Killing Time...

It's Friday morning, and while I still have tons to do, I'm thankful that the weekend has (almost) arrived. Right now I'm at Sumner High School. Thanks to someone's brilliant idea to hang stoplights on Kingshighway during morning rush hour, I arrived here in between class periods, so now I'm hanging out waiting for the bell to ring. I signed in and noticed several familiar names; this dude named Amos from my Ed. Psych and Inclusive Ed. classes is here observing, and this chick from my Practical Criticism class last Fall is here too. I love observing. I love watching actual teachers in action, and critiquing them. It really has helped me be a better teacher. Just as often as I see positive, effective teaching strategies that I want to implement myself, I see not-so-great things. That way, I can also reflect on things I won't do and don't want to incorporate into my teaching. I taught my lesson last night in Instructional Methods. I did awesome! My other two "microteaches" were successful, but this one was just on a completely different level. I wasn't nervous at all, and I finally felt confident in my teaching abilities. It was on ratiocinations, which is basically a revision strategy. My teacher gave me a huge compliment. He said that teaching writing is REALLY difficult, but that my lesson was very effective, and I handled myself brilliantly. He said my questioning techniques were right on, and when one of my classmates came in late, I did a superb job of handling it. I know that I'm a pretty good sub, but this was the first time I felt like an actual teacher with actual skills. What an awesome feeling. Well, I just have about ten minutes left, so I better wrap this up. I'm so glad it's Friday, and I'm ecstatic that Thanksgiving is almost here. I love being with my family. My family is pretty small. It's just me, mom, my brother and his fiance, my two sets of aunts and uncles- Jean & Bob, Dan & Debbie, my cousin Brian and his wife Janet and their three boys- Michael, Jack, and Ben, my cousin Jamey, his fiance Melody, and his two kids, Camille and Kelsey. I'm planning on making another Thanksgiving speech. My family still hasn't let me forget about the last one. I was a little tipsy, I admit, but my ramblings about family togetherness and all that crap made my mom and aunt Jean cry, so it had to have been good. Yeah- that speech earned me the title of "dysfunctional family member". Oh well. I'll be more prepared this time, and maybe I won't drink an entire bottle of wine beforehand. Anyway, time to go.