Special Times in Special Ed.

       Well I have just finished my second week of my special education placement at a new school.  I am working in a resource room that services students young 5's -8th grade.  Needless to say this is quite an adventure.  I am at a new school, with new teachers, new rules, and a new feel.  This was not a change that I wanted to make, but I knew the importance of this transition.  I loved everything about my first student teaching placement, and I was comfortable with my skills as a general education instructor.  Now that I am off to the new school, I am feeling the awkwardness of transition.  I am not as comfortable in the special education area, and I am new to the school so I have been very reserved and observant over the past two weeks. However, now that I am settling in at the new school, I am beginning to take more risks and gain knowledge on how to effectively teach students with disabilities.  I know that God has me here for a reason, and I am not going to allow myself to waste time.  I need to be proactive and make the best of the situation that I am in.  I know that in the end this will make me the best educator that I can be.  Bridging the gap between the special education and regular education is my goal as a teacher. I will keep you updated on the new chapter of this journey!

Trail of Tears

      I am officially done with my regular education student teaching placement.  Yesterday was the last day in my second grade classroom...and man was it a hard day to get through.  On one hand I was excited that I am getting closer and closer to getting my own classroom.  On the other hand,  I never wanted this day to come because I love my students, my school, and the people in it.   Needless to say, it was going to be a very hard day.  All week my students had been asking why I had to leave, where I was going, and whether or not I would ever come back to see them.  I spent the majority of my week reassuring them that I was not getting kicked out of the school and I was only going to a new school ten minutes down the road...THEY WOULD SEE ME AGAIN!!!  Now it is finally my last day.  As soon as I walk in the classroom  I see that everything is decorated with streamers and signs for me.  This is when it really hit me that I would not be coming back to the classroom with these students.  It was a tough day to get through and it did not make it any better when the all of the kids decided to cry during their music class.  The music teacher could not even get through class because they were crying so loud.  I heard about this from another teacher who could hear my students crying in the office.  I went down to the office to get them, thinking I could calm them down and get them back into music class.  This was not the plan my students had because I spent the last 30 minutes of my prep sitting outside the music class with two students while they cried.  I was glad that they loved me, but it did not make it any easier to leave them at the end of the day.  Despite the sadness, it was a fun day in my classroom.  My teacher had a surprise party for me, which means lots of new goodies for my classroom!  After that we all went outside and ate popsicles and enjoyed the sunshine.  I am sad to be leaving,  I truly did enjoy my time with my second graders!

Look before you sit!

         Look before you sit...that is a lesson I learned a little too well yesterday during my math lesson.  We have been working with 3D shapes all week.  Yesterday, I thought that it would be fun to create some 3D shapes of our own using marshmallows and toothpicks.  I modeled how to make the different shapes for the class and I sat the finished products on the stool in the front of the classroom.  I was walking around the room helping students and monitoring their work and completely forgot that I had made some shapes and sat them on the stool.  After about 20 minutes I ended up back at the stool and without looking at the stool, I backed up to it and sat down.  I was sitting down for a couple of minutes and then I started thinking about the shapes I had made because I wanted to let a student use one at his desk for an example.  I could not find them and I did not remember where I had set the shapes.  I was convinced that a student had taken them when I was not looking and was now claiming the shapes as their own.  Finally, I stood up and turned around to write on the board.  What do I see when I stand up?  MARSHMALLOWS AND TOOTHPICKS SMASHED TO THE STOOL!  A couple of my students saw this on the stool and at about the same time we realized that if they were on the stool , then they must be on the back of my pants too!  We had some good laughs, and during my prep which was coming up in about 5 minutes I went into the teachers bathroom and cleaned them up.  This would happen to me on a day where I had a staff meeting after school.  I had to get the pants clean, I couldn't go to my last staff meeting with marshmallows dangling off the back of my pants!

Need a laugh!

So I realized that in my last post I forgot to write down some of the quotes from my students.  They really must be the funniest group of kids that I have ever met!

