Final two weeks of student teaching

Everything seems so surreal right now. We get back from an amazing spring break and only have 10 days of school left. Crazy. Two of those days are gone now, too. Eight days of school left. I have all of my stuff turned in for Ball State. I'm signed up to walk in graduation. I've created welcome home/birthday/graduation parties and invited my friends and family to them.

Left to do:

Give my student teaching showcase presentation on Monday the 25th

Pack up stuff and mail some of it home

Get a rental car for when my dad visits

Buy a train ticket to get to Frankfurt to pick Dad up from the airport Saturday, April 30

Have someone pick up my cap and gown from the BSU bookstore

I was really dreading going back to school on Monday, but it turned out great. Sure, I was tired because I didn't sleep much the night before, but it was a good day. It was really nice to see my students and the teachers. I am going to miss those students so much. I was looking through the schedule to see what teachers were signed up for the library during the next couple weeks... I noticed the senior English class I've been working with is signed up every other day... my last day with them will be Thursday the 28th. I am so sad! I have really loved getting to know those students and helping them research and write their papers. And their teacher is wonderful. I am so glad that I've gotten to know her, too. She is truly a wonderful woman who I think so much of.. I will really miss them.

Last night when I was creating a couple different events on Facebook to invite people to for birthday/welcome home/graduation stuff... I was going through my friends list selecting people to invite. I wanted to invite my teacher and another teacher at my school, but then I remembered they would be in Germany and it made me sad. I have had a wonderful semester getting to know students and teachers at Baumholder Middle School High School. I am really excited to get home and see my family and friends, but I'm going to be sad to leave the people here. I can't really think much about it yet... I'll just think about that tomorrow! (Scarlett O'Hara!)

So, I've been working with this senior English class since the end of February. They are the lower English class with only a handful of college-bound students. Most have never done research before. I've taught them about research and APA citation. I've helped them everyday they come to the library while they are researching and writing their papers. We've been together a lot. Part of my assignment for Ball State is to give a pre- and post-test to measure student growth. Let me tell you, I was nervous. They didn't do so hot on the pre-test, which is good... They shouldn't know a lot of a subject before we begin. The class average was about 52% on a 10-question multiple choice quiz.

One of my challenges with this class has been bad attitudes from a few of the students. Senior girls think they are the shit. Some of them are complete witches.. and that's putting it nicely. Senior girls and eighth grader girls are nightmares for teachers. I've got a couple of those girls in this class. Some of the boys are completely not motivated; they would rather sleep or stare blankly at the computer screen. Some students don't want help from me, some don't want help from Dr. M, some don't want help from either of us.

One student in particular is really mean to me. I could not figure out what his problem was. He is just such a jerk. He won't respond to me when I speak to him a lot of the time. He won't pay attention if I'm leading a lesson. He wouldn't take the post-test.. he just sat there. He's just a jerk. After I talked to my teacher about this, she told me that he hates women. And he's a special ed student, as well. I'd given up on interacting with him already, so I told her that I just avoid him and don't talk to him. She told me that is the right thing to do.. because there's just no getting through to him, especially if you're a woman.. he won't listen to women. I mentioned something to the English teacher (Dr. M) about it in an email when I told her about the students' test scores.. She said she can't make him do anything either. He just will not listen. On Monday during class he said something to the English teacher about how he doesn't talk to his mother. She and I exchanged glances. Why is this boy like this?? He's not stupid.. He's writing his paper on a history topic. He is much further along than most of the students and knows a lot about the subject. Oh well.. I only have four more class periods with him.

After working with the class for over a month and a half, we played a Jeopardy review game one day when I visited their classroom. Their teacher was gone for a conference, so I went to them instead of them coming to me in the library. I was pleasantly surprised that they knew all the questions except for one or two. They got really into the game, too... I was afraid they'd be bored and think it was too kiddy.

I gave them a post-test, which was harder than the pre-test. It had multiple choice, matching, fill-in-the-blank, and a lot of short answer. Each and every student's score improved (minus the boy who wouldn't take the test). I was thrilled! I was just so impressed with them and with myself.

Research isn't really fun.. I don't think it's fun, but I can do it and am pretty good at it. They don't know much about research and it's a bit of a dry subject, but some things I've done must've stuck with them.. at least for the time being while they're using the skills. Five of my 17 students got 100% on the post-test too. The class average improved to an 87%. I am just so impressed with them.

Here is a graph showing each student's improvement:

________________________________________________

While I was in Amsterdam I checked my e-mail to find someone had commented on my blog. It was from someone who lived in Baumholder in the early 1980s and went to Wetzel Elementary. He thanked me for keeping this blog and enjoyed my pictures of Baumholder and the barracks. He wrote that the creepy little rooms in the basement were storage closets and that each apartment was assigned one. He also said there was a scary, old man at one end of the basement who shoveled coal into the boilers. The kids would be down there messing around, he'd yell at them in German, and they would run off screaming. So funny.

I thought it was so cool that someone found my blog, read it, and enjoyed it. I thought the only people reading it were friends, family, and other people I know in Farmland. Guess I was wrong! Kinda neat. In honor of my new blog follower, I took some pictures around base today on my walk home from school and took some pictures near the building he lived in. I also took a couple of the springtime view out my window.. how it has changed since January!

So thank you, Dan, for enjoying my blog. Enjoy.