterflies to be exact. In the unit there are chapters -- aka pre-written lessons -- that we can pull out of this binder and talk about with the children. I decided to do it on how and why a caterpillar makes silk. Simple protocol for this practicum is to put that lesson into Western Washington University's template, called "WWU Instructional Plan". I had to "translate" everything in there into a language that public school educators would understand: the curriculum context and long/short term objectives, the assessment plans, instructional sequence (it's like a script that I made up to which I must follow to the tee), and management expectations/instructions. It's tedious work, but it was one thing I was really good at -- planning on paper.

What I love about the planning process is that it's totally and completely my idea. They're exactly what I want to see work inside MY classroom in MY own way. I have total control. This does not mean that I'm treating students like puppets. If you have kept up with my blog until now, you would understand that in my most recent career, I was a puppet and told what and how to teach things. It was not my comfort zone. The reality is this -- put your kids in school and teachers teach what they want to teach and how to teach it as long as it meets district/state standards. We are held accountable to not leave a child behind.

So goes the subject at hand -- making sure that I do not leave any information out to ensure that every second grader in that classroom is learning something new and interesting. And that it's something that they will carry onto their next grade level or higher.

To my surprise, even though things did not go as planned -- per my lesson plan -- the presentation and lesson was a success! What I did not expect was the time...there is NOT ENOUGH time to teach an entire lesson. I had too many ideas on paper and mis-calculated the time limit on my presentation. It initially was 40 minutes tops. I had no idea that with students' questions, transitions, and behavior management, all of that was important info to ADD in my lesson plan -- something I did not consider!

Chapter XXI: A Teary Reminder

Today is volunteer-day in TJ's first grade classroom. The children's smiles are so welcoming. I think I've grown attached to every single one of them. My son quickly picks this up and is always smiling with pride whenever any of his classmates gives me a hug or greets me with a smile. When I first volunteered in his classroom, I became wary of how I treat each one because I know my son is watching. I wasn't sure how he would react if he saw another child hug me, so I prevented that from happening. But that was in the beginning of the school year. He gleams when he sees any of his classmates playing with me or tend to a crying child.

Nothing breaks my heart more than a child who gets emotionally hurt and my son knows this (he does know when I know a fake, too).

The children look forward to games that I play with them. I guess it's a good break away for them from monotony -- although it is absolutely never monotonous in Mrs. Windell's classroom. She has an aura about her that children love. I hope to emulate that when I head on over to my intern next quarter or work in a school district.

Even though we are playing board games in the back of the classroom, they are LEARNING games that are very educational -- mostly reading and spelling -- and it also teaches social skills. I'm there to guide them and explain the rules to them.

Mrs. Windell chose a group of kids to work with me on a board game, which involves spelling. This is a group of kids that I have never worked with since I started to volunteer in TJ's classroom. One child, in particular, who I will call "Ariel", had been begging Mrs. Windell for th-e longest time to play with me. She finally got her wish, ran up to me, and gave me the biggest hug I ever received from a child in this class.

I didn't have my coffee this morning nor did I have any breakfast, so I felt pretty groggy as if I just got out of bed even though I'm professionally dressed to the nines. We were seated in the back of the classroom and all four children took their seats getting ready to play. One of the children in the group got a bit chatty and explained the rules without waiting for me. Thinking that the kids got it down pat, we started the game.

In the middle of the board there's a wheel with a plastic spinner in the middle of it. The children's job is to take turns spinning the spinner and doing what it says: "Draw 1, Draw 2, Draw 3, Camel, and Steal". (I will not go into details about how each one is played.) Ariel was first to spin and she worked on spelling on her word. It's the next child's turn to spin -- the spinner stopped at "STEAL". She reached out over to Ariel's pile and took a letter. She spelled her word.

In less than a minute, Ariel, who was sitting next to me, was quietly sobbing. I had no idea that the game affected her. AND DUMMY ME....FORGOT TO GO OVER THE GAME WITH THE GROUP! It's a supposed automatic thing with students. As a teacher my responsibility is to 1) explain 2)have children repeat back or do the activity with me and 3) verbally review and ask if there are any questions. I did not do steps 2 and 3. I felt sooooo bad for Ariel, and mentally kicked my butt for not doing it.

After apologizing to the group -- most especially to Ariel -- for not thoroughly explaining the rules I decided to improvise a little bit. Anytime the arrow points to "steal", the person who got stolen from gets to pick TWO more letters from the letter pile. Now everyone is hoping they get stolen from.

