i haven’t posted in forever. because i haven’t had 5 free minutes in forever. i really don’t have them now but i wanted to update everyone on my first week of teaching.
it was:
crazy
interesting
so much harder than i thought
exhausting
sleep-depriving
amazing meeting my kids
challenging to realize that my students’ reading and writing levels range from 2nd to 9th grade
inspiring to see the big dreams they have for their lives
awesome getting to work with such amazing teachers at my school
so so so so much fun.
I don’t really know how exactly to wrap up everything that happened. So I’m just going to post what some of my kids wrote as a response to their first ever journal entry. The question was: What is your big goal for the future? How does our class Big Goal play a part in this?”
(FYI – our class Big Goal is that every single student would make 2 years of growth in reading level and 2 years of growth in writing level and that everyone would be scoring at at least Proficient on the Benchmark Assessments)
Here are some of their answers:
“My goal for the future is to attend college and to have a bright future as a college graduate. The class big goal will push me because I want to be more than another statistic.”
“My big goal for the future is to become an actress but graduate college first. I want to be the first in my family to go to college. Our class plays a part in it because the teacher helps prepare me for what I’m going to face in the future.”
“My goal for the future is to become a doctor. I plan on working hard to go to college. Our class goal will help me in the way that I am going to have a better vocabulary. I hope that this class helps me become a better reader and writer.”
“My goal in the future is to graduate high school and go off to a 4 year university. My dream is to be a lawyer and that takes a good education. So in order for me to achieve my goal I have to work REALLY hard.”
“My goal for my life is to finish high school and graduate to go study forensic science. I would like to be a crime scene investigator. Our class big goal is very inspiring and I hope I’ll be able to accomplish it. I would like for you to push me because I know I may get tired or lazy around the middle of the year.”
“I want to be an architect.”
“I want to study to be a marine biologist.”
“I want to get my Master’s Degree in Engineering.”
“I want to be the first female in my family to go to college.”
So this is what my class looks like. They’re awesome.
I love teaching. I love my kids.
We start our first unit next week on Identity, and we’re reading Catcher in the Rye (which they’re really excited about because it was banned at some of their previous schools).
It’s going well and I can’t wait to see where they end up at the end of the year.
I started going to classes myself this week at LMU. Every Monday night I have classes from 5 -10. I really like the professors and I think I’ll learn a lot in the classes, it’s just a little overwhelming to think about trying to keep up with my own classes while I’m teaching 5 classes during the week.
I also found out this week that I get to teach an Honors class. Which is AMAZING. These kids WANT to be pushed and challenged so I’m going to get to do so much with them. (I haven’t told them yet, but they’re definitely going to be writing 10 page term papers on social justice issues at the end of the year. HA. If they knew that now, though, they’d probably never show up to my class again).
I’m also going to be coaching the Students Run LA group, where we will be training to run a 10k together. They were really excited about, which made me really excited about it too. It will be good to get to know them outside of the classroom.
So there you go. My first week as a real, live teacher.
I’ll post again as soon as I have a free minute. But who knows when that will be…
you’re awesome.
love you. praying for you.
that’s all.