...On The First Week of Teaching My Own Unit!

A dear old friend just reminded me that I have a blog. :) What can I say, it's been hectic!

You can probably tell that I've been busy, since I'm updating this at 6:03 am. Well, it's now or never!

Last week I began teaching a unit that I designed myself. Needless to say, I was pretty worried about how it would turn out. A) I'd never done it before and B) I'd never done it before. My mentor teacher was very supportive, though, and last week went great! Here's some highlights:

1. When describing the big drop down in numbers of a rabbit population, a student said, "It DRAMASTICALLY decreased!" Now, the blogger is underlining that as a misspelled word, but I think he may have been on to something!
2. I overheard two students having a conversation about drugs and had to approach one of them about it. She received it really well and even *seemed* to value my opinion. Hm....
3. When asked for ideas about how natural selection works, some students blew me away with the science that is built into their brains:
a. Student 1: Wait, so none of this matters, right? I mean, does it even matter if animals get eaten if they mate first? Cuz don't they just want to mate and that's their life goal?
b. Student 2: I think that maybe this fox would be able to adapt to a new environment, it would just take a really long time, since you have to wait for them to have babies.
4. I have several students who were seriously lacking in engagement and participation, and they are not only participating and not whining about class anymore, but they are GETTING 7 and 8 out of 9 ON THEIR QUIZZES! Before, a lot of them would just write "IDK". For those non-hip people who don't know text acronyms: IDK = I Don't Know.

I wish I had time to post everything that I want to post here, but I don't. Just know that I am excited, glad to be where I am, and finding that although my days have somehow all become 14 hour days, I am finding ways to stay sane and I am TEACHING these KIDS SOMETHING. It's amazing!

This is definitely the profession for me. Not to say it's not hard a lot of the time, but the rewarding parts are so worth it.

Cheers, everyone; I'll try to post more often!