There is something about knowing a person’s name that gives them an identity to someone else. Think of all the people that you “know” but don’t actually know their names: that girl in the coffee shop who always orders an iced coffee without ice, or the kid in the 8:30 block who always wears flip flops – even when it’s snowing, or the old guy who wanders around campus pulling a red wagon behind him. What do we really know about these nameless people? They cease to have a real identity because we don’t know their names.

I realized that most of kids had no real identity in my mind because I didn’t know their names. Granted it’s not mean feat to learn 130 new names in a week or two, but I realized I really wasn’t making much of an effort and that if I want them to respect and listen to me, I needed to know their names and who they are as people. I asked Mrs. M how she thought I could learn their names faster and she handed me a huge stack of graded papers that needed to be passed back and said you will know their names by the end of the period if you can give all of these to the right students. And, not surprisingly she was absolutely right!

The girl in the second row third seat back in seventh period who likes to compliment what I wear has become Sierra, who is intelligent but really doesn’t want to put forth more effort. The kid in first period who has to come up and sit on the floor when they copy something off the board because he desperately needs glasses is Paul, who is one of the sweetest kids, even if he doesn’t want people to know that. The girl with the facial tick in fifth period is Rachael who has a severe anxiety disorder which causes her tick, and she dresses in unusual clothes (which doesn’t make her too loved by the other kids) but she says she doesn’t care because she doesn’t want to be like everybody else! The boy in fourth period who I want to strangle because he is just too disruptive is now Ben, who always knows the right answers but yells out the wrong ones to confuse everyone just because he thinks it’s funny. And the kid in second period who dresses like a Kurt-wannabe (from Glee) is Daniel who no matter what type of show he puts on always tries to hide his hurt expression when he is picked on.

There are over 130 teenagers that I see each and every day and all of them are unique individuals attempting to find their place in high school. High School wasn’t so long ago for me that I have forgotten what that feels like. I know I put up a front of pretending to not care about what anyone thought, but really every sixteen-year-old cares what their classmates think of them.

But for now, I am attempting to learn their names, something about them and how I can make them feel special and cared for, not an easy task when trying to quiet the class, turn on the projector, collect late work from kids you have to beg to get them to turn in anything, and teach them something about the world and themselves.

All in a day’s work…. until next time…

There is one student that comes up to me at the beginning of the period every day and tells me something about himself. It’s always the same; he slides up to me, and says “Hi Ms. D, how are you today. I have the best story for you, want to hear?” Today, it was the story about how he almost “killed” himself over the weekend when he was bench pressing 100 pounds and dropped it on his chest and then passed out because he had not been breathing while lifting. I simply told him that he needed to be more careful about breathing while exercising and that is why it is always important to have a spotter while lifting. I think he wanted me to be impressed that he was lifting that much weight, but he should have come up with a better version of the story in which he hadn’t dropped the weight on his chest if he really wanted me to be impressed. He then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to see the bruise on his chest. I assured him that he should keep his clothes on!

It really is adorable, but I have to discourage this behavior and keep a wall up between the students and myself while still being caring and understanding with them. I imagine this is the balance that parents must keep with their children of being affectionate and loving while still managing to have their children respect them and their decisions. It’s a bit difficult to restrain myself from demonstrating affection for the kids because my love language (if you are curious about the five love languages, and which one you are, this is a great link http://www.5lovelanguages.com/) is definitely physical touch. I show others that I love and appreciate them through a hug or squeeze of the shoulder, but that is not a good idea with students, especially if they do not like to be touched and see this as invasion of privacy. This is just another thing that I am learning while student teaching.

Another great thing about today is that I was chased out of the teachers’ lounge bathrooms because I was accused of being a student! I quickly explained that I was a student teacher and the woman apologized. I kinda felt bad for her because she was really embarrassed, but I do look like I am seventeen sometimes so it was and understandable mistake. I try to dress as professionally as possible to avoid this mistake but sometimes I feel as if maybe I am dressing up a bit too much, but I do want to avoid this incident in the future!

