Day 1 of teaching-SUCCESS!

Sooo.. today was the first day i taught! And it was surprisingly good! and went unusually well!!

First i'll tell you about my class, it is a group of 11 summer schools students, the majority are rising sophomores but we have a few rising juniors. None of the kids want to be there and they're all there b/c they have failed World History and have to retake it.

So I am teaching them world history.. which is interesting b/c history has never been my subject but i've been studying and learning a lot! i write lots of lessons every night, and every one takes me an INORDINATE amount of time, but i'm sure once i get used to writing them they will get easier!

So today I had to introduce my class to the new idea about how we're going to teach them history. THeir old teacher thought that making them read everyday for 5 hrs was teaching.. we're changing things up. Every lesson i have i ask lots of questoins of them and interactive group work to keep them excited, we don't read the book at all!

so far the kids have done well.. they're a very rambonxious and talkative group so i have to make sure that my classroom managment is strong, but if you respect them and are stern and show you mean business it works better! i'm amazed how comfortable i felt standing in front of them and leading them and hope it continues this way!

tomorrow i'm going to teach a "real lesson", past the usual day introduction, here's what we're going to do, class rules, etc. so we'll see how that goes! i know it's going to be a challenge b/c today after giving our kids the pre-assesment (for stuff we'll teach them) the highest grade was a 26%! So our goal is for all our students to have an average of 80% of higher passing as a class. i think we can do it but it'll be a very hard-working 4 weeks!!!

off to bed now b/c i'm exhausted from long day of traveling yesterday and getting in late. but it was WONDERFUL being home and seeing all my girls and watching andrea get married!!!

looking forward to another day of teaching! i get observed tomorrow so hopefully it goes smoothly!