and still I rise...
Thank you for the comforting posts. It's taken a few days but i'm beginning to get some perspective on things. I went over the rules with my S1 and behaviour today was exemplary! Because I got so tired I made myself work less and it's actually helped my lesson plans, I think my objectives are getting better. On the negative side I'm still underestimating how much time things will take and getting so engrossed that I don't realise the bell is about to ring and give myself time for a summary and nice close. I really need a giant clock on the classroom wall.

Lovely Lucy died today

Had first crit,

3x S (satisfactory)

1x U ( not achieved yet) i.e. unsatisfactory

Very fair - U on classroom management. ( quite frankly so miserable about dying dog would have had to be killing each other to raise me from stupor enough to invoke school's disciplinary procedure.) If I wanted to use system would have to find form . I have no idea where it is and teachers working in the school for last 3 years get a row from admin because they have submitted wrong part of form . Have to fill in for every individual's details including tutorial group ( how do I find this out? )and second name .I have taught them 3 times and only 3 of them have sat in the same place twice) I'm very proud I can remember their first names especially if they do not present a behavioural or learning difficulty. How many of the tear off sheets go to the office? What do I do with the the remainder?

Worried about about Cait .....Possibly Gifted& talented if this is the case mustbe bored out of her mind esp when I don't really know how to differentiate between her and I. A. and C working at level b/c reading & writing( Have asked for help from learning support- recommended using Comic Sans font on resources I am creating ,agreed green paper might help. C). Accessibility sheet in staff base says use true font like Arial 12 no mention of comic sans. I need much more than colour and font if I am going to differentiate succesfully.If was real teacher would ask ...

I,B,C,D,S ( Yr 1 & 3)to come for extra lunchtime lessons and involve learning support if they would agree. Don't have any 2s at this point .How many would this involve? Would I ever have lunch again? Positives = weight loss. Negatives = I might be rubbish with any class in the afternoon . Used to work many more hours but brain involved only 50% of time.

On positive side S (satisfactory)for lesson planning, professional knowledge and understanding, skills and abilities

However...

Am nearly 41. Used to be top dog at what I did. Now use spell check on lesson plans and don't notice when puts apostrophe on possessive determiners resulting in "hugelyimportant" having to correct it's in today's lesson plan.

27 year olds are so much better than me at this.They hold up their hand and the class fall silent.I didn't even have to hold my hand up week one and now I'm almost pleading for attention from kids only a year older than the boy wonder.

What went wrong? How do I fix it?

Am being paid nothing to be average. What If I'm always average at this?

Used to be paid well and was successful. In fact used to be well paid even when I was cr*p.Didn't like self much as a result. When was successful used to make extra money.Got to drive an AstonMartin DB5 ( and other sports cars - I can't even remember their names) round Silverstone,I stayed at Skibo castle where Madonna got married. I slept in fresh linen sheets every night for 5 nights in the Interalpen Hotel Austria, 700 count cotton in Gleneagles and the Old Course Hotel St.Andrews and in the top hotel in Barbados ( cant even remember name but great air conditioning), the Savoy in London (dirty), the Juan Carlos in Marbella (eurotrash) . The Lowry in Manchester (interesting art, bad carpets, turquoise fake leather chaise-longues in room)Somewhere posh in Prague ( luggage lost in Brussels) ditto Nice,Cannes, Fuertaventura, the Yak and Yeti Khatmandu ( gold taps pour muddy brown water after a 23 hour journey in a plane with a bright orange interior,Rogan Josh for breakfast and the most astonishingly beautiful air-hostesses you have ever seen.)Your luggage stays in Frankfort before going to Brussels for no apparent reason. You see a tiger and Everest and wash an elephant.You wear the same clothes every day for 5 days. Every where you go women and very thin children are building roads out of bricks while men watch and drink coke. There are adverts for cigarettes featuring children smoking with a strap line that your interpreter says translates as "smoke Malborough now, it's cool" He's a Benson and Hedges man himself .

You come home with aeomebic dysentery and campylobactar. You arrive in Heathrow at 06.45. Your boss who also has dysentery tells you she will be at her desk at 07.45 you have to get to Glasgow so she'll expect your business plan and last years ROI to be in by by 12.00 that day.

When was doing badly v.s target was there in black and white for the whole company to see every month. When did well target got raised.

Realised that luxury hotels charge companies a fortune for their staff to sleep in beds that are as almost as comfortable as their own.

Why am I talking about this? It was irrelevant until now. I thought it was embarrassing and worthless. I'm telling you this because I feel bad about myself. I'm trying to impress you. Is this why B,A and the others & brag about how much alcohol and hash they consume between Friday & Mondays ?

Cried after crit.

