Frustrations

Well, the frustration everyone said would accompany student teaching has made its first appearance.  I had my second observation on Friday, and it was horrible.  It was a crazy day to begin with; the students had snow days on Wednesday and Thursday, then came back only to prepare for the weekend.  So, needless to say, they were a little hyped up all day long.  I anticipated this behavior, so I planned activities that would be productive yet allow them to chat with the person next to them.  My supervisor decided he was going to come in for an observation during math.  As I said, I planned light activities for the day, especially in math.  I didn't want to start a new topic on a Friday, only for them to forget what they learned over the weekend and have to start over on Monday.  So, we worked with place value.  They were given base ten blocks (wood blocks made for studying place value; there are single blocks to represent "ones" and sticks of what looks like 10 blocks to represent the "tens").  Knowing this was the first time they had ever used these blocks, they had a few minutes to play with them.  This is something I learned you should do, because if you start teaching right away when they're given objects, they won't listen to you.  I also gave them a piece of paper to fold in half, and they wrote tens on the left side and ones on the right side.  To start with, I just gave them simple numbers to model with the blocks, such as "23".  So, they would put 2 sticks on the tens side and 3 single blocks on the ones side.  We practiced with a few numbers, and then I gave them just a couple addition problems to model on the paper.  During all of this, the students became very noisy.  I tried to quiet them down, using my usual tactics, but nothing was working.  Then chaos broke loose; students were out of their seats sharpening pencils that they didn't even need for the lesson, they were building towers with the blocks, and not listening to anything that I was saying.  It was a disaster. 

So, I met with my supervisor after this was over.  He doesn't really try to sugarcoat things, so I wasn't surprised when he basically told me I don't have any control over my class.  He told me things I needed to change, and how I need to establish my "presence" in the classroom, etc.  He wasn't being mean, just doing his job, but I was extremely frustrated because I knew it was one of those days and it was an unusual situation.  So, I listened to everything he had to say, and tried not to show on my face that I was upset.  He did tell me that he thinks I have great potential and that I have excellent organization skills, but I just need to work on my control in the class. I met all of the goals that he set for me from my first observation, which he applauded.  I suppose it wasn't all bad, but when the first thing out of someone's mouth is a negative, you don't realize the positive things that were said until you've had a chance to calm down and think about it.  He met with my mentor teacher afterwards, and she told him that I have much more control than it seemed that day.  I was glad she felt that way and it wasn't just me.  I'm just going to try to put this in the past, move forward, and have a fantastic week!