When aliens abducted my students...

It's amazing how one good thing can make you forget the bad and stay hopeful.  On Tuesday I had a rough day.  I had a good start to my lessons but somehow my competitive grade fives got out of hand...so I took that opportunity to reinforce what behaviour I wanted to see.  Unfortunately that forced me to cut my lesson plan in half and after I was reprimanded by my teacher for using so much time on discipline.  The ironic bit was his advice the week earlier was to establish myself as a disciplinarian...so to say I was frustrated was a huge understatement.  After a few weeks of sleeping late and getting up early, it definitely took its toll on my body and spirit.  I was ready to cry by the time I headed home but somehow things worked out as the week progressed.

Wednesday I had a supply teacher and after teaching my portion of the day I told my grade fives about my prof coming on Thursday to evaluate me.  I didn't promise anything, in fact all I asked for them to just to wait their turn when they wanted to say anything and to remember my three rules.  One student asked if they would get anything if they cooperated and the whole class scolded that kid.  I even heard someone say, "Why do you need to get something for doing something nice?  Ms. V is like the best teacher ever!"  Hearing that just touched my heart.  I thanked them for keeping that in mind and we moved on to our art lesson.  

Next day I had morning period to prepare for my lesson.  I had almost forgot about what I had told my grade fives the day before until I walked into the classroom with my professor and saw the most amazing thing.  There in my class sat my grade fives, quietly waiting with their hands crossed on their desk smiling at me and saying in unison, "Good morning Miss V!"

My first thought:  aliens have abducted my kids and left me with a class of androids!  Even my associate teacher glanced at me in genuine confusion...he probably thought I'd done something to them while he was away.  The rest of the day was just magical.  I created a game show for the class to play in replacement of a unit test for language.  Everyone got to participate (even some of my ESL's who forgot to go to their resource teacher) and they were able to focus for majority of the lesson and do some independent work while I assisted my special needs students.  I felt victorious!

During recess they both congratulated me on a job well done.  My associate even shook my hand.  I was able to have a great one on one conversation with my professor and I finally felt validated as a teacher.  My professor told me that even though I had asked my students to behave, the fact that they were willing to do it and to that extend showed that they knew this was important to me and respected me enough to try.  It has been a hard few weeks but having those positive comments and encouraging words keeps me motivated.  In the end, it's about doing it for the kids and I'm going to keep that in mind as I go through my  last week of practicum. 


I'm not going to lie, even though I will genuinely miss my kids... I look forward to going back to being just a regular uni student!