Here they are:

One day while standing out at dismissal with my students, one of the girls in my class was asking me a question and I did not hear her talking to me, so it seemed to her like I was ignoring her. After a couple minutes of her repeating the same question to me over and over again, she yelled out at me, "speak cracker, speak!"  Now in order to understand why this was so funny you need to know the background of my students.  I am a white teacher in a class that is mainly black students.  So when she yelled this at me I couldn't help but laugh.  She is one of the most innocent girls we have in our whole school, so I knew that she had no clue what she was saying.  I just had to take a step back and laugh at this situation, especially after the long day that I had!

Just the other day, my class was in the library for our weekly visit and while we were there the librarian was reading a biography about Abraham Lincoln.  My students were pretty attentive throughout the story because we have been studying biographies in class.  At the end of the story on of the girls in my class raised her had because she had something she wanted to share with the class.  Once she was called on this is what she was dying to share.
Student: "Do you know who Abraham Lincoln's 27th grandson was?"
Librarian: "No who was it?"
Student: "It was Jesus!"
Librarian: "Jesus Christ?"
Student: "Yes, my mom told me that Jesus was the grandson of Abraham Lincoln!"
At this point I did not know any other reaction expect for to laugh!

Since I've been gone...

     As you may have noticed, I have not blogged in almost an entire month.  This is not because nothing exciting has happened, it is simply because I am so busy that I do not have time to keep up with this blog.  Sad story, trust me I know!  Do not worry, I am back now..and after much harassment from followers of my blog, I am going to do a better job with keeping up on this blog!
     So since I have last blogged we have had a number of events happen in the classroom.  For starters, I went on my first field trip as a teacher.  We went to the Michigan Theater and to the Museum of Natural History.  This was an event for sure, trying to keep up with 90 second graders and their parents was a task all in itself! By the end of this "day off" from class, I was more tired than I usually am after a full day of school.  The very next day after the field trip was Valentine's Day, which in second grade means HUGE PARTY WITH LOTS OF PREPARATION! Despite all of the craziness of getting this party together for my students, I did have a lot of fun giving and receiving cards and candy from my students and taking time to just get to know them!

Personalized Cookie I was given as a Valentine's treat from a student!

The Valentine's card I made for my students.

Here's for my fans!

          It seems that my blog is creating quite the commotion in Southeastern Michigan, and by Southeastern Michigan, I mean to the 4 people that actually know about this blog.  However, they have brought it to my attention that I have not blogged in quite a while.  In an effort to please everyone I come in contact with I am going to give a quick little week update.
       Today was my observation from my university supervisor on my progress during my student teaching.  I spent about 4 hours preparing ONE lesson to teach to my class while she was in the room.  Although it was a great lesson, it took me entirely too long and there is no way that I am going to allow myself to spend that much time on a lesson when their are so many other things to be done in order to prepare for a school day. All that time was worth it though because she said that I am doing extremely well in my placement.  She also talked about how easily she thinks I will find a teaching job based on my performance as a student teacher.  These were great things to hear yet, I know I have a ton of room to grow and I want to do everything I can to improve as a teacher.  I want to get to the point where all of my lessons are that good.  I do not want to have this exceptionally well lesson that is only around for an hour of the day.  I know I have a lot of room to grow and one of those areas to grow in is my math instruction.  I do not like math, I do not like teaching math, and honestly, I do not even like the word math....and I am not sure why I am writing the word math so much right now!  Anyways, for my midterm evaluation for student teaching I am having my supervisor watch me teach a math lesson.  I might be shooting myself in the foot on that one but it is worth it in order to grow!


Now for what you really want to hear about...its time for the quote of the week: Beware this one is a little interesting!

While I was teaching our morning ELA lesson in our DOL books, one of the questions was to create words in the -ick family.
Me: (calling on a student) Can you think of a word that is in the-ick family?
Student: Yes, Dick.
All the other students: AGHHH YOU ARE SWEARING!
Student: NO IM NOT ITS A WORD!
Me: Well I don't think I am going to write that word down.
Student: Why not, my mom calls my dad that all the time.
Me: Ummmmm?!?!?!

Kids literally says the craziest things EVER!

Why am I so busy?!?!?!

