Today was my first day at Mahone Middle School. I am working with the eighth grade Cross Categorical teacher, Shawn Verborg, in the Liberty house. I'm not sure how I feel about eighth grade yet.... I like when the students are little and innocent. In middle school the students are as tall/taller than me and are not innocent like my second graders. Walking in to the school was intimidating because I knew I was not walking into a small elementary/middle school anymore, I was walking into a middle school. My cooperating teacher seems very nice! She's welcoming and introduced me to the team. I think some of my students didn't know what to think of me, and were kind of shy. But all of them seemed very nice! For the most part, I just observed today. The classes are in an hour block (ew), and they have math, science, elective (my prep), english, lunch, social studies, elective 2 (another prep), then advisory. For Math and Science, I basically stood in the back of the room observing. For English, the class was working on writing their essay due next week, and Mrs. Verborg and I pulled out 6-7 students to work with them in the "family room" (work room in the middle of the classes). For the most part, I oberved the teacher helping the students. Eventually (after I understood the assignment), I assisted some students while they were writing. They seemed comfortable with my support and allowed me to help! During Social Studies, the students were working on a worksheet, and Mrs. Verborg and I pulled out about 8 students. Mrs. Verborg read the prompt, then worked through the questions with the class. During this class, we were supposed to have a fire drill, but apparently there was an accident outside that knocked down a pole, causing the wifi and phones to go out. So we didn't have wifi for the rest of the day. To end the day, the 8th grade had an ALICE lesson instead of advisory, where they learned about evacuating in the event of an intruder. After the lesson, the students were able to go home. One nice thing about this placement is that I get to go home right after school, yay!
This placement is definitely a culture shock for me. I am used to being known by everyone and in a 2nd grade classroom, and now I am in a big school where barely anyone knows me and the students are much bigger than second graders. But I think it'll be a good experience for me!