Day 1 & 2 of student teaching!

I would've started this blog earlier, but I felt I didn't have enough of a life to talk about last semester and would have bored you all completely. Now, I've entered my student teaching phase at the University of Michigan, and I think I can come up with a few things to share!

Yesterday was my first day out at the school. I was terribly nervous so I hardly slept a wink and showed up way early only to have to sit and wait for my cooperating teacher to show up with his self and keys. In the end, I only had to observe the classes, meet a hundred kids or so while introducing myself a couple dozen times, and receive 4 different birthday goodies from my new students! Yummy cupcakes and bagel pizzas! In the midst of this, my CT tried to fill me in on a few of the issues my kids are going through. This is where my heart started breaking. This little school if full of kids with little to no money, and many of them are only around for a year or two with parents job-hopping. There are the kids with no shoes, the kids born in jail, the kids who have seen their relatives get killed right in front of them, and the kid that does nothing but sit at his desk or in the corner. Faced with issues like this and more, who could stand apart from these kids and not work hard to help and support them?

Moving on to my second day, I was presented with both new faces and familiar faces. I got to get in the action a few times, but even better, I got to see an older woman on duty as aid to one of the disabled kids get in the game and fall down on her back (no worries, she never got hurt and laughed it off). Quite the fun time for all involved! As a prelude to what I'm about to add, I'll say that my CT had a lot of fun informing every class of all the sports I've tried and played, but especially my past cheerleading days. That didn't get my response until my last two classes of the day, when I finally had my 1st graders! It was met by many screams and excited hugs from both boys and girls! It was the best ending for the day! They all asked me to partner and play along with them and hugged me on the way out! I was totally refreshed as I left!

Hopefully, I'll have more fun stories to tell later on, but this is it for now!