First of all, I was extremely frustrated today with the teaching calendar. I tried about six different ways to make it all work out perfectly, before I finally became resigned to the conclusion that it is just not going to be perfect. At some point, it is going to get weird, so it just depends on whether we want the weirdness to be at the beginning or the end. I am going to guess end, so that it's not messing me up when I'm just getting used to things.
Today my teacher did DIBELS testing. She seemed kind of annoyed with it, because she had to leave the classroom pretty much all morning (I led calendar time, handwriting, and helped with math!) pulling kids to test them. However, I thought it looked like fun. I went and watched her do one of them, and I think I actually said "That was so cool!" She just laughed and said she guesses that's why I want to do what I want to do. I already told her about my interest in assessment, so she knows that I am not really in this to be a teacher forever and ever.
Also -- is there a job where you can just do stuff like DIBELS all the time? Just go around and pull the kids out of class and do it so the teachers can stay in and teach? I'm sure they would appreciate it -- and I would love it! Giving the tests, scoring the tests...I could do it for a whole school district just all day every day. Does this career exist? Please let it exist.
Thoughts for the day:
- I still need to learn the order of calendar time a little bit. I know most of it but I'm still a little unsure about some things. Tomorrow I should have it all!
- How do you tell children when they are wrong? When a child is doing a problem in front of the class, and s/he messes up, how do you explain the right answer without embarrassing the child?
- When a child is working on something independently, DO you tell them when they mess something up? If you notice they have a number written backwards, do you make them fix it? When I was in kindergarten, I wrote some numbers backwards and my teacher told my parents it was no big deal and I would figure it out eventually. But my cooperating teacher now has them fix it. Who is right??
- How do I know what the children know? I have been picking up on little things, but it's still hard to plan activities not really knowing what their background knowledge is.
- I still need to build my confidence! I have built relationships with most of the children, but sometimes when I am addressing all of them I get nervous...and I think they might know it!! I am working on building my authority and commanding the room. It is a work in progress.
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