Summer Practicum-just a few thoughts

Summer practicum was amazing. I had a wonderful mentor teacher, Annabelle. I really found out who I am as a teacher, and I think I might be pretty great. I also faced some fears of past teachers observing me. One in particular didn't have a single bad thing to say about me. Whew.

I taught in the same room with Brandi and Jennae. Me and Brandi got to be pretty good friends throughout practicum. We rode together to Spanish Fork every day for 6 weeks. We shared the exact same frustrations with the way things were....but we also shared the same excitement for teaching. It was challenging to share a room with 2 other teachers because I wanted to get louder and louder, but then the whole room was chaos. I had to control my volume level but still show enthusiasm. For me, those two things go hand in hand.

I had the most amazing students. They were 2nd and 3rd graders and they were full of life. My patience was tried sometimes, but when they were excited to learn, it was wonderful! I had a different group for math and reading, depending on students needs, but every student I had was great. They are the first group of students that were all mine to teach. Man, what smart kids they are. And when I heard them tell me how wonderful I was or when they would get faster at math or reading, getting up at 6 every morning almost seemed worth it.

I succeeded many times teaching them, but there were a few failures too. It was interesting to see that even if I planned everything out, if it wasn't right for my students, it just wasn't going to work. My students determined what I was going to teach, and that is exactly how teaching should be done.

I discovered that I love to teach math. Math can be broken down into manageable steps. If my students could learn the steps, then it didn't matter the problem, they could do it. My students were doing huge multiplication problems and equally as large division problems. They were so smart!

I also discovered that teaching writing isn't my favorite thing to do. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not that great of a writer myself, and so teaching writing wasn't too fun for me. However, when I planned awesome lessons that even I was excited to teach, my lessons went better. My mentor teacher helped me get over my fear of writing and I really did have some sweet lessons. My students published 2 pieces of writing over the summer. Two!

I saw the things that I am good at. But I also saw my weaknesses. I am a very sarcastic person and thankfully Annabelle was too. I have a hard time hiding what I think. My face usually gives me away. But, I am learning to hide it. I learned from some amazing special education teachers and I am so thankful for the real world opportunity I had to teach. Now, I am ready to take on student teaching. Springville Junior High, here I come!

Annabelle, my amazing mentor teacher, and I holding my certificate of completion

Me, Brandi, Jennae-we all graduated from Practicum