I'm glad that this was a minor mistake on my part. It was a good lesson learned. It also taught me to think quick on my feet when I make a mistake. I know that other places that I should not name, I'd get written up for something like that: if it seems that a childcaregiver is under a lot of stress, she gets written up. I remembered being frazzled when I went looking for a thermometer for a child who is running a fever. There wasn't one in my classroom but I found one in my purse. My write up was when I went searching for a thermometer, even though there were other childcareworkers there. These women had positions under me, so I told them to stay put with the children. But it was the STRESS, the part where I didn't ask the other workers to look for it (i.e. lacking in leadership) was what really got to them.

Being under stress got me in trouble.

In this newfound career at least....

...the reality is: ALL TEACHERS GO UNDER STRESS -- EVERYDAY. And as long as they're law abiding citizens and the children are meeting district and state standards, the teacher still gets an "A" for being a TEACHER.

It was okay that a seven year old child was crying. It felt good that she gave me another big hug after I apologized to her. The stress was especially relieved when Mrs. Windell looked at me, smiled, and said, "Teachers make mistakes all the time. We're not perfect."

TJ gave me a thumbsup and (secretly) blew me a kiss as I left the classroom.

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Chapter XX: Spring 2010 -- The Beginnings

School has started about a couple weeks ago and I'm still trying to settle in. Our schedules are quite different this quarter. Two classes for the first and second weeks, which were music, Essentials of Teaching (part 3, with a different instructor), and a class on lesson planning. Art will be added later on. Starting this week I will have three classes for the next three weeks; four classes for two weeks. I won't go into my entire schedule but you get the picture. If I were to color code each of my classes, it'll look a maze for the next 2 1/2 months.

I'm not complaining - it's just that it's different than what we've been through for the last two sessions. The reason being that many of the teachers felt that it was "too much" for us because many of us work and/or have families. I have observed that many of us would walk into our classes looking like zombies, but as far as what we know, we're the "best" cohort out of 5 cohorts. Guess our "zombie" looks indicated that we worked harder than the others; therefore, the teachers thought it best to stagger our classes this session. I am curious to see how this is going to pan out for us.


It seems that the main theme for teachers to get certified through Western Washington University is "diversity" (e.g. cultural, physical/mental abilities, gender, etc.). This is my third quarter with WWU and, so far, all of my classes have discussed managing our lessons according to diversity. For example, my music class: if there is a child with special needs (physical), then the teacher's lesson will ensure that the child is included in every activity that his classmates are doing. In other words, this child will not be left behind. Another perfect example is culture. If there is a child who is not allowed to be touched on the head -- and there are certain cultures that sees this as taboo -- then it is the teacher's responsibility to make sure that her lessons DO NOT include touching a person's head. The teacher, herself, has to be sure not to pat the child's head.

All of this does sound tedious, that is why we are going through rigorous training in our school. I am not sure about the other schools, like University of Washington, or Seattle Pacific University; but as far as I have heard and researched, Western Wash. Univ. is a tough school. And I am experiencing it firsthand. My GPA did go from a 4.0 to 3.7. I missed a beat by not being thorough in my written classroom observations. I certainly had no idea, nor was there a criteria mentioned on how detailed we should be. Now I know, and I get to do it again.

I will be doing my practicum, part II, with Mrs. Dearly's class again this session, which I am ecstatic about. She has been so supportive and has made my experience a very positive one. Being that she's a WWU grad herself, it's easy to relate to her about my studies; however, she mentioned that there's more work than before. Tedious work. And I most certainly agree with her.

I will also be doing two whole class lessons where she will observe one and my Supervising Practicum Advisor will observe the other. Two different lesson plans. They are difficult to do and very time consuming, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it (I got an "A" for it last quarter).

Another hard core assignment I will be doing is building my own classroom rules/management (YAY!!!!) and creating a curriculum unit. I have decided to do bees and butterflies -- thanks to Spring time. This will be a compilation of math, reading, writing, and science lessons to be demonstrated in front of my cohort. The great thing about this is that we will be sharing so many ideas that with 19 students -- total -- we will have a year's worth of units. I'm really excited about that!

As far as classroom rules and behavioral management, I feel like I'm on cloud nine with that assignment. As long as it (sensibly) meets our state's standards, we have the freedom to create an environment according to what WE believe in when it comes to rules. I have so many ideas up my sleeve that I think I'm ready to burst them out here on this post, but I will not do that. As long as classroom rules are reasonable and does not disrupt learning, then this should be easy to build.

So here comes another session full of excitement and adventure. Public schools resume session tomorrow. Everything will be back to normal. I will be volunteering in my son -- TJ's class -- Monday mornings. Tuesdays , and maybe even on Thursdays, I will be in Mrs. Dearly's class in the afternoons. I will be doing more hands-on inside these classrooms, more so than just teacher-guidance by Mrs. Dearly and Mrs.Windell. More experience and a step closer to my dream of being a classroom teacher.