     This is my first blog post since last Monday, when I started this blog I was intending on having time to blog about 2 or 3 times each week...boy was I wrong.  As I am picking up more subjects in the classroom and gaining responsibilities, I am finding that blogging is no longer fitting into my schedule.  This past week and weekend, I have really learned what the life of a teacher is truly like.  Clearly, the word "weekend" means "extra planning time" in teacher lingo.  I spent a majority of the weekend preparing my lesson plans for the upcoming week and making sure that I knew all of the information that I am going to bring to my students.  I knew that planning out lessons and weekly units would take a lot of time, but I never really expected it to take this much time.  Lesson planning was a huge part of my education classes in college.  I spent quite a bit of time learning this craft and figuring out how exactly a good lesson is created.  I am finding that now I am actually teaching these lessons to a group of students that I am spending more time and giving more serious thought to how my lessons are planned and prepared.  Also, I take into consideration what my students ability levels are and how I think they could handle certain activities.  Lets be honest, 2nd graders get excited over just about anything and it can be very hard to get them back on the learning track.  That is something that I have to take into consideration with every lesson that I plan and teach.  For example. today we were working on a math worksheet independently and I set a timer on the smart board to help remind the students how much time they had left to work.  I thought it would be fun to have a timer that is a ticking tmie bomb and when time is up it blows up.  Little did I know that my students would focus on the timer and the fuse of the bomb THE ENTIRE TIME! I honestly do not know if they looked at their worksheets for more than two minutes while that timer was on the screen.  Eventually I had to get rid of the timer because my students could not handle it.  This is now something that I have to remember and plan for when I am preparing for lessons.  Clearly, with my students, little things can take their attention for hours!!!  I am learning a lot right now about how my life is going to be.  I am beginning to understand the amount of time it takes to plan a great lesson...and although I cannot say I am a fan of how long everything is taking, I do understand why it needs to happen and I am willing to do whatever it takes to become the best teacher I can possibly be!

Okay...now for the funny stuff!

Here is the best student story from last week:
Student: "Mr. Spicer, when is your wife going to come into class?"
Me: "I have already told you that I am not married, I am too young!"
Student: "Oh, so you go home alone?"
Me: "Yes, I go home alone."
Student: "Does it make you sad to be all alone all the time?"
Me: "...Well it didn't until you just brought it up!!!"
They seriously do not understand how I am a teacher and not married...to them it does not make sense.

      Another story that I find pretty funny is one that happened to my cooperating teacher while she was teaching a lesson to our class while being observed by our principal and a guest principal.  She was teaching about fractions and she had spent hours before organing these tiny fraction manipulatives that the students were going to use in the lesson.  She them all ready to go and sitting on a stool in the front of the room in their container.  Minutes before the students were to use these tools she bumped into the stool and knocked the container over...which then fell open.  Upon hitting the floor, about 1500 pieces flew all over the ground. I had to hurry over and spend the next couple of minutes trying to get what I could together so that the students could use them.  She did a great job of keeping the lesson moving despite the incident, but it is very funny to look back on.  Both principals thought that this was pretty amusing as well!



Refocusing, Resolutions and Restrooms

        Last week was a bit of a crazy week in room 8, not only for my students, but also for myself.  My cooperating teacher was the acting Dean all week long so she was not in the classroom. Since it is only my second week of student teaching I am not allowed to sub in the classroom yet.  Dumb rule but I guess I have to do what my University says!  The students had a sub all week long, which was very new for them since the only sub they have ever had this year was me!  They do not understand new people, and for some reason my kids thought this was the perfect chance to show just how crazy they could be. My cooperating teacher wanted me to spend the week observing other teachers in the buliding so the sub was all alone in the classroom. My students do not deal well with change and most of them will take any oppourtunity they can to see what they can get away with- I have learned this is very typical behavior for second graders! Needless to say by the end of the week she was very worn out and the students were tired of dealing with changes and a new teaching style.  As an added stress they had NWEA testing all week so they were tired of that and done dealnig with the stress of meeting their test goals.  After talking to my cooperating teacher and discussing how last week went, we decided that we needed to start the week with a class meeting to get refocused on the social contract that they made at the beginning of the year.  This was a huge eye opener for me because the students really opened up and explained to me the troubles they were having in class and how we as teachers could help them to stay focused and learn while they are in our room.  This was a great experience for me and it was good to be able to refocus after a hard week in the classroom.

