maineiac in kc

So, I write this after getting one day to sleep in later than 6 am!  However, I am much more excited to tell about my first week of teaching.  I’ve been so excited to be at school, working hard and getting things ready, then actually meeting students and getting rolling that I’ve been too busy to write here.

So, once I got to KC, I did a lot of stuff via TFA on preparing for my classes.  I found them helpful, but it was a little frustrating, because I didn’t know what I was to be teaching, and I was concerned that I would be creating items that I would not use.

 I finally got to meet my Principal the Monday before students arrived, and we had a week of professional development and setting up classrooms.  My room is amazing, hardwood floors, cool windows, and its in great shape.  There was only one issue.  It is only one of the two classrooms in the entire school located on the second floor, and therefore is always about 300 degrees.  Luckily, the school had purchased two air conditioners, one for each room.  Unluckily, the one in my room did not work at all.

 In any event, I was thrilled to find out that at my school, the entire faculty for the middle school is made up of TFA teachers (I.e. myself, David, and Hannah).  That basically allows us to set really high standards, and push as hard as possible towards making epic progress.

 Ok, so to fast forward through the dull stuff, like me putting posters all over the room, or else vacuming, Monday was the first day for students.  As of right now, I have a really small class size, for my homeroom, and then also small classes for the other sixth grade classes and the seventh grade class.  I teach one class a reading program, language arts, and then social studies, and then do social studies for everyone else as well.  All in all, I have about 30 students for three classes, so I am worried that they might move me to a new school if things don’t pick up.

 Anyway, thus far I love my students.  Of course, there have been certain students who don’t have the greatest behavior, K comes to mind, but I have been working really hard to get them to turn that corner.  At this point, its a combo of candy and competition that is doing the trick, but I’d like to get off the candy aspect soon, or at least decrease it.

That being said, I also have spoken with a lot of parents or other relatives, and it is amazing to see the power that those calls can have.  I can think of one student specifically, T, who was uninterested and unfocused the first two days, then I called home and only mentioned the good things, and since then, she has shown up early to help me prep the room, then been one of my best students.  It doesn’t always work that well, but in each case the parents were thrilled to hear from me.  In one case, I was told by a students that her mother was crying she was so happy about what I had to say.

 I just think that these parents are 100% with me now because they just want to know that I want the best for their children, which of course I do.

 Finally, I want to address a bit of an issue that is bothering me.  In Missouri, I guess Social Studies is not tested on the MAP test, so there has been very little instruction on the subject.  Therefore, I have heard some wild answers to questions when I do geography things (such as that the sun rises in the north, that New Jersey is the largest state in the country, and that Canada and Mexico are states, and the Artica is a continent).  Its just a lot of work to make up, and a lot of ground to cover, but I just cannot let things stand where they are.  The fact that 99% of these students think that Kansas City is its own state is unacceptable, so I just know I’ve got work to go!

 Ok, well thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the update.

 Maineiac in KC