First - I'm still waiting on my student teaching placement. My coordinator emailed me a few days ago and said that my school district of choice (Madison County) has been in constant contact with her, but doesn't want to give her a firm answer one way or the other. I had to give her two alternate districts that I'd be willing to work in so that she can try to find some sort of alternative if Madison County falls through. I was really hoping to get a placement before we go out of town so that I could go in and meet my host teacher and principal, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Second - I tutor for Brainfuse.com, mainly students who come from low-performing schools. Today I was tutoring a 6th grade girl from a school in Chicago in math. We always start students at one grade level below what they are in, unless they have really good quiz results, so I started her today with the very first 5th grade lesson on writing numbers in different forms. She was really struggling (as in not knowing how to write one thousand forty two in standard form - 1042), so I decided to quickly review place value with her. Turns out the girl had no concept of place value, period. She could not show me the ones place in a number, or any other place for that matter. She has no clue that 10 ones equals one ten, and ten tens equals one hundred. No clue. No wonder the girl isn't doing well in math! I just want to know how it is possible for a student to get to 6th freaking grade and not know place value. That is not her fault - that is a teacher's fault somewhere along the line. So, next week, I will be working with her on 1st grade place value lessons. It makes me want to cry. Our educational system should not be failing kids like that.
Third - Saturday is my last day teaching my first Kaplan ACT class. I'm so proud of all (well, all but one) of my students! I have two boys in my class, twins actually, who both came in with 27s. Their dad was going crazy because they could not get their score up, no matter how hard they tried. Well, on our last practice test, they made a 32 and 33! I couldn't be prouder. All my kids have went up at least 2 points, which is just great. The one girl who I'm not proud of has missed 4 out of 8 classes and 2 out of 4 practice tests and then wants to know why her score hasn't gone up. Gee let me see.....
All that being said, I really am enjoying teaching/tutoring. I'm getting excited for student teaching, but really anxious, too. It is going to be a tough 12 weeks, and I am sure I'll be ready for it to be over. Not to mention that my heart is going to be breaking every day when I have to leave Lauren :o(
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2 comments:
Yeah, that will be hard to leave Lauren. Who will she stay with?
Sounds like your teaching is going well! I know you must be excited to get started with your student teaching. Good luck!
Hey, just a heads-up that I had to move my blog. Can you change the link in your sidebar? I'm now at http://www.beanmom.com/beandiary.html It's a long, ugly story why I've moved... :P
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