Nerves

I have my first set of parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. And even though everyone tells me there's no need to be nervous, I am. I just have this irrational (maybe not entirely irrational) fear that some parent will come in and yell at me about their kid, or that they'll come in and ask about their son or daughter and I won't know what to tell them because I'll go blank.

I know these fears are ridiculous, of course.

But still.

The good thing is that I won't (obviously) be dealing with it on my own--my cooperating teacher will be in the room the whole time with me and will help me to field any problems. Also, our conferences are student-led, which means that the student has to explain his/her grade to his/her parent as soon as they come into the classroom, and the parents can then go to the teacher if there are any further questions.

My cooperating teacher says that there usually isn't.

But nerves aside about tomorrow, I decided this week that becoming a teacher is feeling a lot I felt when becoming a missionary: I know where I want to be, but I can so clearly see how my weaknesses impede me from getting there. And of course, the same weaknesses I had as a missionary still trail me as a teacher.

But one thing that I decided to start working on this week was to really try to start forming relationships with the students so that they know I care about them. I've put all this time into preparing what I think are great, engaging, and meaningful lessons, but I still think that the kids still feel a little disconnected from me, even though I already just love them all.

So today I started trying harder--I discussed a book with a student that we both had read, I asked if a particularly shy boy in one of my classes had played his new computer game again that he was telling me about, and I made sure to speak to this one girl that the other teachers say will only talk to me. And you know what? I could see a visible difference in the kids' countenances and I could feel that trust was beginning to be formed.

I've also done some pretty stupid stuff in the last week, like speaking sharply (maybe a little too sharply) to two boys who were roughhousing each other in the classroom and telling the kids that they shouldn't call each other names (after which I found out that the kids had not called the student "dummy" as I had thought, but his nickname "Johnny"). Ah, the joy of messing up. As a teacher, I'm starting to get kind of used to it.

But I'm still loving the experience all the same.

Don't You Like The Name Torrie?

It seems that I am reminded on a daily basis that 7th graders simply do not think the same way as adults.

The following conversation happened last Friday with a student who is in one of the periods that my cooperating teacher is still teaching:

Student: Is your name Mrs. Meidell?
Me: Yes.
Student: What's your first name?
Me: Torrie
Student: Can I call you Torrie?
Me: No.
Student: Why? Don't you like the name Torrie?
Me: I do like the name Torrie. But while I'm a teacher, I like Mrs. Meidell better.
Student (after a brief pause): Does your husband call you Mrs. Meidell?

Oh man. This is going to be way too much fun.

(Too bad we're not supposed to use sarcasm at all in our classrooms...)

Student Teaching: First Day

I was surprisingly calm when it came to planning for and thinking about my first full day of teaching--I have known what I wanted to do forever, and so it was just a matter of sitting down (or standing up, if you will) and doing it.

It was AWESOME.

I got a little nervous in the few minutes right before I stood up to take over the class. I was worried about the awkward transition to a new teacher (me) and the fact that I'd never taught more than two consecutive periods before in my life. I was slightly worried that the kids would give me trouble and that they wouldn't respect my authority as a student teacher.

But, as it so often happens, I needn't have worried.

Today we started a new unit on personal narratives, and I wanted to combine a getting-to-know-you-type activity while introducing the material, so I decided to have the students put their chairs in a circle and have every student share a short (true) story from his/her own life. As these are 7th graders, I heard some expected groans and saw some looks of frightened bewilderment.

And even though some of the students chose to pass (which was perfectly fine with me), many more decided to be brave and share a story about themselves. We had students talking about the scariest thing that's ever happened to them, about how it felt to try something new, and about how they got one of their scars. I laughed as a class clown simply shared as his story, "This scar on my finger? I got it from trying to cut open a banana. The stupid peel just didn't want to come off," and I felt like crying as one of the quieter girls somehow found the courage to say how much she missed her father, who had been deployed back to Guatemala a couple years ago.

I love the rich diversity in our classroom. I love how these students are so much kinder than I remember students being in my own junior high. I love how when I was up there directing and teaching and sharing experiences with the students, that I felt like I was where I should be.

After years of questioning whether I really wanted to be a teacher, I finally received a confirmation.

I do.