Not because of crit.

Crit very fair.

Cried because hadn't seen lovely Lucy last night or The Boy Wonder for 2 nights previous to crit because wonderful "justified and ancients "were taking care of his chickenpox while I got through mad week of "How can this possibly be my real life? -get me out of here" and was irresponsible parent of type I have learned to despise in last 10 weeks.

"Hugelyimportant " my tutor didn't think my lesson planning was awful. His comments have helped me decide to keep going. He was really encouraging. I believe that if I go back next week at least I'm not actually doing harm to these kids. The Localacademy regent who watched me yesterday was inspirational too. I will never forget that she said that a lesson can be more than a sum of its parts , it can be a work of art.

I said I was painting by numbers. She said it was great that I realised that.

She also told me that she's doing Headship training and had failed her first essay in 30 years. If she can learn new tricks so can I. It's only 20 years since I failed an essay and it was on the filioque and the schism between the Byzantine and Roman church and all the sources were in Greek ,Latin or medieval French. I rewrote it and got my first First. (I must need reassurance to even consider telling you this- it was never that important to me before now)

learning point - push them. They think they have done their absolute best- there is always more.

I've noticed that most of the teachers I admire are very self-critical. Every day the Hod criticises himself, every time i've seen Belladonacurls or the completegentleman teach they point out what they should have done better.

They keep coming in.

They don't get signed off sick with stress

They deal with disruption themselves without referring it to the HOD until it gets to level 4 or 5. Therefore not disturbing his lesson.

If you are out there and you teach, tell me ...

How do you balance self- critical with self destruction?

Can't sleep. When I close my eyes see lovely Lucy dead and cold.

I'm going to keep on learning.This is hard.I think a lot of the difficulty comes from my belief that teaching is important. For me selling medicine, even really good medicine isn't.

Blogging is wierd. Therapeutic... you type in your innermost thoughts. So much easier than writing, much less personal than the movement of soft lead over paper. Funny that it's easier than a diary , those keys separate it from you in a way that can't be achieved by handwriting. Freudian analysists will be made obsolete by this technology. We can write in our neuroses then look them up on wikipedia and save a fortune.If we burn cheap tobacco on a saucer and drape a shirt smelling of stale male sweat over our chair and record someone saying "our time is up That will be £75 , we accept visa "we will have a placebo controlled trial. I bet bloggers do better by a p value of 0.5% even with a Wilkoxian twin tailed test.

May stop blogging.

Am turning into tragic looser with wierd coincedences creating dramatic storyline. Also unnerved by kindness and occasional harshness of strangers. Blog this week was not constructive re teaching though must admit is great excuse right now not to do bedtime routine creating opportunity to get upset by Lucy's absence.

Low Point
Crit on Friday,
Have to change lesson plans and develop new resources and differentiation for next 2 days and crit because of sudden announcement today of cross curricular work with Biology dept to be done by next week.
My lesson plans are cack.
The Boy Wonder has chickenpox.
I haven't relaxed properly since August.

Lesson plans for 1f3 introduction to writing poetry block.

UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE
Faculty of Education Jordanhill Campus

LESSON PLANNER
……………………


1. Year/Class
F1

2. Lesson Title

Introduction to Writing Poetry for Pleasure

Lesson 1 Smart as Simile

3. Curricular Areas to be Addressed

Writing level D/E – imaginative writing

Appropriate organisation and vocabulary/appropriate literary conventions

Talking level B/C - talking in groups

Discussing how to deal with tasks, taking turns, valuing other’s contribution, express reasons, preferences, opinions

Reading level D/E – Awareness of Genre. Knowledge about language

4. Links with Pupils’ Previous Learning/Knowledge/Experience

· All will have experienced Poetry at varying levels in primary school.
Most have some knowledge of simile. Some are skilled in this area.
Many are confused about the difference between simile and metaphor.
I need to find out more about their level of awareness of poetry at the beginning of the lesson





5. Aims of this Lesson/Series of Lessons

To introduce a range of different language skills including simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification.
To build pupils confidence in producing their own poetry
To improve the skills of the class in talking in groups
To allow pupils to experience satisfaction in creating first a class poem then an individual poem to give to someone for Christmas and to enter the Scholastic Books winter poetry competition



Objectives for this Lesson

We are learning more about similes
We will be able to create our own similes
We will have learned how to write a poem using similes








7. Differentiation
Christopher is working at level A/B for reading and writing. He uses green acetate to help him with reading. Check he has this with him. Resources for the whole class will be printed clearly in Arial 14 with no background pattern or distracting graphics to help him without drawing attention to his difficulties. Sometimes learning support attend to help him if so ask them to help in the group he is to work with otherwise I will be involved in supporting this group in “Talking in Group tasks.” Annelise, Dylan and possibly also Robin appear to be struggling with work aimed at level D/E and this may be why they are frequently off task and sometimes disrupt the learning of the other pupils. Differentiate by question and response Daniel has ADHD and also struggles with written work although he performs well in verbal tasks. I will change activities every 10 mins rather than aiming for the 14 I would expect for a class of this age group. He and C define themselves regularly as “thick” and need opportunities to be successful in front of the class as well as to move around. Involve D in behaviour management; make sure he gets a turn at ringing the bell for silence after group talk and chances to answer correctly in front of class. Arrange groups so that the more able are partnered with those who are struggling to allow for peer support.







