Another week has come and passed. We are moving into our sixth week of school already. The trimester is nearly half over at Otsego High School. When I look back at think about how many years we have covered in my U.S. History class, and how far we have to go, I can’t believe we are going to get it all in. It is amazing how much information is cramed into two decades in history. And of course, all of it is so important.
There is one thing I am questioning at the end of this long week. For the last two days, and the first two days next week my CT wanted to show this video on Teddy Roosevelt. It will take four days of class time. The truth is, it is a pretty good video. The kids are really enjoying it and they do find it fascinating. I am just wondering if four days is too much. It seems a little overkill for me. It isn’t my call, but the biggest problem comes from this “team” teaching. The other US History A class watched the entire video. That particular teacher thinks it is all valuable and that is fine, but by the forth day I will be wondering if it is necessary. I don’t know. Right now I think I should just go with the flow and not question this decision. I just wanted to get all of that out.
Also, as you know I have had a substitute in the classroom the last few days. This man truly means well, but it has not went well. He ALWAYS has something to say to the students that does not pertain to what they are doing. He gets them so off topic. He is interupting me as I am going over things and it was really getting to me today (this was the second day we had him). Bless his heart, he went home last night and did research on the topics of the two classes just to have something to share, but the students are not reacting well to it. I don’t really know what to do with the situation. They are constantly laughing and not paying attention, but I know that they are trying to work on their assignments I have distributed. This was just a really different situation and I don’t know if I handled it in the best way.
Today was also homecoming Friday and we took two hours of school to do a school wide assembly in the gym. It was so, so, so, so hot in that gym. When I was in high school we did the homecoming games at night, so this was new to me. I thought it was a long time for the entire school to sit and watch different games. I loved that stuff, but when it was at night, the people who came were the people to wanted to be there and participate and there were a lot less problems that way. I know it is nice for the entire school to have the opportunity to participate, but I do think it was a little chaotic trying to keep everyone sitting and paying attention for two hours.
I hope everyone else’s week finished up nicely. I am sure everyone is settling in greatly and hopefully getting ready to do some full-time teaching! See ya on Monday!
I sympathize with you on the fact that there is still so much learning to be done, and not a lot of time to do it in. The situation is the same at my school. According to the curriculum, the kids are supposed to be all the way through the review unit on the U.S., but they are only at the end of the U.S. civics part (the 2nd part of the 4 part unit). I don’t know who’s to blame. Sometimes I think my CT is going through the material too slowly, and other times I think that the kids themselves need to step it up a bit. Either way, I’d really like it if we can get caught up before the end of the semester. I hope you’re able to catch up at your school too!