Close Encounters of the Sixth Grade Kind

This whole week has felt like an out-of-body experience. I've just been so out of it and nothing I do has helped me get back in it.

My life has been overtaken by elementary school.


Practicum started last week, but we didn't start teaching until this week. And I taught almost every chance I could. On Monday, I seriously taught all day! It felt great! I was super apprehensive coming in to this practicum because I was placed in a 6th grade class. And I hate the pre-teen/tween age. They just have so much attitude! And, coming into a real 6th grade classroom, all my fears came true, there is attitude (so far we've had racist comments, cussing, notes written as revenge--and it's only been a week), but there is also so much more potential in these kids! I love that I don't have to teach direct instruction the whole time, the kids can figure things out on their own, and I kind of love it! (Though I still am not sure if I would want to teach 6th grade for more than a month...). I'm still trying to get used to my school's set-up for the 6th grade. They rotate to different teachers for different subjects (not that revolutionary), but the way that they rotate is completely random (like jr. high and high school). So I essentially have 3 different classes with a handful of the same faces and more names to memorize.

In addition to starting practicum, we signed up for interviews this week for internships. This was more stressful for me than it should've been. I'm currently in a district (Nebo) other than the one that I want to intern in (Alpine), so I hyped it up into a big deal and stressed over the idea that I wouldn't get an internship where I wanted. But come Tuesday when we actually made the decision for a district, I was really content with my decision for Alpine! So now my free time is spent preparing for that interview. What's my management style? What are my thoughts on balanced literacy? How would I handle a student with chronic misbehavior? All things that I have to figure out in the next two weeks. But I'm so excited to do it! I'm feeling really confident in my decision to intern, which just makes me want the interviews to be over and done with so I can start planning for next year!