Week 1

Last Friday was my first day in an YHS classroom. I am helping Mr. Ambrose with his Astronomy class (1st period) and Chemistry classes (3rd-6th period). Currently, in Chemistry, the classes are reviewing and in Astronomy Mr. Ambrose is giving the students some background before jumping into the subject.

My job that day was to observe and when the students got a chance to work on homework or worksheets, I walked around and helped answer any questions.

As an observer you see a lot more going on in a classroom than a teacher probably does. In all of the classes there seems to be a few troublemakers, more in some than others. This aspect will be challenging for me, but I am trying to be optimistic. I think a lot of the outbursts and rudeness was caused because it was Friday, it is still the first full week of school, and lastly the classes are reviewing, i.e., the work is either too easy for some or too hard for others. There were some positives though. In all the classes there were relevant class participation. Students were trying to answer the teacher's questions and even asking their own. The students were inquisitive about how some came up with an answer and how that compared to what they got. When the students were given time to work on their homework, there were some that really did try to get as much done as possible. There was a football game that night! The best thing for me to see and experience was students were not afraid to ask questions and were not afraid to be wrong in their assessments.