    This really has nothing to do with anything that I am talking about, but as a class we made resloution hats after we came back from break.  It was a fun craft and really helped the students to make some goals in the classroom.   They are reminded of their resloutions everytime they enter into the classroom and many students have been working hard to keep them!

     I have come to the conclusion that the restrooms are the craziest place in the whole entire school.  This is the place where the students feel that it is okay to turn into wild animals and forget any training that they have had in any area.  In my opinion students treat the bathrooms similarly to how people treat nightclubs.  THEY ARE WILD!  In the past few weeks I have encountered some very crazy situations.  I have caught kids climbing over stall walls, racing other students to see who could slide under the stall door the fastest, and even some kids washing their hair under the sinks.  In addition to these situations, I have experienced a child locking himself in a stall and crying because he had an accident, I have also witnessed a child peeing his pants on the way to the bathroom.  It has been a long time since I was in elementary school and I have forgotten how crazy the restroom is, but these students have reminded me very quickly how crazy an elementary restroom can be!



Why is this so exciting?

    

         Today began NWEA testing for our students.  NWEA is a test that our students take three times a year and it shows their ability in math, reading and language arts.  For some reason I was really nervous about how my students would do!  They have goals for each area and obviously the dream is that our students would meet their goals.  So during the actual testing times in the computer labs I am pacing the room like I am waiting for the biggest news of my life.  As soon as the students are done testing we are given there score so we know whether or not they have met their goal in the area that was tested that day.  It was a very different feeling for me now being on the other side of the fence with student testing.  When I was in school I did not understand why these teachers, who were strung out on coffee and Altoids, cared so much about a pointless test score that was not even going in the grade book.  Now I completely understand their feelings! I want my students to show growth and to have something that they can be proud of.  I want my students to know that they are learning and that they are a different student academically, than they were in the beginning of the school year.  As odd as it is, seeing my students test well really gets me excited.  Maybe I care too much, maybe I care a normal amount, or maybe I am just a weirdo!

Into the swing of things

      At the beginning of this week I was excited to being my student teaching semester and I could not wait to see what was in store for me. However, once I realized that the nights of staying up until 2am with friends, going to taco bell at midnight for no reason and waking up at 11am were over, I began to have a little bit of what I like to call "college is over depression" set in.  Realizing that my life now consisted of waking up at 6am and working until almost 5pm, then going home, being too tired to do anything and bed by 10pm was a little hard for me to accept.  I was contemplating not ever getting a real job and just working in fast food just so I could have a chance at having a social life. After seriously considering abandoning my dreams for a part time job, I soon got back to my senses and realized that I just needed to get adjusted to this new schedule.  
     I was a little confused as to why this semester of student teaching was taking such a toll on my energy,  I come home everyday ready for bed.  Last semester I would teach all day and then leave straight from school to go to drive all the way to Spring Arbor for my own college class.  I did this three nights each week, so why am I even more tired now that I essentially have less to do.  With a little help from my cooperating teacher, I realized that this is because my body is telling me since I have less to do it is okay just to go home and shut down.  Now that I see this, I am working on keeping myself busy in order to function for the rest of the day.
    In addition to just understanding how to function as a person, I am beginning to see how I fit into my classroom and what all I can bring to the lives of my students.  I really do have a great group of students and I love coming into school each morning.  I know that I am there for a purpose and I also know that I want my time in this classroom to be a time of growth for my students and myself.  With a lot of focus, preparation and dedication, I know that this will be one great semester!

Say what?!?!

    I feel that I needed to dedicate a blog to become my quote board for the things that my students are saying on a daily basis.  It may just be me but I believe that I have some of the funniest students around.   Some of the things that they say are...well shocking at the moment, but funny none the less!