8. Resources: (Please state to what extent these resources have been developed completely by yourself, whether they have been partially or totally developed by the department or whether they are commercial or web based resources.)

25 copies of “A Classroom” by Jason Lester, aged 12 in Arial 14.
12 coloured pencils (2 per group. 1 to underline similes, 1 to circle words or ideas the group don’t understand
6 flipchart sheets, 6 markers.

The poem is from Succeed in English from The Learning Library.

Other Factors to be Considered: e.g. background to class, including organisation/risk assessment/safety

Last period – Thursday. Children may be tired. This will be the first lesson their usual class teacher will not be with me and they are not expecting it so some may need reassurance that he hasn’t disappeared for good. I am changing their seating to allow for peer group support in group task this will unsettle some of the pupils. They will need reassured that they can return to their usual seating arrangements after this class.


10. Strategies for the Assessment of the Achievement of Objectives
Formative and informal;
By questioning
By response
Peer assessment of the quality of similes offered.
Summative
Returned resource – how many/ well have they identified simile










11. Outline of Lesson/Teaching Strategies/Timing

Settle and register –Allow extra time as regrouping and not prepared for teacher change (approx 10 mins)

Personal reading – Stipulated in departmental plan (5 mins)

Transition to task – Puzzle on board 24 SDUC – try to work out what it means as they put their books away and get ready to work.
When they have worked out “ 24 school days until Christmas” tell them I’ve put this on the board because what we are going to do in this lesson is start a unit of work which will lead to them all having written a poem to be entered in the Scholastic Winter Poetry competition and that as well as going forward to the competition they will decorate and laminate a copy of their poem to give to a loved one as a present. To practice this we will write a poem together about the Classroom at Christmas. (3-5 mins)

Paired discussion. Why is a poem a good gift?
Get them thinking about what makes poetry more special than for example a Book Report or copy of a formal letter they have written.

Whole class teaching. Teach little bell as their signal to stop talking in pairs/groups and listen to the teacher. Ring until they stop talking then teach then practice by asking them to continue their paired discussion until it rings again. Give bell to Daniel to ring to provide new stimulus – practice little bell response.

Formative assessment – questioning to reveal what class in general know about poetry as they give their explanations of why poems make good gifts. Ask for examples of their favourite poems. Open questions aimed at uncovering experience of poetry and awareness of different poetic forms. (5 mins)
Summative assessment – returned resources will help identify extent of individual understanding.

Transition Danielle and Robyn to hand out poems. Daniel and Christopher to hand out 2 coloured pencils to each group.
Practice little bell response choose pupil who has made best contribution to ring this time. (2mins)
Whole class teaching – explain simile. Explain how they are used to make poems more interesting. Write objectives for lesson on board. Check for understanding by questioning.

Individually underline the similes in the poem.
As a group circle any words you don’t understand or anything that confuses you. Everyone pick his or her favourite simile from the poem. Circulate groups with flipchart paper and pens checking progress and helping with group discussion skills, helped by support assistant) (7 mins).

Transition – use bell (Christopher)
As a group write similes on your flipchart sheet which describe a classroom at Christmas. Some similes should describe the classroom on the last day of term before the bell rings when it is full of children who are excited about the holiday, some similes should describe the classroom after the bell has rung and the children leave. (7 mins) Support as previously

Transition - use bell (Dylan)

Ask one member from each group to feedback group similes to the class. Allow peer assessment, which are our favourites and will be included in our class poem. (5 mins)

Summary -relate to objectives – what we learned today. (3 mins)

Dismiss in orderly fashion –rewarding good behaviour and effort with prompt dismissal.


12. Next Steps: homework/follow-up/future lessons

Appoint “teachers for 2 mins” to summarise what we learned yesterday about similes. Quick clarification simile vs. metaphor, Blackboard tally exercise. Reminder of the similes we chose for our poem. Next lesson to examine alliteration in poetry and come up with examples for our class poem.

