Teaching Lesson Number 1...

today i experienced what an hour of leading twenty 14-year olds in a structured lesson inside a classroom is like. WHEW. lots to think about.

i'd have to say that the first part of my lesson bombed. i had planned for the kids to break up into groups. this took more time than i had envisioned because i'm an "intern", one girl sneeringly reminded me. she was a delight all class . she started out by telling me her name was "no name". so i called her that all class. if that's what she wants to be known by for now, fine by me. if i was her teacher all semester maybe i'd fight with her early on. but i'll be there for 4 days. if she wants to play games, she can play by herself.

after we broke up into groups, the students were to read through a story in their group. well, problem number one: not all students wanted to read out loud. okay, "you don't have to read if you don't want to". next problem, "does ANYONE want to read?". it was rough. finally, we got the story figured out. there were 5 parts than needed to be read through. what i should have done was to go through each character and have different students from the groups identify which character they would read. then, have them highlight the part that would be theirs to read. next time, instead of taking 15 mins just to figure out the reading part, i might just read it myself. but i learned something: what's straightforward for an adult is rocket science for a high school student and has to be explained in great d-e-t-a-i-l. no matter how painful that might seem.

the rest of the lesson began to progress somewhat smoother after that. i felt better about it at least. and maybe that's because i had an extremely supportive teacher letting me be there, and a rad teaching partner (a fellow student) who helped me out along the way. after the reading kerfuffle, i sucked in a deep breath, laughed at myself and moved onto the next thing. it helped to mouth to both of them: well, THAT bombed! they both laughed... and agreed. nothing like honesty. which i appreciate.

we discussed needs and wants. the kids had a chance to share different things they want and we discussed a system for deciding whether something is a need or a want using a 1-2-3 priority scale. the kids finished off the lesson with exit slips.

little miss attitude's exit slip was my favorite and made my grin from ear to ear. "needs and wants must be prioritized". textbook response to our question to the class, "what's one thing you learned today?".

every single, little, minute detail has to be pre-meditated at this stage in the game. you get in front of that classroom, and rational thought has hitch-hiked it's way to timbuktoo. a good pre- and post-conference are KEY!

my teacher was super supportive, gave helpful feedback, and encouraged. YAY for a positive first experience. soon... sooner, i hope... this will all be old hat.