Retreat – a video blog in two parts

Part 1 – What It Means

Part 2 – Where I’m Going

In case you missed it, I just posted my 50th blog post a few days ago.  Isn’t that exciting?!

 

UPDATE:

I was reading this blog, someone else’s account of his failure and why it is meaningful to embrace it.  He embedded a video of J.K. Rowling’s Harvard commencement address back in 2008.  It was extremely meaningful to me, so I’ve included it below.

The DC Teaching Fellows Experience (& Why It Didn’t Work Out For Me)

I want to give a fair, objective overview of the experience of going through the DC Teaching Fellows Summer Institute program. I get a lot of readers that are searching for insight into the program and the process, so hopefully this can be a more extensive account than I was able to find when I was enrolling. At the same time, I want to explain why I didn’t make it through. So this will be some mix of objective reporting and editorial story. Bottom line: everything here is true, in my experience, but take it at face-value. If you want even more details about anything I talk about, leave a comment or send me a message. I will definitely answer any questions or explain anything that may be confusing.

How I’ve Been

Man, I have been busy.

I thought I was good at time management, but I’ve never had this much to accomplish on such a continuing basis.  Obviously I’m getting better, though, since I had time to write this entry :)

I just got up to get some dinner started and the can opener is gone.  No beans for me.  That’s okay, I had an open carton of soup in the fridge that I needed to finish.  I’ll check with the roommates when I see them.  There is one drawer where all of the silverware and utensils go.  But I checked everywhere.

So, anyway, I’m getting better at appropriately tracking my time.  I have to turn in my lesson plans for the coming week by 8pm on Sunday.  Last week I think I submitted them at 7:58.  Then I kept working on them afterwards until at least 11:00.  This week, though, I submitted them before 4:00 and that was because I finished and just let the sit in case I wanted to make any changes.

Practice Teaching by Teaching

Gods, what a week!

This week has seen a rapid oscillation of my emotions and my confidence.  And I am glad for that because the feelings are in proportion to my stressful and meaningful circumstance.  I am able to fully enjoy the joyous moments I’ve experienced.  More so, the low moments are not world shattering and I can more easily see the path out of the darkness.

I realized this blog became a big ol’ wall-o-text.  So, here’s the simple breakdown:

• Tuesday: First day of practice teaching, but I was alone with the whole class all day.
• Wednesday: I was alone again all day.  Definitely discouraging.
• Thursday: My first practice teaching observation, I did decently but there are a lot of areas for me to work on.
• Friday: I got a job! I’ll be teaching 8th grade math at Hart Middle School.

If you want the whole story, then keep reading.

This week is definitely a hell of a story.

First weekend as a teacher (updated)

I have now completed my first week of DC Teaching Fellows Summer Institute and my first days in a classroom for Practice Teaching (PT).  I teach Algebra I at Stuart-Hobson Middle School to 9th and 10th graders.  The class is relatively well-behaved, and I think I’ll be able to keep them under control.  I am in the class with my Cooperating Teacher (CT) as well as another Fellow.

My first day at practice teaching both of the Metro lines I take were unexpectedly delayed, so I ended up being about 15 minutes late.  It turns out it didn’t matter.  Our CT quit the day before