6th Grade

Seriously though, my student teaching placement is the BOMB.

My cooperating teacher is AMAZING! She is so funny, so creative, and so perfect. I love everything about working with her. She has helped me so much and I am so grateful for her. Our personalities match perfectly, and I feel safe being in her classroom. I also love that I can be myself and joke around with the students, and not just have to worry about being proper all the time. It's the best.

My students are even more amazing. They are such a great group of kids, and even though they are a bunch of chatterboxes I have yet to walk away from a day with them not having fun. I actually want to go to school in the morning, just so I can see all of them. They are so funny, so smart, and so respectful. I really believe that Jill has helped everyone feel comfortable in the classroom so they can learn and express themselves, and I can only hope that I have added to it. I will be so sad to leave them in December....I just wish I could stay longer.

The 6th grade is so much different than I thought it was going to be. I was so scared because I thought that I would flounder with the material, and that no one would respect me when they realized they were taller than me. That's not the case at all. Jill helped me learn how to establish my authority from the very beginning, so there is no questioning that I deserve the utmost respect from them at all times. And while half of them are already taller than me, they still know that height has nothing to do with it. Undoubtedly I'll run into kids that will challenge my authority at many points in my career, but let's be honest....1st graders do that too. As far as actual instruction is concerned, I feel much more comfortable teaching the 'big kids' than I did the little ones. I think it's because they are capable of doing so much more, they understand my jokes, and I really like the material that they're going over. For example, in math we're doing pre-algebra. SCORE. It's like a dream come true! (Feel free to call me a nerd for loving pre-algebra.)

And, on a side note, I was approached by a 2nd grader yesterday after school. He stopped and looked at me and said, "Does your belly look all big and funny because you're growing a baby inside there?" I smiled and said, "Yes, there is a baby in there!" He then asked me if it was a boy. I said that I wasn't sure, and told him that I wouldn't find out if the baby was a boy or a girl until the baby was born, to which he replied with, "Well, if it's not a boy then I don't care if there is a baby growing in there or not." Then he walked away.

Gotta love kids, right? =]