I just officially finished my first set of progress reports. While I feel like I was at an advantage from having two sick days off to work on them, they were still quite stressful. The funny thing is, these aren't even their official report cards. For progress reports we give them one grade (1-4) for each subject area, habits of the mind, eagle way, and cross-curricular studies. Under their homeroom grade, each teacher makes three to five comments about the student's approvement. For report cards, we will be grading on four or five parts for each subject. ( An example for reading would be sustains meaning, extends meaning, views self as reader, effort, etc.) The receive N's, A's, M's and E's for these areas. I'm glad I have the first set of these under my belt!
Coming back into my classroom today was a bit of a challenge. I had been gone since Friday and they had one of the school's subs in here on Monday and Tuesday. I wasn't in the best spirits( I'm still not feeling 100%) and I feel like my kids reacted pretty poorly to that. One of our assistant principals ( who use to be a 5th grade teacher last year) came in and taught social studies for me today. I was AMAZED ( amazed is an understatement) at how good of teacher he is. He had all of the kids completely engaged, they were all working hard, and no one was disrespectful...I couldn't believe it. I want to know how I can become a teacher like that. I have struggled so much with classroom management, teaching, etc. that I find it amazing that he can come in and change my classroom around like that so quickly.
For the past three days it has been raining non-stop here. I don't feel like people have truly experienced rain until they move to Monterrey. It's CRAZY! They don't have suitable drains in the city and so most of the water quickly builds up in the streets. Yesterday, I was driving on a main highway here. One of the main underpasses was completely flooded ( well over 10 feet of water) They had to take all four lanes of traffic and divert them onto another highway a block down. Needless to say, this experience took me over 2 and a half hours to get home.
http://www.multimedios.tv/noticias/2008/09/05/lluvia-deja-casos-en-la-zona-metropolitana
One thing about this city is that I never fail to get lost. No matter how many times I drive here, I always end up asking for directions at least three times along my way. I was joking with my family yesterday about how I will end up becoming fluent in Spanish by Christmas by just asking for directions so many times.
1 comment:
Hi Hannah! (This is Kristyn's sister, Laura.) I've been catching up on your blog and it's a lot of fun to read about your teaching in Mexico. Good for you for doing something like this! It sounds like teaching is hard enough as it is, especially just starting out, but going off to a foreign environment to do it is admirable.
It's great that you are so concerned about classroom management. I remember teachers when I was younger who just couldn't get the students in line and then the other side, teachers who were so scary that kids didn't even want to say a word. It's a tricky balance, but I'm sure you will eventually find your style and become the teacher you are hoping to be. :)
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