"Guys, this is Miss Campo, please don't destroy her."

I purposely didn't post any updates on student teaching until the first week was over because I knew that it would feel obligated to update every single day, rendering my time spent updating somewhat worthless. There are only so many hours in a day, and student teaching seems to be sucking up ALL of them. So now that the week is done, I'll try to condense it all down into one update.
I experienced every single one of these emotions this week:
- Excitement
- Dread
- Anxiety
- Fear
- Intense Fear
- Glee
- Physical Exhaustion
- Mental Exhaustion
- Emotional Exhaustion
- Frustration
- Amusement
- Impatience
- Fulfillment
(Now, if I was mean, I would just leave it at that and let you all imagine the scenarios that led to those emotions. But I'm not mean, so here's a little bit more).

I'm student teaching at Grandville Middle School; 4 classes of Spanish I and 2 classes of Intro to Theatre. The Spanish I classes are open only to 8th graders and are taken for high school credit. We've been doing their first semester exam all week (they're a little bit behind the high school) and since they can only work on it during class time, it's taken 5 class periods. And some kids still aren't even done yet. As for Theatre, I came in just as they were finishing a Romeo and Juliet unit where they looked at themes in stories and how one person's decisions inevitably affect the people around them. For the last 3-4 weeks of the class (GMS is on trimesters), they will be working on their final projects - I cast them into short plays (2-3 pages or so each), and they have the responsibility of memorizing their lines, finding their costumes and props, designing their set, determining their stage movements, and performing the whole thing on the stage in the auditorium at the end of the trimester.

This is a list of things I have done in the last week:
1. Attempted to learn 176 names. Seriously. I have 176 students. I'd say I've got about 65% of them down at this point.
2. Spent the first three days using a student desk that was smaller than the tables the actual students sit at. Yesterday, though, I got my very own teacher's desk. Small successes.
3. Introduced myself as "Andrea" on Tuesday to a student that had been absent on Monday. Whoops.
4. Confiscated my first cell phone from a student who then proceeded to flip me off. I sent her to the principal's office. Much to my surprise, she actually went.
5. Told a student to return to her seat and stop terrorizing another student. She told me she hated me. I asked her what my name was. She returned to her seat.
6. Cast 51 students into 19 plays on Tuesday. Do you know how difficult that is when you only just met the students yesterday and don't really know their names? Good thing my CT gave me a list of students that should NOT work together...
7. Tag-teamed on exam makeups and retakes for at least 30 different students today. At the busiest point, I had 4 different tests/exams going on. All with listening sections that involved answering questions based on what I read to the students. Insanity.
8. Filled the vacancy of bilingual special education teacher. There will be a post on this in a few days, believe me. Basically, the special education students in my Spanish I classes can't receive the accommodations that they receive in their other classes (such as having the directions read to them, having reading sections read aloud to them, having scribes for extended writing sections, etc). Here's why: first of all, my CT can't perform all of these accommodations because she can't leave the rest of the class unattended, especially during an exam. Second of all, their regular SpEd teachers can't read or write on the tests if they don't know Spanish. Third of all, there are no bilingual SpEd teachers or paraprofessionals employed at GMS. Something's not right here, wouldn't you say? So anyway, watch for a post on this topic later on, if you're interested.
9. Listened to a student's life story after school one day. I forget how this ended up happening. But when she was done, I asked her if it was okay if I prayed for her, and she said yes. I would of course have prayed for her anyway, even if she had said no, but it helped me realize that there are ways to get around the separation of church and state. I'll admit, I was pretty disappointed when I found out I would be student teaching in a public school. I knew that it would end up being a good experience because I spent all 12 of my own school years in Christian school and I definitely needed time in a public school before heading out to look for jobs after graduation. I was mostly just upset that I'd have to suppress a part of me that I had always planned on integrating fully into my teaching. But thanks to this little episode, I'm coming to re-realize that faith = words + actions. I may not be able to use the words on school time, but I've still got my actions.

I'm sure there are several other humorous events from this week that I'm forgetting about, so I apologize for that, but you can be sure that I'll keep telling the funny stories that come my way.