Here they are:

When talking to a group of students about the antlers of a Moose...
Me: "Moose antlers can weight about 85 pounds, thats probably more than most 2nd graders!"
Student: "Mr. Spicer, I have to admit something to you...I have been eating A LOT of donuts lately...I think I weigh more than 85 pounds...but im on a diet now, so do not worry!"

(This happened a few months ago when I was subbing in the classroom that I am currently student teaching in... but I feel that it was too funny not to share.
Standing in the hallway with students on the way to gym...one student starts talking in the hallway when he was not supposed to. I asked him to be quiet and he kept talking. Then another student from the back of the line yells out to me: "Hey Mr. Spice (note: he does not ever call me by my right last name!) just hit him with that flex!" Referencing the student who was not following my directions!

Student asks me a question and I give him an answer. He then follows up by saying, "Wow, you must really listen to your teacher!"
Me: "What do you mean listen to my teacher?"
Student: "You know, Mrs. Gurganus, your teacher." (Who is my cooperating teacher)
Student: "I have just one question though....why are you still here in school?"
I love that some of my students still think that I am in the 2nd grade and do not understand that I am a teacher!

More to come I PROMISE!

I have a lot to learn

       I guess it would be safe to stay that I came into this semester expecting to be refined as a teacher, but not fully expecting to learn anything new. Don't get me wrong, I knew that I would be seeing different teaching, management and assessment styles/methods, but I thought that I knew it all already and would never really change my mind on how these areas would be carried out in my future classroom.  It is safe to say that I was wrong in thinking this.  In just the past two days I have learned so much more about teaching than I ever thought that I could in 48 short hours! I was a person that thought I had it all together, especially because of all the classes I have had and the experience I have had in the classroom.  Now that I am thinking about it I am so glad that I did not know it all because that would make student teaching a real waste of time for me. 
      Having spent so much time in this classroom last semester, I felt that I was going to be able to come right into the classroom and take the reigns.  I felt that I did not need any prep time and that sitting at my desk for a straight week with nothing to do was going to kill me!  Now I am looking at this time as one of the biggest learning experiences that I have had, and it is only day two. 
     So what have I learned in these past days?  Well where should I start.... I have learned the purpose of doing certain activities and how to differentiate instruction within the whole class time.  I have seen simple ways that all studnets can be instructed at the level they are at, without holding back ones that are capable of higher level thinking. Something that has been really exciting for me to learn are the simple strategies that can really take a lesson to the next level for the students.  Today while in guided reading groups I was able to learn a really cool reading strategy that uses different colored straws to help the students guide their reading and show us teachers what words they know and what words they do not know.  The students would follow along in the book while they are reading alone with a green straw and the teacher would listen.  When the student would get stuck they would point to the confusing word with a red straw.  This would show the teacher that they are stuck and need some help.  We could help them sound out the word and then they would continue reading.  When trying to listen to a small group of students reading on their own it was nice to be able to see how they were doing by them using the straw and also to be able to help them right away when they got stuck instead of them sitting on a word getting frustrated with themselves.
     In just a few short days I can say that I am really learning a lot of new strategies that I will keep in my "teacher toolbox" and take with me into my own classroom someday!

Here goes nothing!

(This is a picture of my classroom after spending seven hours over break getting it ready for the kids!)

          
         Yesterday I began my first day of my student teacher semester.  I have to say that I was not expecting to learn so much in just my first day of being in this classroom.  I have spent a lot of time in this classroom over the past semester as a substitute teacher and just in there observing the room, students and teacher.  It was a very interesting experience switching roles from the substitute teacher who only has to worry about the work for the day that they are in there, into the actual teacher who needs to understand where the students were, where they are, and where we want them to go.  This was probably the biggest change that I could sense within my first day in the classroom.  I really had to realize that I now was partly responsible for not only teaching the students but making sure that I have spent some quality time in the planning process so that I can teach an effective lessons to all of my students (not just the smart ones). I feel that over this semester and I am going to learn more than I have ever planned on learning and I am excited for that.  I am excited to see how I will grow. I am excited to see how my thought process will change in certain areas.  I am excited to learn all the behind the scene factors of teaching.  Most of all I am excited to spend the next months getting to know all 28 of my 2nd grade students!