Student Teaching - Week #12

by Kathryn Williams - Taft High School

The Teaching Week

POW:  I have now applied for all of the available positions (that I am aware of) in the area that I am going to be living in.  It is a big letdown to have sent off the applications.  After spending hours compiling them and making them the best I could at the time, I have to send them off and wait, hoping that I will get a phone call or an email sometime soon.  The only thing I have left to do is to confirm that my application has been received.  Otherwise it is all waiting.  I’d much rather have something to do; I prefer working over waiting.

WOW:  I’m officially done teaching!  It is weird, but also nice.  I have finished teaching both pre-calculus and college algebra, so after break all I have to do is pass back some work and watch my CT teach.  It’s still going to be fun for me, because she is a good teacher and we get along really well, so I will be able to chime in as I want and it will be a lot more like co-teaching than observing.  So it will be less stressful for the next couple of weeks and I try to get ready for moving out, returning to campus, and graduation.  I’m sure that I will not get bored!

The Rest of My Week

It’s spring break!  I am headed to Iowa for my long-awaited week-long spring break.  I have applied for three jobs in Iowa now, and I’m hoping that someone might call for an interview.  If not, that is OK.  I still have plenty of things to do to keep me busy.  I am doing some wedding planning as well as working on my portfolio for seminar.  Besides taking time to enjoy my family!

Below is a picture of all of us at seminar this week.  Five of us have birthdays this semester and we celebrated with birthday brownies!  

Student Teaching - Weeks #10 & #11

by Kathryn Williams - Taft High School

The Teaching Week

POW:  This week on Thursday we had Report Card Pick-up, or parent-teacher conferences.  Everything went OK except that we had a little bit of trouble getting there at a different time.  The Blue Line apparently runs significantly slower later in the day than it does at 6:30 in the morning when we are usually on it.  So we missed the bus we wanted to catch, and had to wait around at Jefferson Park for nearly 30 minutes waiting for the next bus.  But the parents were all pretty good to meet with and the worst part of it was that we had to be there until 7pm.

WOW:  This week I compiled my first application and sent it off.  It feels really good to have gotten it all together, and I think it will help me get some other applications in at the beginning of this coming week.  I should really just need to complete the corresponding application forms and write new cover letters, but sometimes schools ask for different things.  I am hoping to be able to do an interview or two over spring break.  I would really like to have a job by graduation, especially since I have to plan my wedding as well as find a job!  It would be good to have one stressful decision made!

The Rest of My Week

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go home for my brother’s wedding.  This was very important to me, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it work, since my family is from northern Minnesota.  I do not have a car in Chicago, as most Chicago Semester students do not, so getting to northern Minnesota can be extremely challenging.  The way I worked it out was to take the Megabus to Minneapolis and then have my fiancé (who is living in Iowa) pick me up and drive with me the rest of the way to my hometown.  It was fairly complicated, but it worked well to get me home, and I had a really good time with my family.

Also last week another student teacher and I stayed after school to watch some of our students perform in a musical.  I am so glad that we got to go.  It was evident that my students had to put a lot of work into the play and it was really good for me to see them working so hard at something.  It was also evident that it meant a lot to my students that I went.  Several of my students were in the audience on Wednesday night also, so I said, "Hi" to them and they seemed surprised to see me.  I loved seeing them in the show and being able to expand my role at the school.

Once Upon A Mattress