A Teacher Trying to Process a School Shooting

Before I go too far, this isn't an op-ed on gun control. I know that whenever a tragic mass shooting occurs there are numerous pieces on gun control from both sides of the argument. This is not one of them. What this is is a teacher's thoughts on school shootings. Any shooting is tragic. Even…

First-Year Teaching: Oh, the Joys

It's been a while since my last post. Nearly a year! I'm officially a teacher. A first-year teaching 8th grade science. And I'm already half way through the year! If you're doing your internship right now, or in an education program and have yet to do your internship, you might be wondering, "So is the…

What I Would Do Differently

It's hard not to think about the things I would have done differently if I started my internship over again - hindsight's 20-20.  I can't slingshot around the sun like Captain Kirk, nor do I have a decked out Delorean, so I can't go back in time.  What I can do is turn my focus on…

Save Me from Senior-itis

However long it has been since you were a senior in high school, think back to that time when you had mere weeks left to graduate.  Maybe you were debating on which college to go to or still waiting to hear from your first choice school.  Maybe you were thinking about what you'd wear to…

The “Mean” Teacher

When I started my internship in September 2016 I really wanted my students to like me.  Having never taught a day in my life, I went into the classroom being super nice and laid-back, listening to EVERYTHING my students had to say (mostly complaints about everything) and allowing them to get away with so much.  I…

Mentally Checked Out

A couple weeks ago, an ETEP colleague and I were chatting about our internships.  During the first semester of our program, he taught at a middle school, and this semester he is teaching at a high school.  I asked how he was liking it there, and he said he was enjoying being at a high school,…

Nearing the End: A Bittersweet Feeling

In my last post, I wrote about a few things that I'm excited for when I'm done with ETEP.  Only 4 weeks of student-teaching and graduate classes left!  Followed by a mad hustle to compile evidence showing that I'm worthy of a certification and applying for dozens of teaching positions within a 50 mile radius.  It's an exciting…

What I Am Excited For

My graduate program (ETEP) is nearing its end, and next week begins the last unit I teach as a student-teacher. It's funny because as the days of end draw near, I'm sharing a feeling with my seniors. Just like my seniors, I want ever so much to be done with school. I'm struggling to not check out. Maybe, dare I say, even going through the motions at times. Let me clarify, this is regarding my graduate classes, not my teaching.

Differentiation: A Teacher’s Responsibility

Nerve impulses are electrical signals that move along a neuron. Everyday, our neurons fire trillions of these impulses to and from our brains to keep our hearts beating, our lungs inflating and deflating, and our bodies moving. In our unit on the nervous system in my anatomy class, we learned about the anatomy of a neuron and nerve impulses along an axon. I gave a lecture to my students, but I knew as I was planning this lesson that my more visual and kinesthetic learners needed something more. Bust out the differentiation.

The Power of Student Surveys

At the beginning of ETEP, I created a survey for a small AP Biology class that I helped teach at my placement. The information I received was interesting, but not very insightful. That, I soon learned, was because I didn't ask the right questions. I'm less than 2 weeks away from taking the reigns from my mentor teacher and teaching 4 anatomy classes for 4 weeks. What an opportunity to do a survey! This time I was cognizant of what I wanted to learn from my students and constructed questions to learn about them as learners and how they feel about me as a teacher.