Student teaching musings...

Things I've learned thus far while student teaching:

• lesson planning takes a lot more time and creative energy than I ever imagined. The teacher's edition of the text book is not the magical things that I thought it would be. It's written more for the ideal classroom, and while I like mine a lot, it is anything but ideal.
• Improvising is a crucial skill to learn. 90 minutes is a long time to fill and invariably there comes a time, more often than I'd like, where I'm wondering just what the heck I'm going to do for class tomorrow. That's where Stan, my cooperating teacher, saves the day. While he may not be the best person to learn advanced leasson planning from, he is an expert at improvising. Give him a vague topic and about 30 minutes and he will have something for the kids to do. He has saved me several times already.
• It's definately humbling to stand in front of a class and look out onto a sea of bored, uninterested faces. You know that reading books they didn't get to choose is a favorite activity among students. :) By the end of Lord of the Flies (the first book the seniors read), I was doing good if 50% of the students did the reading from the night before...agh! Unmotivated seniors who have already "checked out"...gotta love them :)
• it's always good when you ask an entire class of honors students to give a "thumbs up or thumbs down" vote of a new book after reading the first chapter the night before, and every single student has their thumb down...yup, gonna be a fun time reading Great Gatsby. Luckily, though, they are slowly warming up to the book. Today, after reading chapter three, many at least gave it a "thumbs sideways" vote, meaning they don't outright dislike it anymore. So, there's hope there.
• Related to the last point: Don't take it personally if students don't like a book that happens to be your favorite. They just don't know what they're missing...yet...
• Last night was parent/teacher conferences. Talked to several good kids' parents, several average kids parents, and only a couple of the kids who I really need to talk to their parents...about average, eh? The worst was the parent who was practically yelling at her student at the table. I'm not cool with embarrasing the student in front of the teacher, especially because she's not doing that bad. Yes, she has a "D" and should be doing better, but she's starting to turn things around (probably partly because of the progress report sent home via email last week...perhaps someone lit a fire under her?) I wanted to gush good things about her, just to remind her mom that she's a good kid. Care about your kid's education, yes, but don't belittle them in public...not cool...
• the word "corps" (as in the 45th Corps...in relation to a branch of the military) is actually pronouned "core". If you pronouce it like it looks...with the "p" and the "s"...your students will point out that you are misprouncing the word. Not cool for an English teacher to do. I hear you feel pretty stupid when that happens...