Monday, June 22, 2009

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!

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