Can you say "Ooooof"

WOW! What a trip it has been. I never thought I would be so busy! Orientation finished up last week and I was wiped. We went hard for two strait weeks, learning about teaching theory, classroom management and created out classes. We even went on a overnight camping trip at Lake Elmo. The whole orientation experience was good. I got to know all the teachers and got to craft my two sweet classes.

The main class is my “Icons of Science” class. This class covers the history of science. I decided that in order to be a good scientist, you need to understand where science came from. This is the approach I decided to take with my core class. We will start out learning about where the scientific method came from, then go on to Newton and Darwin (among others) and finish the class with looking at current developments in science. We are even planning on having a debate between Darwin and Lamarck! Rob (another teacher) and I are going to dress up and combine our classes that day and debate in front of our classes. The students will then write up their thoughts about the debate and choose a winner.

My other class is called Bear Grylls: A BSP Story. This class will introduce the students to camping. We will show them how to pitch a tent, cook food over a fire and how to use a compass. I thought this would be a great class for a bunch of city kids. I have the pleasure of co-teaching with Noam Wiggs, who is an avid camper as well so it should be a blast!

Most importantly, today was the first day of class with the students. I got up a 5:30 AM (the earliest I have woken up in many years) in order to get to work by 6:45. After meeting with the other teachers, fumbling over the Breakthrough Cheer and handshake, the students arrived on the scene in full force. We took some time to meet all of them and then it was off to class.

There was a huge variation between these middle schoolers! Some of them are as tall as I am, some of them don’t seem to be much bigger than a my-size Barbie. Some are super talkative, some I scarcely heard a “peep” out of during class. Of course, we also have the usual students who do not participate and those who are model students. Im sure after the first few weeks everybody will have come out of their shell (its hard not to in this program).

The one thing I really am getting into with this program is its enthusiasm. The students have a cheer for everything! We created a program cheer that at first I was irritated with, but now its great. I am also finding myself getting students really excited about the cheer too! Ugh, I’m turning into a cheerleader (not that I have anything against that- if you would have seen me in the stands of my high school football games, you would know that I was really into the cheers!). Its just more proof that Breakthrough is taking over my life…

Anyway, I’ve got to get some sleep before tomorrow. Day two awaits me!

Our "orientation?" Perhaps it is our "Disorientation?"

Today was the first day of our two week long orientation. Amongst the usual mission statements, ritual learning and paper-work I got wind of some real exciting news. I along with another teacher, Noam, will be teaching a Camping/Outdoor Survival Class! When given some time to brainstorm, I believe we got a really good base for a course plan. We will spend some time with basic camping techniques- pitching a tent, starting a fire and purifying water. We will then move on to campfire cooking. The students will then take some time and learn how to use a compass and complete an orienteering course. In the spirit of Andres Morantes, we will also take a few days and do some plant identification! Given enough time, we will also look at some extreme situations and how to get out of them (i.e. broke down in a snow storm, lost in the woods with a broken leg, etc).

The most interesting thing of the orientation so far is how Jennifer, the program coordinator, is carrying out our workshops. Lately I feel like I have been treated like a child when at the program, but today I realized that she is teaching us how she would teach the middle schoolers. This way we can pick up on things we can and may need to do with our students. So far she has had us present concepts in the form of graphical representations, we have used small white-boards to give answers to questions, and of course we have played the ever popular "popcorn" reading game. Besides those class participation ideas, she has also demonstrated a few techniques for getting a roaring class to pay attention again. The one most commonly used is when the teacher says "If you can hear me clap once" in a normal voice and then everyone needs to clap. Then the teacher goes on to say "If you can hear me clap twice" in a louder voice. Then everybody should clap twice. Usually by that time, all the students are back and paying attention to the teacher. If not, the teacher can go on to clapping three and four times until the entire class is paying attention.

All in all, its nice to have begun the internship. Many of the teachers are beginning to stress a little which is ok given the amount of work that needs to be done over the next two weeks. We need to create our elective classes. We need to plan two core classes and start breaking them down into units and lesson plans. We need to start forming committees and getting the various summer long activities planned. On top of that we need to learn how to deal with middle schoolers- they are a little crazy. As I alluded to in the title, its a little disorientating at the moment, but hopefully in the next few days our work will become more organized and our summer will begin to take shape.