Learning Everyday

It is almost the weekend and I know that I need some time to take a step back away from school and reflect. Teaching intermediate level students is such a skill. Today my teacher was not at school due to a funeral that she had to attend. My teacher let me take a lot of control over the classroom while the reliever (substitute teacher) was there. I felt confident and was ready to run through the day as if my teacher was present. There were many obstacles and bullying has seemed to already be a huge issue within the classroom and syndicate. I am upset that bullying is occurring and the classroom teacher and I will teach the students what intolerable behavior looks and sounds like. However, the reliever was so talented at sorting out the bullying behavior and organizing her expectations for appropriate behavior that I learned a lot today about managing a middle school classroom. The reliever and I sat after school and I learned about her management techniques as a teacher and how I can integrate them into my teaching style. The lesson that I am most taking away from her is that students will need to talk through conflicts with the teacher, but inevitably the students need to make a choice to do the good behavior. The teacher can tell the student that they have a couple choices to pick from and after the teacher presents the choices it is the role of the student to decide what they think is best and then take action. I plan to work on conversing and problem solving skills as the term rolls on.

This weekend my host parents are taking Bre and me to the Bay of Islands. I have heard that it is such a wonderful and beautiful area in the North Island. The activity I am most excited about is the Dolphin Encounter where we will go out in a boat and potentially swim with the dolphins. We'll see what other adventures we get to take part in....