First Week Nearly Done...Already!

Time has been going by so fast, which I suppose is a pretty good reflection of how my week has been going. I feel really fortunate to be teaching at Dromclough for the next two months. The faculty has been so nice; I get asked every day how I am doing and fitting in at the school. It's nice to know that I can talk not only to my cooperating teacher, but any faculty member at the school about questions that I have and so forth. It has really helped ease me into a totally new environment.

The principal at Dromclough was able to track down a microphone system to put in the junior infants room so I can use a microphone when I start teaching maths next week. At certain times when my cooperating teacher has needed to step out of the classroom for a minute, I have been left with the students and they can get pretty lively at times. Since there are 31 of them, sometimes my voice doesn't project loud enough for every student to hear me when I tell them to settle down and/or return to their seats. Obviously, that becomes an issue when it comes to proficiency at classroom management. I also don't want to strain my voice by the end of the second week so I talked to my cooperating teacher and she said it would be no problem to use a microphone while teaching. My ultimate goal is to be able to teach the junior infants without needing the microphone but it might just be a matter of getting used to the students and learning how to use my voice as an effective teaching tool.

Through observing my cooperating teacher teach and working with children during independent work time, I have been able to get to know a lot of the students and see some of their various learning styles. I also have a pretty good idea of which students work fairly well independently and which students need more guidance during work time. Today was my first run-in with a student who acted defiant towards me when I gave him instructions to do something. Because I have not had a whole lot of practice working with students this young, I guess I always knew in the back of my mind that it would be harder to instruct them and always get them to follow through with the work. Still, I didn't quite know what to do when the student said straight to my face "no" when I asked him to get working on something. After giving him some time to make the right choice and start working like I asked him to, I let my cooperating teacher know that I was having a bit of difficulty with getting him to begin working. She talked to him and he started working. Still, I felt like a bit of a failure. I don't want to have to rely on my cooperating teacher all of the time just to get the students to work. I thought maybe that student felt it was easier to say "no" to me because I'm new to his classroom, he hasn't really seen me teach yet, and he hasn't had a lot of one-on-one time to even get to know me. So I sat with him for a few minutes later on in the day and gave him positive comments about his work so that I could earn some of his respect. It actually seemed to work quite well because for the rest of the day he did exactly as I asked him to do which meant a lot.

Next week I will be picking up my first subject: maths. My mom was asking why they call it maths and not math. Honestly I'm not sure why and my cooperating teacher didn't seem to know either lol. I am pretty excited to be teaching maths because I can use the smartboard and manipulatives during my instruction so it should fun. A lot of their maths activities so far have been matching and grouping objects by shape, color, and size.

Seeing as it's almost Friday now, I have been thinking about what to do for the weekend and I plan on taking a walk into Listowel and looking at all of the different kinds of shops they have there and the scenery near the town. I have only driven through the actual center town briefly each morning on my way to school but I am curious to see more of it and I'll be sure to take some pictures to show all of you :)