First Post...

My goal when I created this blog was to start blogging once my student teaching placement got finalized. 

Well, that was in July.

And I am just now getting around to this first post.

My placement is in a middle school.  I am teaching seventh grade math and eighth grade Algebra 1 (the honors students).  When I first found out my placement was going to be in a middle school, I was worried.  I mean, really, really worried.  I wanted a high school.  I wanted trig or Algebra II or Pre-Calc or something that wasn't middle school.  Middle schoolers are hormone driven.  They are whiny.  They are downright obnoxious 95% of the time.

But you know what? I am really enjoying my time in middle school.  The students are great.  They understand my sarcasm (most of the time) and they still like you and want to please you.  It's like the best of both worlds.  So, what started off as me freaking out about working with middle school students has turned into me realizing that I have a passion for teaching middle school.

Overall, the first seven weeks have flown by.  Starting tomorrow, I will officially be teaching all the classes.  I started off right away by teaching two classes.  The third week of school, my mentor teacher bumped me up to teaching three classes.  Last week, I took over the fourth class, and am now teaching all sections of Math 7.  Tomorrow, I will take over the last class, which is the second Algebra class.

Half of the time, I feel like I am doing great.  The other half, I feel like a failure. (Case in point: Gave the seventh graders a self-checking homework assignment on Friday, and realized after they all left that I had made a mistake when I was creating the assignment and five out of the eight problems aren't going to be correct for them.)

The goal of this blog is going to be for me to reflect upon my teaching practices and how my placement is going.  I really wish I would have felt like I had time to start this sooner, but oh, well.  The last seven weeks of my placement will be documented here.  I'm hoping to be able to blog around three times a week and share with you all the fun things that we are doing in middle school. 

Until next time!
Anna