Today was: Very Good

Along with the new theme that we started today [That's right! "Colors All Around"!], there are new phonics and phonemic awareness goals. Yesterday was the last day that the kids were introduced to new letters of the alphabet [the program, inexplicably, paired up the introductions of "Yy" and "Zz" in a single day - I guess it's because 26 doesn't divide equally into a 5-day school week...], and today we began letter sounds by talking about the letter "S". Unfortunately, the letter sounds concepts are presented using The AlphaFriends, and embarassingly ridiculous bunch of picture cards and doofy songs. Here's Sammy the Seal's song (to the tune of "Yankee Doodle") which we got to sing today:

Sammy Seal will sail the sea
when summer is in season.
Sammy Seal will sail the sea
and never needs a reason.
Sammy Seal will sail the sea
in very sunny weather.
Sammy Seal salutes a seagull
as they sail together!

Ugh. I mean, just Ugh. It seriously makes me almost NOT want to be a kindergarten teacher in the district next year if it means that I have to, without irony, acquaint the kids with Mimi Mouse and Reggie Rooster. Even worse, yet somewhat luckily [I don't want to have to sing the Sammy the Seal song acapella] there is a cassette tape that comes with the AlphaFriends materials with recordings of each character's song. Sammy's song is this CHEESY, jaunty sailor-song style riff on "Yankee Doodle" done on a cheap Casio keyboard. Ick. When Miles and I listened to the song for the first time I said, "How embarrassed are you for the guy singing? He must have done this ONLY for the paycheck."

I got to read a book to the kids today called I Need a Lunchbox. The key concepts that I focused on [as dictated by the Reading Program materials - yes, the same ones that mandate the use of the AlphaFriends] were "Prediction" ["Look at the cover of the book. What do you think the book is going to be about based on the picture on the cover?"] and "Sequence of Events" ["Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. What happened first in the story? What happened next? What happened at the end? Did the boy in the story really need a lunchbox? Have you ever wanted something really bad that you didn't actually need?" - a kid responsed to this last question by saying, "A videogame." Cute!]. It went REALLY well, the kids were quite attentive, and Miles said that he thought I did a fantastic job. The only thing that went wrong was a discipline issue. During our discussion at the end, one of the kids who was sitting right in front of me kept toying with another kid. Now, the kid who was doing the toying is a special case because he has some kind of "violent behavior" issues and is constantly rocking, contorting his face, and shaking his head. OH, and I guess last year, in preschool, he had a problem with striking other kids. So, I asked this boy who was doing the bothering [the "bothering" was pushing and blowing on another boy] to stand up and sit somewhere else. He refused to move. I asked him again - the whole lesson being STOPPED DEAD IN IT'S TRACKS while I took the time out to deal with this boy. He refused to move. "I've asked you twice, nicely, to move somewhere else. Now, I'm telling you to move." He refused to move. It was obviously taking too much time away from the task at hand so Miles yelled from the back of the group, "____, get up and move. NOW!" Miles apologized later for interjecting, but, I was actually kind of grateful. Sure, I was a bit upset that he overrode my authority, but, it could've been a WHOLE lot worse if the boy continued to disobey me. I've certainly asserted myself with success to a few students - in fact, the girl with autism actually seems to be listening to me and following my directions these days. For a while there, it really seemed like she treated me as a joke and that the sound of my voice triggered giggles and ABSOLUTE defiance. Well, lately when I raise my voice with her she tends to listen. Small victories.

I was invited by the Head Special Education woman today to sit in on the IEP [Individualized Education Plan, I think...] for the girl with autism - it's going to happen Monday after school. COOL, huh? It is at this meeting that the parents, the Principal, the Reading Recovery specialist, Miles, the Head Special Education woman, and other people that I'm probably forgetting will sit down and write up a formal plan for what will be the ultimate fate of the girl with autism. This is BIG for a Student Teacher [well, at least it's big for this Student Teacher] - it's kind of like an intern at a hospital being asked to "scrub in" for a brain surgery for the first time. WAY interesting stuff to take part in that will really come in handy when I have to do them for students in my own classroom.

I think I've been elected to stage a revolt in my seminar class tomorrow night. You see, more than one person has come up to me and said that our seminar is boring and feels like a waste of time, and I've brought up that I think it would be helpful if we got to meet for 20 minutes or so with the other Student Teachers at our same schools [there are 4 others at my school and I RARELY see any of them], and then meet for 20 minutes or so with other people in the seminar who are Student Teaching in the same grade. This would be WAY more interesting/helpful to me then some of the other things that we are being asked to do in seminar on Thursday nights. The suggestion was made to me that since I came up with the idea that I should be the one to do the suggesting to the professor. I'll let you know how it goes...