Sunday, 26 August 2012

Preperations


It is Sunday evening, and I have been trying all weekend to balance helping in the house where I am now living, getting some fresh air, and planning for the coming week.  I was hoping to have a strong plan going into this week.  As it stands now, I do have a plan, however I am unsure of how strong it actually is.  I have lessons planned out for this week in reading, writing, and phonics.  This is supposed to make up ½ of the student’s day, so I placed my focus here to begin.  I have lesson plans written for Monday, and will work to get Tuesdays done soon.  The biggest question now is how the relationship with my teacher will play out for Monday.  She is very strong willed and will walk into the classroom and take over without a moments notice.  So despite how prepared I feel , I know there is a very good chance she may take over and my plans may be for naught. 
On Friday, she came back in the room right as I was beginning a lesson I had spent quite a bit of time planning.   She came with all the grade 1 students and decided to start teaching them all together.   For the first 2 ½ hours of the day, she had the students in grade 3 make a number chart, writing down as many numbers on a piece of paper as possible.  Then the grade 1 students sat for that entire time doing absolutely nothing but staring at the wall, while my teacher and I wrote out number charts from 1 to 100 for them.  It was such a waste of their time.  Not having access to technology makes things like this take much longer, but there is a reason we plan in advance! 
However, teachers take public transportation to and from school.  Like every other teacher, I arrive in a taxi at the same time as all the students and have no morning planning time.  Then, right as the final bell rings, I must rush out the door to catch my taxi again (which is more like an oversized van).  So figuring out planning time is difficult.  And much time is spent travelling.  Things are just so different here, and finding a balance to everything is quite the challenge.  

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