13. Post Lesson Analysis/Evaluation
Success factors
Have they learned little-bell classroom management technique?
Have they produced similes in groups?
How well can they summarise and recount the key learning points from the lesson the next day.

Could be better:

Changing the group structure was a mistake. My carefully worked out gender and ability mixed groups had them all unsettled. It was made worse by several pupils having to leave class to attend pupil council as I had not been warned of this in advance also they were all in different seats and I didn't know their names as well as i thought and hence management of the initial chaos was more difficult.

Simile exercise may have been to simple for some pupils and I should have provided more scaffolding for others.

Timings were out, they were working on task when the bell rang. I didn't have time for them to analyse their group work results or methods or do a summary vs objectives.

In particular they did not have time which they should have had to analyse the process of talking in groups and how they could improve. This was a real lost opportunity.

What went well:

Regained control after initial chaos. Established and maintained safe,disciplined working atmosphere.

Achieved behaviour objective re bell.

Achieved clearer awareness of class' previous knowledge

Most identified all similies in task 1. Three identified at least 2 similes.

All groups created their own similes. one group did this very well. 3 groups well, 2 groups poorly.

Took positive steps towards aim of building confidence re writing their own poems with a number of pupils who were originally dismissive of the whole idea of poetry.

1. Year/Class
F13

2. Lesson Title

Astounding Alliteration



3. Curricular Areas to be Addressed

Writing level D/E – imaginative writing

Appropriate organisation and vocabulary/appropriate literary conventions


Reading level D/E – reading for enjoyment. Awareness of Genre. Knowledge about language

4. Links with Pupils’ Previous Learning/Knowledge/Experience

· Some have experienced different types of poetry at primary. All are aware of rhyme some are aware that a poem does not have to rhyme
· Some have written a poem before.
Some have knowledge of alliteration.
None have used alliteration in a poem

5. Aims of this Lesson/Series of Lessons

To introduce a range of different types of poetry
To build pupils confidence in producing their own poetry
To improve the skills of the class in talking in groups
To allow pupils to experience satisfaction in creating first a class poem then an individual poem to give to someone for Christmas and in participating in the Scholastic Books winter poetry competition



Objectives for this Lesson

We are learning about alliteration
We will be able list the examples of alliteration in a poem
We will have practiced writing our own lines for a poem using alliteration.
Behaviour objective –reinforce Little bell response and exit by behaviour/effort reward








7. Differentiation
Christopher is working at level A/B for reading and writing. He uses green acetate to help him with reading. Check he has this with him. Resources for the whole class will be printed clearly in Arial 14 with no background pattern or distracting graphics to help him without drawing attention to his difficulties. Resources for Christopher, Annelese, Ian and Dylan will use simpler language and give more examples.
Differentiate by question and response
Daniel has ADHD and also struggles with written work although he performs well in verbal tasks. I will change activities every 10 mins rather than aiming for the 14 I would expect for a class of this age group. He and C define themselves regularly as “thick” and need opportunities to be successful in front of the class as well as to move around. Involve both in behaviour management; make sure they get a turn at ringing the bell for silence after paired discussion and chances to answer correctly in front of class.


8. Resources: (Please state to what extent these resources have been developed completely by yourself, whether they have been partially or totally developed by the department or whether they are commercial or web based resources.)

25 copies of Sea Nymph by Anna Hopkins aged 13 in Arial 16.
21 copies of alliteration resource
5 copies of alliteration resource with additional scaffolding marked with an unobtrusive nick in the corner

The poem is from Succeed in English from The Learning Library.

Other Factors to be Considered: e.g. background to class, including organisation/risk assessment/safety
Period after morning interval. Pupils may be wound up and/or full of fizzy drink. Changing the groups for yesterdays lesson was not entirely successful with some pupils achieving less well than might be expected. Several pupils missed the previous lesson due to their attendance at the School Council and are unaware of our goal of producing a class poem and individual poems as Christmas gifts.

10. Strategies for the Assessment of the Achievement of Objectives
Formative and informal;
By questioning
By response
Summative
Returned resource – how many/ well have they identified alliteration











11. Outline of Lesson/Teaching Strategies/Timing (Timings are approximate)

Settle and register – greet at door and tell them to return to their normal seating not yesterdays groups (5 mins)

Personal reading – Stipulated in departmental plan (5 mins)

Transition to task – Puzzle on board 23 SDUC – people absent yesterday and usual class teacher try to work out what it means as class put their books away and get ready to work.
When they have worked out “ 23 school days until Christmas” Ask for some “Teachers for two mins” to tell the class and the usual teacher what we did yesterday and about the poetry competition/present and the class poem/what we learned about simile. If Zoë or Robyn raise hand pick them as they are showing signs of disinterest. They will be encouraged to take questions and comments from their peers to help the class remember and understand. Get them to explain little bell signal. (5 mins)

