Transitioning Phases (STB#9)

This week of student teaching seemed to be a week of many things new. I got to start a new unit on sheep and goats in my Animal Science class and I started a new unit on Parli Pro in my Intro to Agriculture class. It feels almost refreshing being able to start what feels like a "new chapter" with the students. I take it as an opportunity to again reignite the spark of agricultural interest on a new topic. Although I have new units, I still have the same students, and everyday continues to be a learning process as a student teacher.

It often feels that some sort of transition is always occurring during student teaching. At first it had been a transition into the classes and building the needed rapport with students. Now that I have those established I have been struggling in dealing with the openness of students. Students feel comfortable sharing in class and openly talk to me, which I extremely value; however, I am seeing how this openness can also cause problems if not well managed.

My Animal Science class is a great class in which I have built an open and friendly classroom environment. We often joke with each other and can sometimes as the students say get "sassy" with one another. I am beginning to realize however that there is a fine line with this behavior until it is taken too far. This past week, what I thought was a joking around session in a group of my students quickly turned into a bullying session that resulted in one of my students leaving my classroom. We spent a good chunk of the rest of the period talking about bullying and it not being accepted in the classroom. Although I felt that we had a good class discussion, I couldn't help but feeling absolutely terrible after class. How could I have left such bullying happen in my classroom? How could I have prevented this? It was an extremely good eye opener for me in seeing how I need to handle these situations when they arise and even limiting the "joking around" in class. Students often times do not know when they have crossed the line and as a teacher it is important that I manage it in such a way that it does not cross any lines and end up hurting students feelings.

After talking to my cooperating teachers about such matters in the classroom, I am more confident in how to control or limit such behavior. One way is simply reminding students of my classroom expectations and consequences. If behavior A is being acted out in my classroom then consequence A will applied. I then need to stick with these consequences and act upon them, otherwise students know that I won't punish the behavior and they can do it again. I realize now the importance of installing these classroom expectation and consequences at the beginning because I can now refer back to those posters that we covered at the beginning of the course. So far it seems to be working even though those consequences need to be applied more frequently.

Overall, this week went well and I am finding that I am busy writing sub plans for two days while I am away at SLLC next week. I seems very hard writing lessons plans for subs for two days. These are two days that my students still need content even though I am not there. It makes for very strategic planning to ensure students meet such objectives. However, I am very excited for SLLC and exposing my students more FFA learning and fun!