Life Lately: Teacher Credential Progam Edition

Sup. I'm here for my monthly check-in ;) 

School has been kicking my butt and has left little time for much else! 

So let's talk about it! 

I started back in August, and my semester the schedule is as follows: The first 8 weeks of the semester (M-F) were strictly coursework, learning about methods, theories, strategies, lesson planning, standards, etc. Every Thursday of weeks 4-8, we went to our clinical practice sites and observed classes, shadowed students, interviewed students, interviewed teachers, etc. Sounds complicated. It was. Trying to juggle all of my coursework with assignments, reflections, presentations, TPA Task 1 (which I passed!), personal life crap, baseball, and concerts was rough and caused many breakdowns. But coursework is finally over and I made it out alive with passing grades and into the second half of the semester! 

These next 8 weeks are strictly clinical practice (M-F). I'm in an 8th grade humanities class that covers English Language Arts and Social Studies. I have two sets of weirdly entertaining students and a cooperating teacher who I've learned a lot from! Today is the start of week 3, and at this point I've gradually taken over more and more of the instruction! It feels SO weird being the grown-up in the room who is supposed to know it all. Spoiler alert...I don't. My first official observation is this Thursday so we'll see how effective I am at putting everything I've learned into practice!

That's about all I've got...see ya in a month. 

Seriously though. How terrible is it that I only post monthly these days?! Especially when I have this new awesome blog design courtesy of this lovely lady and I feel like I've wasted her talent. November goal: post more than once! 

SEPTEMBER IS FINALLY OVER

And I couldn't be happier.

I usually love September. But it was lame this year. My birthday is usually something I'm all about. This year is was meh and not what I wished it would be. Regular season baseball is coming to an end and the games are starting to mean a little more. This year the Yanks were eliminated from playoffs, Derek Jeter retired, and my last few Padres games had the worst timing ever. There's a bunch of other stuff that I don't feel like sharing, but just know this month hasn't been a happy feeling month. No lie, I spent more nights crying this month combined than over the course in my entire life. 

School started in August, but we started to get into the meaty stuff like theories of education, reading, techniques, and assignments in September. Right when I was trying to get my season ticket money's worth and squeeze in the last few baseball games of the season. On top of that, I had a minor breakdown over content standards and lesson plans and what resources I'm supposed to use and know about. Normally my notes are orderly, neat, make sense, and on paper...but this year, most of my textbook are on an iPad and I'm still struggling figuring method that works for me.

This is more of a ramble and starting to pick up on this blogging thing again since it's kind of been 40 days since my last post! 

Anyways...the month is over, and we're starting a new one. It's time to move on and focus on what's ahead!

Things to look forward to in October: Countryfest...mostly Sara Evans. Luke Bryan. TPA Task 1 will come and GO! I'll be at my clinical practice site full time instead of just once a week! And with the exception of my bilingual course, I'll be done with my methods courses for the semester. 

Hot Dog & Hamburger vs. Burrito & Taco

So this is my unofficial first week of school. I'm spending time at a middle school observing and helping with opening up a classroom for the beginning of the year. There may (probably not) be a post about that later, but that's not what today is about. I'm sharing a story today!

via

The teacher I'm with has two classes, AM and PM. She had the kids make name tags to sit at their desks. She was describing the difference between the hot dog and hamburger paper folding methods to her morning class for these name tags. She then mentioned an alternative description that would be more relatable since we live in San Diego. A hot dog fold could also be thought of as a burrito fold. Then she had the kids guess what a hamburger fold could be thought of. I confidently said quesadilla, the rest of the class said taco. Whomp whomp. 

The afternoon class did the same thing. Same spiel. Same description. When it was time for kids to guess what hamburger was...I didn't say anything. But I listened. And a kid in that class said quesadilla. While the rest of the class said taco. I said "yes!" and pointed at the kid who said quesadilla because at least one other person in the class was on the same page as I was. It made my day :]

Happy Thursday peeps.