Whole class teaching simile vs. metaphor. Give examples and have individuals come to board to identify which it is by tally mark. Differentiate by question to allow Dylan and Christopher to succeed. Alert Annelese and Danielle that they will be coming to the board to answer to help them focus on task. (9 mins)
Transition Put yesterdays similes on wall to discuss favourites as we didn’t accomplish this yesterday. Whilst 2 pupils (probably Daniel and Craig/ Danielle decide by who seems to need to move most) put the flipchart sheets on the wall have the pupils who attended pupil council come to the front of the class and report what happened and answer questions from their peers (4 mins)
Transition - ask for appreciation for school council report and thank participants. Read yesterdays similes and ask them to think of any others and choose their favourites for the class poem
Transition - use bell (Dylan) have Caroline and Christopher hand out resource 1 (Poem)
Write objectives on board and share with class.
Whole class teaching – ask what alliteration is. Ask for examples. Offer examples.
Individual work – read the poem Sea Nymph to them then have them read it by themselves ask them to list the examples of alliteration from the poem on their resource. (9 mins)
Transition by bell
Individual work pupils to create their own lines for the class poem using alliteration
Group discussion- share their ideas and choose the best. One to feed back to class these lines to be added to class poem ideas bank along with the similes (10 mins)
Summary -relate to objectives – what we learned today. (3 mins)

Dismiss in orderly fashion –rewarding good behaviour and effort with prompt dismissal.


12. Next Steps: homework/follow-up/future lessons
Some are champing at the bit to start their individual poems, tell them if they want to they should go ahead with their first draft and I will read them next week. Tell them they must include at least one simile and one alliterative line. Those who are not ready to start their individual poem should think up more similes to describe the Christmas classroom and more alliterative lines
13. Post Lesson Analysis/Evaluation
Was much better at getting them in settled and ready to work. Was this due to presence of usual class teacher? He reported pupils as engaged involved and learning. Liked the manner of my delivery, the starter and recap he thought the classroom management using the bell was excellent as was the management of yesterday’s absences. We both thought the simile revisit with the flipchart pages on the wall was clumsy and didn’t achieve what it was aimed at. The differentiation was good and Zoë, Dylan, Christopher and Daniel were engaged and learning well. He cautioned that Claire asks a lot of unnecessary questions and that it is wise to ignore her sometimes as she can lead the whole class off task. Danielle was not focussed on task several times Annalese was not listening and not focussed. I had been aware of this yesterday but as as she was not disrupting others today I was not so aware of her inattention and actually thought she was on task.
Timings were out again but better than yesterday. I will again have to finish today’s task at the next lesson. I need to plan the practicalities better. I realised too late that I didn’t have enough time to do the work on the second resource but it was too soon to pack up. The Class teacher
helped by stepping in with a quick quiz. I will make sure I haves something like this as an emergency filler

Reflection s310 Monday 15 Nov

Another surprise teaching experience but this time I had 15 mins warning. This class has some challenging pupils. Absence is high, a couple of the pupils have behaviour and learning support and classroom management is a challenge at the best of times. Lets just say that I was delighted that my tutor did not choose this class for a crit although I have to admit I've become fond of them. In fact they are probably my favourites. On Monday we had the last of the Individual Talks for standard grade to try and winkle out of them. Three pupils had refused point blank to give an individual talk on both Thursday and Friday last week even though this means they would automatically get a seven. The HOD decided we had to try again. I'm glad i didn't have time to panic. I decided to make my aims about classroom management I have to get this sorted before I can teach them anything. I wrote objectives on a flip chart I stole from the staffroom. I couldn't use the blackboard because the inspectors were in. ( I know they are probably rubbish but they were the best I could manage in the circumstances.) Pupils

• Will have learned 2 skills to help them improve their individual talks
• Will feel more confident in giving individual talks

so that they will go up a grade on the next talk they give which will be just before Christmas.

