Teaching Reflections 8/27-8/31

My first week of teaching was amazing. It was really the best moments of my first week. My expectations were that my students would feel awkward and somehow realize that I'd never done this before. To my surprise, they didn't pick up on my nervousness, that I'm aware of.  The first day, of course they were pretty quiet with several laughs at ice breaking jokes I had planned, but they were also very respectful and asked questions when I hadn't clarified certain things. I had each of them write on a blank note card three of their interests, whether it be sports, hobbies, etc. I explained this to be so that I could relate classroom discussion that sometimes might be dull and dry in places to things they enjoyed more. Through this week, I've occasionally created metaphors that help put into perspective what I wanted them to learn, specifically Kineavy's rhetoric triangle can be compared to a baseball diamond, using the pitcher, the player up to bat, and the game at hand.  Doing this was also a benefit to me, though. I organized the note cards in groups of interests and this helped me learn the three young men's names that were interested in baseball.  One of my female students put the term "diction" in her dialectical notebook. I explained the definition as "shopping for words" since one of her interests she listed was shoe shopping. I explained that diction is the particular word choice used by the author, and shopping for the perfect word is as important to an author as shopping for shoes is for a person who enjoys and applies fashion to their life. And this helped me learn her name as well. I know that nothing is spot on, but I believe it's helpful to them.

Friday was exceptionally interesting to me. We went over constructs again and the intro reading, since their construct proposal is due Wednesday. There was a silence when I asked if there were any questions. I let them process in silence for a moment and then one student asked if the construct was really a rule that maybe  it should be rethought about whether it should be broken or not. Since I had introduced metaphors in class for learning moments, I explored what he was asking and decided, yes, it was pretty much what he was processing. Several students shook their head with understanding and two students turned their construct in early before they left. I'm not having a problem with them doing their homework at all, in fact, they seem to be excited to turn it in. I have several students who are very eager to please me with their work and in intelligent conversation. Others are happy to have good comments on homework returned, and some ask, "What can I do to make it better?" This makes me happy. It makes me connect as a student to them, understanding that no one wants to "settle" for a B. Everyone wants to earn it and more.

This week I felt more accomplishment as a teacher than I did as a student. And it was nice.