Summer's Almost Over

I meant to update yesterday, but we all know how good I am at that. At least I got back to it today. Anyways, I got my first lesson to create yesterday. My mentor teacher wants me to come up with a 40 minute power point lecture on the interwar period (1919-1939). Easy right? Not quite. I'm so bad at knowing what students should learn. I tend to over stuff with information than give them the right amount they'll need. This mostly comes from the fact that I'm not with these students all year, so I have no idea what they'll need to know or not. I guess I picked the wrong subject...

Anyways, I am excited to create it, but we'll see where it goes. Yesterday was spent in meetings with the Freedom Center. They work with social studies teachers at the school I'm at for two years (9th and 10th grade) and allow the students to create videos in iMovie about what Freedom means to them. These videos will be uploaded to iTunes. It's hard to explain the details, but it's a very cool idea. Three social studies teachers, an English teacher, myself, and the lady in charge of the project from the FC all met. I didn't say anything, but I was simply observing. They talked about what changes needed to be made, what problems they ran into, etc. It was really cool to see how teachers can collaboratively work together to revise material not just produce something new. It was a successful meeting.

Today my mentor teacher and I talked about the first three weeks of school. We talked about what we're going to do, his big push to create procedures and routines to keep the classroom manageable, and even made copies. He left me in charge of doing that. But that was totally okay with me since I like all that office work kind of stuff.

I am so glad he has me come in these weeks before school because I've been observing so much that I'd never learn in a classroom or even from him telling me. Today a woman came in to tell him that his class roster was up and that it wasn't set in stone. Here's the class numbers: 35, 36, 39, 28, 24. Thirty-nine students! I'm pretty sure anything over 35 is illegal in the state of Ohio. And basically she said good luck, hopefully some students don't come. Okay? Well, I wish more people could see what kind of stuff teachers have to put up with instead of just bashing them for their child's poor performance. Oh well, I'm just preaching now. I also heard a discussion about how they don't have enough money to purchase OGT books (something the students NEED) for social studies or math. It's kind of ridiculous, but I guess that's what teachers have to face. My mentor teacher and I went and checked out the social studies book room where we stole a bunch of OGT and textbooks.

I must say though that if I could go back to high school, I'd go to this school. These students have more opportunities than I think they could ever imagine. They have more opportunities than I ever had in my suburban school. They have mac comupters, and iPads and iTouches the teachers can borrow for the class. All the teachers have Macbook pro computers given to them. Students can win an iTouch. The best part? Yes it gets better... the school is working with universities to give away 30, yes 30, FULL RIDE scholarships for education and technology tracks for certain colleges. Now, there is much more explanation to go along with this, but that's the basic gist. But not only 30 for the whole school. It's 30 for each grade. I honestly wish I had an opportunity like that! Now it is a STEM school (science, technology, engineering, and math), but it's still awesome that a urban school has these types of opportunities.

Well, I'm done blogging for now. I'll try updating tomorrow. But we'll see...