My secret behaviour objective was to get them to stop talking when the teacher needs to talk by using a bell or hand up alert. My secret secret objective was to get out without crying or loosing my temper.
I played Mozart on the laptop as they entered and was surprised that only one asked why we were having the boring music. Took register and introduced the objectives, said I wanted them to sit in groups of 2 or 3 to discuss why we do Individual Talks and what we don't like about them. I wanted some talking in groups as so far the talk has consisted of traded insults across the floor and in general the class sit as far apart from each other as possible. I also hoped that getting a chance to air their grievances together before their talk would prevent the 10 min argument we had had with each previous participant before getting a talk out of them. On the stolen flipchart I also had " clarity" and "relevance" with explanation of what these meant and three grades Very/ mostly /not much. I told them they would be assessing the talks. I wanted them to decide on these two measures how sucessful the talk was and to tell the speakers two things they liked about the talk and one thing the speaker could improve on next time. I then got two of them to toss a coin for who was up first (the third hadn't turned up yet) then asked them to "big it up" for A....... and as much to his surprise as mine he stood up, gave a four min talk on fishing graded 5. The comments from the class were supportive and valuable, B.. got up next and astounded us all and himself with 3 mins on his dog with great vocabulary, real expression and clarity and warmth about his subject. B is accompanied at all times by a learning/behaviour support teacher who looks ex marine and may be the only person in school actually bigger and more scary than B himself. He got a 4 next time he says he's going to prepare and get a 3!!!!!! some who didn't do a good job last week have decided they are going to do a lot better next time. C.. confined her general disgust at the whole proceedure to asking to go to the toilet, there was no desk banging, muttered insults at the teacher or shouting out about how crap and unfair it all was.
Behaviour was exemplary, the Hod who had been observing said i was a natural and that it had been great, the support assistant smiled warmly and said it would be great to see me in the department. I couldn't get my big head through the classroom door to get out.

I went immediatelt to S31 where in co -teaching I was totally and utterly rubbish. Embarassingly poor. Basic things like not explaining the task clearly, forgetting names not
being able to help the polish kid (oh how i wish i'd paid more attention in that lecture- i really didn't think it would affect me- I only know of one "immigrant"family in our town and they are 4th generation and therefore more local than me!) I thought in a local school I really wouldn't have to know much about supporting pupils with little English.
Then i went to the staff loo and threw up. I was sent home and stopped throwing up 5 hours later.
I've spent the last 3 years stalking medics in infectious diseases, respiratory medicine and GUM departments. I should be immune to every disease on earth but obviously some anerobe lurks in LocalAcademy and was just waiting to colonise my gut. Tuesday was spent sleeping it off.

This morning saw me back with s310 (observing not teaching) they were remarkably untransformed by my brilliant lesson. I then faced s31, I hope its just an overactive imagination that leads me to suspect the elite class have sussed me for the phoney I am. Do they know my degree is in medieval and modern history, that i dropped English at Higher Ordinary, i've never done a "cloze reading"and i have bad dreams about putting apostrophes in the wrong place on the board?

Next time will S310 be ready for me and my new fangled assertive discipline techniques? Will they string me up with the red patent leather double belt The only Visible Means Of Support has just informed me is hideous (glad he doesn't know he paid for it).

Tomorrow I have S1 last period on my own. They are my crit class. I'm doing a poetry unit with them. I'll have them for my first crit a week on Friday (not Thursday) as originally planned. I'm doing the first lesson tomorrow. I should be planning it instead of blogging this.........

Whirlwind Week

One week of placement one over and it hardly feels like one day has passed. I've been really lucky in my placement. There's been some stuff on first class from people who are having a terrible time at their allocated school -and not necessarily because of the pupils.
I've done my first solo teaching, lots of co-teaching, two philosophy for kids classes, assessment of standard grade Individual Talk, and two portfolio tasks. We have an inspection on Monday For "How Good is our School" I'm not entirely sure where this fits in with HMIE but sure all will be clear on Monday.
The English Staff have had a tough week with parents night, the depute head sitting in to assess one of their lessons, a first year trip to Kelvingrove,CPD about emotional intelligence which appears to have gone extremely badly,one pupil going mad and throwing tables around, another asking a teacher to suck his nipples!? Everybody has been complaining about the squalid state of the staff base so the probationer and I took it upon ourselves to give it a good clean and tidy. 5 woman hours later it was transformed into a much more orderly,calm and clean place for them to retreat to.
Do most departments have an issue with discarding materials? We found advice for teachers re preparation for Highers dated 1982 amongst other things that were in plastic folders that had turned brown and were beginning to biodegrade. I would recommend any researcher trying to find a new antibiotic visits the base soon. The cleaners are really pleased and have mentioned that they may hoover the carpet so some boon to medical science may be lost. The cleaners aren't allowed to clean the window sills because they would have to stretch over desks and this is a health and safety risk apparently. Belladonna Curls and I are made of sterner stuff and I brought an extendable duster (available in any DIY shop) and we busted the dust there and in the classroom she shares with the Head of Department.
One staff member commented that I shouldn't wash dishes and file discarded resources because nobody else would and I was a professional not a manual worker. It was Ok to display pupil's work on the wall but not to clean classroom windowsills.
I don't care.
I believe that people's built environment has an impact on their behaviour, if the staff base is dirty and disorganised with no human touches I believe the staff will feel more stressed and less valued. If the classroom is dirty and disorganised surely the subliminal message we're sending the pupil is that we don't value them. I think that is more unprofessional than rolling up my sleeves and getting out the Cif.
I wanted to do it as a thanks to the staff who have been so welcoming and helpful in the midst of a really mad school week. I also wanted to do it because I have to sit in the base when I'm not teaching and work on my portfolio tasks and I have S310 in the aforementioned classroom and if there is any chance of a cleaner environment helping with behaviour management I'm ready to give it a try.

