Five weeks later...

...much improved, but lots of room to grow!

Summer training was interesting.  At the beginning, I am not sure if I was nervous/excited/frustrated/apprehensive or some combination of them all.  I didn't like that I was in a room with all males.  I didn't like that they were so strict.  And I was uncertain if I would be able to open myself up to learning from them.

Silly me.  This classroom could not have been more perfect.  The guys showed me that you need to lay down the law day one. And day two. And day three. Hell, I may still be laying down the law come December.  But it will pay off.  The students in our summer school class responded so well.  By the time July came around, they knew the rules and they knew the consequences, but more importantly, they knew that we would follow through with the consequences.  I can not thank my team of teachers enough for helping to show this important fact to me.  I am lucky that I learned this now rather than during my first year.

Clubs..what a FUN part of the day! NOT. Clubs were simply not run well.  I love the idea and I still think that they can happen, but things need to change.  I was in drama club and we did put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet, but it was stressful. There were days where I rocked teaching Algebra 1, but club was so bad that it made me feel as if the whole day was rotten. What did I learn from clubs this summer? You can have fun with students, but there needs to be structure at ALL times.  This can be applied to classrooms, sports teams, clubs, or any aspect of the school day.  The students walked into clubs knowing that it was chill, and thus acted a fool.  Now there were other problems like a lack of communication between second and first years on what was suppose to be happening.  However, had clubs been run as if it were any other class in school, I guarantee you that there would have been a major difference.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with myself and how well I kept it together.  There were days when I left school more than a little deflated.  However, I used that bus ride to digest my day and when I climbed off the bus I told myself "Today is done. Tomorrow will be better."  And then when I climbed on the bus in the morning I told myself what Sealand told me to say every day "This is my classroom  and I am going to DOMINATE today. Just like the students get to start fresh each day, so do I."  I believe telling myself these two statements really helped me keep things in perspective.  I plan to print these sayings out and post them to my wall in Leland.  The true test will be whether or not I can keep this positive thinking going during the school year as things get rougher and rougher.

As for MTC summer training outside of summer school, I think things went okay.  I have no major issues with what we have been through so far, just minor ones.  I suppose I am just amazed at the minor ones because this program has been around for how many years and it still has glitches? For example role plays.  Week two was repetitive.  I was over role plays by Wed of that week and it was hard for me to get into character both as a student and as a teacher.  Although I had minor issues, I did appreciate the fact that I was given ample opportunities to express my feelings.  Whats more, I felt like the program took them to heart.

My finally note is in regards to the effectiveness of summer school and summer training in preparing us for the school year.  My answer to this question whenever I think about it is, can you ever really be prepared for your first year?  I don't believe sitting in a classroom for a year and student teaching for another year will prepare one any better than summer training for the first year.  I mean think about it.  Its a crazy adventure we are about to take.  Come August 3, I am going to have my own classroom!! I hear all the advice people are giving me, but in the end it is up to me and how I choose my room to run.  And I just don't think that you can every really be prepared for the insanity that is going to be the first day.  You can run through every scenario in your head, but the one you don't think of is the one that is going to occur.   

Overall, yes summer training was definitely helpful...well as helpful as it can be!

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