Finals and Deer and Snow Days, Oh My!

Though we are only on week 2 of student teaching, this week has brought adventures around every corner and has been quite eventful.  

To start, this week was finals week, meaning our schedule was already going to be funky. To explain it the easiest, for the class I was teaching in 4th period I typically have 75 minute blocks with the kids Monday through Thursday (Friday we don't see kids in person) but for finals week the plan was to see them for 110 minutes Monday and Tuesday and then 40 minutes Wednesday and Thursday. Because of that schedule, I had to rearrange all my lessons for this week so that they would fit with in the time constraints as well as being aware of how much I was asking from the students for the longer blocks of time. In addition, I was already in the process of revising all my lessons for this week. After teaching a little bit last week I quickly realized that what I prepared back in September and October wasn't really in line with the group I was working with. For instance, my timing for just about everything was very off; Some things went way over time, others went way under time. The content I had also felt like it was a little all over the place, so I spent a lot of time trying to find a balance in both the timing and the content of my lessons and activities, trying to find that "Goldilocks" zone. 

While this was challenging at first, it really helped me to get a taste of the adaptability that teachers need to have with planning and working with different schedules at the end of a quarter/semester and helped me to get a better grip on the groups that I am working with and what's appropriate for said group. 

I also found this week that I have started to get the hang of putting in attendance, submitting grades, being more confident in my teaching, and engaging both online and in-person learners. I even got the practice of emailing students and parents about missing assignments as the quarter comes to a close (I was very anxious about emailing both students and parents, so doing this may seem like a small task but for me it was a big victory). 

If the schedule for finals week wasn't a lesson enough in rolling with the punches, we got word Monday afternoon that Tuesday would be a virtual day due to inclement weather. Because of a different schedule for these virtual days, I would only see the class I teach for 20 minutes. I quickly pivoted my lesson plan for that day and decided to just give them a worksheet to complete that focused on some things we learned about animal communication on Monday. This also caused me to have to rearrange yet again some of the other stuff I was planning for this week. 

Finally, to cap off this week, Big Spring High School had a lot of excitement on Wednesday afternoon when a deer made it's way into the faculty parking lot and was running around freaking out, slamming into cars, running into the building and the doors, and causing quite the commotion. There was also word that the deer was foaming at the mouth and looking deranged. Multiple people were outside trying to wrangle it (pictured on the right) and one person even tackled the deer. Game Commission eventually came out and tried to tranquillizer it, but the deer wouldn't go down. Game Commission then had to resort to shooting it, and finally after 3 shots, the deer went down. 

No one was expecting this week to be nearly as eventful as what it has been, but as I'm coming to find out, nothing ever really goes exactly as how you expect it to in education. That being said, who knows what week 3 will bring!