Willie Loman's learning points this week

• Used ICT to create Certificate of Achievement for those in S310 who prepared and delivered their individual talk by the due date. A personalised envelope with this and one of those pens with four colours of ink each delighted them. I had been a bit worried they would think it patronising and see through my "proximal praise" attempt but they were delighted.
• My assessment of the individual talks mached that of the HOD (whoopee, am natural assessment genius.)
• Got Int pupils to do formative assessment on the lesson I delivered re content of the poem. They loved the talking in groups and the teacher for two mins. They really liked that I checked their understanding and told them that if they didn't understand it that the problem was that I wasn't explaining it in a way that was appropriate for their needs and not that they were stupid. Like me they had felt muddled and unsure of what I was trying to achieve at the beginning of the lesson.
• Schools are work places with office politics and rivalries the same as everywhere else. The pupils are ultimately the ones who suffer as a result.
• Some pupils catch you totally unexpectedly, like the girl from S310 who has global learning difficulties who gave me a huge hug on her way out of period 6. I think this was because she was relieved her talk was over and delighted to get a certificate and pen. As soon as she left I could feel the tears welling up. I was at the same time very relieved that the HOD was in the room and could see that I hadn't hugged her I also wanted to check that I hadn't crossed the boundary with this class and this pupil in particular. I like them and I know that kids report that feeling liked by their teacher is highly important to them, however I am very aware that I must avoid over-friendliness . I was absolutely paranoid about the physical contact side of this encounter.The HOD was reassuring re my classroom presence being appropriate.He assured me that I was right not to push the pupil away or advise her that this was inappropriate though there would have been an issue if she had been a boy or had hugged HIM.( Don't know what the equality lecturers would have to say about that.). Most importantly he had a hanky so I didn't have to go home with Panda eyes from runny mascara.
• I need to get the portfolio tasks out of the way and really get my head around the lesson plans for S1 and 3 without any distractions. I need to teach techniques for close reading for standard grade and do an introduction to poetry unit and I'm not good at concentrating on a number of tasks at the same time.
• If I'm going to be a good teacher I am going to have to get very good at concentrating on a number of tasks at one time.

Sink or Swim

This was not how I planned it. I thought I wouldn't be teaching on my own until next week and that my first lesson would be on the background to Dr J and Mr H. I have put a lot of thought into this lesson as have many of the people who have helped me by posting comments. Instead, today due to a set of unforeseen circumstance I found myself with the second 50 mins of a double period intermediate 1 & 2 continuing a lesson on Brooklyn Cop. Preparation time consisted of the supply teacher (retired English teacher from the department and henceforth known as my Guardian Angel) saying as we went back into the class after break
"you do the content section with them".
Before I could say
"what exactly do we mean by content in the context of Int 1&2"
(thank goodness because this would have been a really stupid question)
or,
"I'm really not ready. I need time to prepare"
there I was, TEACHING.
Oh boy was I rubbish.
For what must have been 10 minutes but felt like hours I floundered around the subject of content in the poem trying to do what the Guardian Angel had been doing. She had been working from a mindmap of things we need to think about when "doing" a poem for an examiner. She had covered the structure of the poem and then verse structure. She led from the front with exposition which she followed by a concise summary of the learning point she had made, written on the board as she talked. The class then copied this down under the relevant heading.
I couldn't DO it.
Mind blank in panic I found myself unable to follow her logic re content. It took me until the students were watching me with the dead eyes of sharks to get my thoughts on the content of this poem together and begin to have an idea of how I could go about getting them to separate the narrative of the poem from the meaning of the poem.
Our first C&P tutorial on teaching poetry finally crept hesitantly into my head and I realized I was just not going to be able to do it the way this experienced teacher had. My hands were shaking too much to write legibly on the board by this time and anyway I had no idea where the chalk was.
I set off in my own way breaking them into the groups they had been working in yesterday and assigning each group a verse. They then fedback to the class using an OHP (we had OHP copies they were working on yesterday). Through this process with class discussion on each of the points and little bits of me doing direct teaching we got to an understanding of "content" we even discussed the poem as a Work of Art bringing more clarity and at the same time more emotion to the issues of Policing and Violence than a newspaper article or TV report ever could. They stopped doodling and staring at each other meaningfully. EVERYBODY said something and it was all useful. I began to ask questions to make sure they were understanding.
I was swimming the Butterfly, I loved them all, I loved Brooklyn Cop,the Guardian Angel and myself (are all English teachers shamefully egotistical?) Then I ran out of work.
I felt myself flailing before grabbing the driftwood of the "structure of the text" questions which had been left by the class teacher in the event of the supply being a mathematician. I couldn't understand why they didn't jump to the task full of enthusiasm. Nobody spoke up,they fidgeted, they looked at each other. It was uncomfortable. I had no watch, there was no clock, my sense of time had gone completely. I asked what the time was. Five minutes until the bell!
I apologised, I said that of course they couldn't answer 20 questions on the structure of the text in five minutes, I had had a numpty moment.They were to clear up and be ready to go and I needed a volunteer to be Teacher For Two Minutes when they were. I had 3 volunteers.
I chose one and explained quietly that he would stand in front of the class and give a summary of the learning points from the lesson, explaining the difference between narrative and meaning and giving an example of both. He had got it and he explained it well with others chipping in with their own examples. He enjoyed telling them to raise their hands and not shout out. I watched, I led the applause for the teacher for two minutes, I dismissed the class. I struggled to the shore. The Guardian Angel was waiting for me, I'd forgotten about her. She said that I was going to have to do it sometime, that I will not have hours to prepare lessons when I'm teaching for real and that she knew I could do it and I had. And I had. It wasn't a great lesson, maybe tomorrow I'll find out that I've confused them totally or that they simply can't remember a thing about the lesson. I'll learn, I'll do it better next time.

