Austin Mann

It is coming to a close as they say, and I am getting ready to move on and graduate. Looking back on my past two years I realize it has really been a great experience. A song has been playing in my head nonstop these last few weeks titled The Last Goodbye by Billy Boyd.

 

 

I saw the light fade from the sky.

On the wind I held a sigh,

As the snowflakes cover

my fellow brothers

I will say this last goodbye.

 

Under hill and over tree

 

To new form lands

 

I'll follow thee.

 

I will say this last goodbye

 

If I had to write myself a letter telling me about what was to come it would be as follows:

            Dear Austin,

You are embarking on an adventure the likes of which you could never comprehend until you have reached the end. Buckle up as you are going to have some long sleepless nights ahead of you. Frustration will become an emotion you feel all too often. Anger and doubt will creep upon you while you lie in bed wondering if you can pull through. Students will test your mettle and you will have to find out just how far you can go before you lose your composure in front of your students. You will be brought to tears. This is not the end however. You will make friends that will become a family to you. Yes you will cry, but some of those tears may in condolences for a student who lost their mother, or tears of joy at helping a student come back from the brink and graduate. Yes you will doubt yourself and your teaching at times, but help will come from the most unlikely of places. Students will make you laugh. You will tell stories and jokes. You will break up fights and couples kissing in the hallways, but you come through with dignity and poise. You will watch friends get married and see other become engaged. You will experience joy and heartache at the same time. Hold fast though your students need you to be strong. Yes, you will get angry when you have to repeat the instructions for the fifth time even though the instructions are on the board, the handout, and not to mention the class calendar the students so conveniently have in their folder that you keep so that they won’t lose it. Your technology will fail multiple times. Don’t sweat it, actually do sweat it, you do great under pressure. Back up your KPTP when that time comes around. You’ll save yourself a vacation to Disney World. Remember that you are not alone and that you have your class family and professors that want to help you succeed in your journey. Graduation is your goal. There will be times where you want to surrender and there will be times where it’ll feel like a piece of cake, but in the end you will push yourself farther than you ever thought possible.

Good luck Austin, I know you’ll do it! I did.

Austin Mann

Austin Mann

Hello everyone! Well here we are in April already! I hope everyone is doing well with their semesters. I just finished my KPTP! It was sixty-nine pages, and let me tell you it is the longest hardest project I have ever worked on. I made it through though, and if I can make it through that, I can make it through anything! I also have taken both the PRAXIS and the PL. Since completing the KPTP, I have taken up much more responsibility in my classroom. I’m taking on more classes and am having a big issues with keeping up with my grading and my assignments. Now when I say assignments, what I mean is assignment sheets for my students. Whenever I ask for students to turn in an assignment they have trouble rustling through their papers and always ask me what it looks like or what kind of assignment was.

To make my organization in my assignments for my students easier, I had to ask some veteran teachers at my placement for help on how I can make my assignments easier to find for students. The number one thing I learned was to put something in the corner of my assignments so when I call for them to turn it in, they just have to find the picture I ask for. Originally, I was told to put little colored stickers on the corners of my assignments so that I could just say the color, but like Bomer says in his book “Lesson plans should allow all students to participate despite any disabilities they have.” (Bomer 97) I realized that several of my students are color blind and that they might not be able to see the colors. To remedy this, I decided to place well known Disney characters in the corners. This also saves me time and money on stickers and placing them in the corners. I just have to copy and paste the pictures to get them on the corner.

Using this strategy has helped organization in my class. I have been able to just have to ask for the character and the students are able to pull it out quickly and turn it in. Instead of spending ten minutes getting the assignment in, I get the assignments in about a minute and have more time for my lessons.

Well that’s all for now! Good luck everyone! Finish strong!

 

Staying Strong this Spring!

Austin Mann

Blog Post 2

Dr. Mason

2/21/2015

                  Hello everyone! I am continuing my illustrious student teaching this semester, and it is going fantastically. However, I am very busy with all that I have to do between lesson planning, studying for my PRAXIS, and working on my KPTP, I am feeling like Tom Hanks’s character in Cast Away when he is lost at sea on his make shift raft weeping uncontrollably over losing his volleyball friend Wilson. Graduation is just around the corner and I have a list longer than Santa’s naughty list of items that I need accomplish before that fateful (and glorious) day arrives.       Now that multiple classes have been added to my busy schedule, I am having had a hard and very difficult time trying to find time for my lesson planning. It has been a hard and anguishing time over the last several weeks. I have been having trouble trying to figure out how to get students involved with writing and class discussion specifically, as many of my students are seniors and already in the mindset of summer vacation. I have had an especially hard time with my seniors. I cannot tell if it’s senioritis or if they are just too unwilling to write and participate.

            When it comes to discussions in class, my CT really loves to get the students involved with the activity of the day. I however am not my CT, and I am not pronounced with my discussion leading as she is. My seniors are currently reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and I am having a really hard time getting them to discuss it. They seem almost afraid of what others might say, but always after class they come up to me individually and ask me questions on why the author doesn’t just leave her family, or take another course of action. I am preparing to do a lesson that Smagorinsky suggests in his book Teaching English by Design. In his book Smagorinsky writes about how we as educators can put an author on trial. Smagorisky writes “Students who do not like an author’s or narrator’s deployment of characters may put the author or narrator on trial, prosecuting them for crimes against the characters.” (Smagorisky 34)

 I feel like this would be a great way to mix things up and get the students involved in the book like I know they are. Since the book we are reading isn’t fiction and is the account of the author I would more than likely place the parents on trial for their misdeeds to their children. I am reading other ideas that Smagorinsky has to offer, but my question to you wonderful people is this. What would you do to get your Seniors who have come down with senioritis to do to get them active in the lessons again? Would you follow Smagorinsky’s ideas or do you have one of your own? I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep doing what you do best and smile!  

Work Cited

Smagorinsky, Peter. Teaching English by Design: How to Create and Carry out Instructional Units. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2008. Print.

 

Take a Breath

 

It’s going to get worse.

Your perfect student is going to act out and disobey

and your worst student is going to push your patience to the very brink.

Someone will tweet something hurtful about your teaching style

 and plaster it all over the school.

Your favorite shirt will get a coffee stain during passing period.

Your students will fall asleep

after lunch in your class during your lesson that you worked hours on, with drool

spilling

out of their chewing gum infested mouth. Or your para

will remember that she has a dentist appointment

and leave you in the middle of the hour with seven special ed. Students who are acting up.

The other perfect student-

The one that texts a little too often- will forget all of their

work

And will freak out and cry and require you to calm him down putting you behind in your lesson.

No matter how many hours you prepare,

or how many tiny details you brace yourself for, you’ll lose track of time, the date, and the school assembly day.

If your troubled student comes in smelling of booze one day

You’ll come in to see one of your students putting cigarettes into his pocket

and is trying to sell it to other students because he never had the chance to see himself as something more

and probably won’t graduate.

There’s a Christian belief of a man who came into this world to teach and love.

When it came time for him to pay the ultimate price for his students

He did so without hesitation. But he was innocent in his

trial.

And he looks on at his students dividing up his clothes and casting lots for them.

At this point he notices a bowl full of vinegar and water.

He asks the guards crucifying him for a drink

They give him a sponge soaked in the mixture.

So here’s the view, the sun will set, some of your students will fail, you’ll get in a wreck, you won’y make enough money. You’ll lose loved ones.

Oh how sweet a teacher’s love is

so close to your heart.

 

Based on the poem Relax by Ellen Bass