Introduction

web log, weblog, weBlog, blog

Above is the etymology of blog for those who were unaware. Also, qwerty keyboards are so called because of the six top-left letters on the keyboard. (dedicated to my fellow student teachers)

Well, it's started.

I guess technically it starts on September 14th, but for the purposes of this blog it starts now. These next five school days are just observations, but I'm still in the classroom for 2.5 hours a day. Starting a week from Monday, it'll be upped to 7+ hours a day...uh, yikes.

I'm student teaching in a 2nd grade class at Baxter Elementary in Midlothian, TX. There are 20 students in the class (13 boys, 7 girls) and they all seem surprisingly normal for 7 year-olds. Or maybe my 7 year-old sister, Libby, has helped me acclimatize quickly.

Initial impressions were, well, impressive. Mrs. Caldwell, my cooperating teacher, seems genuinely kind and excited for me to be there. Within my first hour there, I was helping the students construct "super sentences" about dinosaurs. Oh, that's another thing. All of the students seem to be excited to have me in the class. That's always a relief, when the students accept you. They'll probably like me until I get to crack the whip and lay down the law. We don't want them forgetting who's boss...

Funny anecdote for the day: I quickly discovered the child with the most, uh, personality in the classroom. I hadn't been sitting down for 5 minutes in the class, when Unnamed Student A walked right up to me, looked me in the eye, stepped on my foot, then walked off. That kind of threw me at first, but I just shook it off. A few minutes later he walked by me on his way to the pencil sharpener and tapped me on the shoulder. When I looked around to see what he wanted, he gave me one of those "It wasn't me!" looks and says, "I think it was a ghost. Yeah, it was a ghost," then walked off. I think we'll get along.

I have to come clean. I'll be honest and say that 2nd grade didn't even crack the top 3 in preferred grades to student teach in, but I think this semester will be a good experience and maybe even have an influence on what grade levels I'm open to teaching in the future.

This will be a sporadically updated blog. You just can't force these things, you know? You have to wait until inspiration strikes. So until then, goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.