Key Learning points for Willie Loman

There will be a next time. When it was going well it was as enjoyable as finding the perfect pair of shoes with 75% off.
Work with what works for you, don't try to teach like somebody else.
You can turn it round when you feel like running away.
They forgive you if you admit to making a mistake. They can laugh with you not at you.
Know where everything is and have a watch at all times.
Don't underestimate what a learner is capable of. Don't be afraid to push them when you believe they can do it.
Do re-live the experience however uncomfortable so that you can learn from it.
Check the next day to get a real measure of what they learned.
Carry toilet paper in your handbag.

The kindness of strangers.

Blogging has surprised me. I thought it would be a useful diary for self reflection, somewhere to practice IT skills and keep useful weblinks for future use. It didn't really occur to me that people I don't know would give of their time and expertise to help me become a teacher. I do know and love the Gorgeous Geek and Tallulahfred but would never have used what little face to face time we have together to discuss the details of a lesson planning problem. I put it in my blog the way I might have in a diary but in a more legible hand and instead of festering there my questions received answers from the blogosphere.

If I had considered this I might have called my blog "Streetcar" and used the name Blanche. She had much better shoes than Willie Loman.

Friday night ups and downs.
Another Friday night and here I am blogging.
Ups
I've been working on the Portfolio task about my primary school visit. I've ended by saying that aims and practices of the primary school I visited seemed very much in line with the ideals of the "Curriculum for Excellence" and that this leads me to expect that if it is adopted by secondary schools it can only be good for pupils and should make for a rewarding career in teaching.
I like this starry-eyed optimist I'm turning into. I'd become very cynical and jaded in my previous work.
ICT wise

1. I've created a slideshow showing the dualistic nature of Edinburgh using images from the photosharing website Flickr.
2. I've made links from my blog to radio and magazine articles that might come in handy.
   

Downs.
Why am I finding lesson planning so hard? I've been working with aims and SMART objectives for 15 years, how can I be making such basic mistakes in setting objectives in my first lesson plan?
For a double period intermediate 1 and 2 background on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde I came up with;
Pupils will have analysed how Stevenson's life and experience of Victorian Edinburgh are reflected in the themes of

• Dualism
• Suppression and control
• The Beast Within

in Dr J & Mr Hyde.

Fortunately natural self-doubt led me to my Tutor's door to run these past him (its not a lesson I'll get a crit on ). I should have kept it simple with "pupils will have learned", I need to find a simpler way to describe dualism. What if my tasks and teaching are similarly innapropriate? I have an image of working with these kids and them not understanding much of what i'm saying apart from "hello" and , "I can see you are bored and frustrated but I want you to put me back down on the ground and we'll find a way of making this more interesting for you."

Up again

People I've never met have made encouraging comments on my Blog!! Kenneth made a great suggestion, namely I get the people in the blogosphere to help me with my learning outcome objectives. It can't be cheating, can it? At Jordanhill they are always telling us how useful group learning is... well this is virtual group learning! Well, the question has been asked -will the blogosphere population help me?........