My First Fight

My first fight happened in my room on Monday, Jan 23rd. I was starting 4th period when two of my students i am close with from 5th period came to my room and wanted to be there for the period since there teacher was not at work that day. I said fine...they do it all the time. As soon as the came in, I followed them to my desk and a student behind me said...."B**** who are you looking at" and the whole class got quite. My 5th period student dropped her items and said, "not you..so get your face out of my mouth", and some more words were exchanged and my 4th period student ran toward my desk to "Scrap" (as my students say) and I just moved out of the way b/c I wasnt getting involved in nothing that didn't have my name in it. I sent a student to the office and of course NO administrator showed up. I finally got the fight broke up (with the help of some students). By time the fight was over, they had rawled up the whole class, moved my desk and pulled the computer cord out of the socket and my NEW purple peacket was on the floor. The principal made me write them up and turn it in at the end of the day (which i didn't want to) and they got suspended for nine days and will return on Feb 6. There are of course a few things I see wrong with the situation: 1) NO administrator showed up 2)no security showed up 3) after the fight my administrator wanted the write-ups right then and there, not even thinking about the fact that I had 24 rowdy kids to settle down and start teaching after I had lost 20 minutes

Parent Conference

On Friday was our second PArent Teacher Conference of the year. The number of parents who came to see me seemed to lessen this time around. I did have a "highlight" of the day. A parent came to me and asked, "ARe you Ms. Foster?" and I said "Yes". She came in and took a seat and said, "I would like to meet the teacher who finally has my child interested in math." Of course I thanked her and talked more with her about her daughter who has me first period (my best and quietest class). This woman just doesn't know how she made me smile the rest of the day. Comments like these are one of the reasons why I am glad I joined the MTCorps.

December Individual Blog

Unfortunately I had a previous engagment I registered for back in July for Dec 3, so I was not able to make it to the last class. I went home for Christmas and I never realized I would miss home so much until now. I do like Mississippi and do want to be in the south for a while, but I want to go back to the North one day. My semester exams went by smoothly for me. I did a little thinking about how I was going to go about executing them of course. I have a computer program to make tests on my computer at home so that part is easy. The program can make mutlitple versions and provide an answer key for each version. I ended up giving my 5th period (my class with 11 students) all the same test and telling them to seperate so there would be no cheating. I put a sheet of paper on top of their exam and told them to write their name on top. After they turned it in I wrote the number in my grade book that corresponds to their name on the back of the exam and then handed them all out to the class so we could grade them in class. I have a very good class so the plan worked well. I had 4 out of 6 classes exams graded before I left for break, which enabled me not to take any work home over break. I enjoyed my parents while home and my sister. I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!! I am glad to be back and my students were happy to see me when they came back.

December: Final Fall Reflection

My first semester as a teacher has been a uphill and downhill battle. I have to constantly be a teacher, mentor and disciplinarian all at the same time. I enjoy of job and I enjoy my students, I would of course like to get paid a LITTLE BIT MORE!!!! I enjoy the subject I teach and some of my students are starting to grow on me. Some of my main problems within the first few weeks of school were students who refused not to do any work in class, my principal and the lack of orientation for new teachers to a new environment. I have had to get used to the culture and the language of the students down here and have come to better understand them, which enables me to be a better teacher to them. My experience in Dr. McConnell's class this semester has been enjoyable for me. I did enjoy doing the extended STAI Lesson Plan which has helped me become better with lesson planning