Until next time …

I walked in this morning and had to get the teacher across the hall to open the door because Mrs. M hadn’t arrived yet. I assumed she was just late as she has to put a seven-year-old on the school bus in the mornings and get her mom over to watch her two-year-old; well I guess I should have checked my email this morning because Mrs. M’s mom, fell ill last night so Mrs. M had to stay home with her son and take care of her mom. Thankfully three out of five classes are with a co-teacher, Mrs. Hart.  

As Mrs. Hart came in to update me on the days schedule in walks the substitute… who I already know because she graduated from my college last year, all I can say is I am not her biggest fan. Weird how small of a world this is! I also found out that one of my students is the brother of someone I know from college and another girl is a professor’s daughter… and that is just first period!

I made it through first period which I taught because the sub seemed think I knew what was going on (this is only my second day!). Luckily all I had to do was give out a quiz on commas, go over the answers for practice problems and let them read silently for the rest of the period. The reading silently wasn’t actually silent, or even anywhere close, but I wasn’t going to fight with them today. I think they are trying to read me and figure out how much they can get away with which is interesting and amusing to watch because they think I have no clue what they are doing. There is one student, who is a definite loud-mouth and has some attitude issues who taped his hand together just to get my attention, not sure why he was hoping to accomplish but I just took his roll of tape until the end of the period.

The next three classes were fine as Mrs. Hart took over and taught the classes, I was able to see what was supposed to be happening so I could take over period seven, which Mrs. Hart does not teach with Mrs. M. Unfortunately, I had not met them on my first day and they had no clue I would be coming in so they went crazy. Mrs. M had warned me about them; they are her loudest, most social class but not unintelligent, just getting them to do anything is the major issue, so I was prepared for them somewhat.

I was supposed to be going over a themes and symbols chart with them for the book they are reading. The English 10 classes are reading the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I am so excited about because it is an amazing book! And I am so thankful that I read it over Christmas break so I knew what was going on in class and did not have to play catch-up. I got through giving seventh period a short vocab quiz, went over the answers and got most of the way through the themes and symbols chart – but I am not sure how much they actually got. Thankfully the sub remembered to give them their homework, a vocab puzzle, because I was so frazzled by the end of the period I had completely forgotten.

It was really strange to be frustrated at the kids and myself, elated that I managed to get through the period without any major incidents and utterly drained. Thank goodness it was the end of the day after that class. I just went home and slept.

Hopefully Mrs. M will be back tomorrow … until  next time …

Wow, all I can say is wow! Today was a long day, and I can’t say I am not glad it is over! I began my first day of student teaching today and in some ways it is exactly what I was expecting and in others it is completely different. I was not prepared for the fact that Mrs. M, my clinical teaching supervisor had not prepared her classes for my arrival; I was a complete surprise for them. Which may have been for the best as they would have probably been wild if they had known I was coming, not that they weren’t wild anyway.
I am student teaching at a local high school that is only about ten minutes away from the college which is great, because a lot of the other student teachers are thirty or forty minutes away. My supervising teacher has all tenth grade English classes; first period is Pre-IB (International Baccalaureate) which is basically an honors class, periods 2, 4, 5, and 7 are regular English 10, sixth period is a study hall and we have a planning period third. The English 10 classes during periods 2, 4, and 5 have over a third of the students in each who have some type of special ed/learning disability classification so they are co-taught with a special teacher – which certainly will be an unexpected challenge, but something that I should experience. There are over 130 students in Mrs. M’s classes – not including the study hall – so learning names will be a difficult task!
Sixteen-year-olds will be a fun, entertaining and exhausting challenge. They have definite personalities, big attitudes and think they are a lot cooler and smarter than they actually are. But because they have very different personalities it will be a lot of fun to get to know them as individuals and (some of) them can stand up to a bit of sarcasm and back-and-forth with the teacher, which makes this age group more enjoyable than some of the younger ones.
One of the downfalls to being an English major is that there is a two-semester required seminar for seniors which means I cannot stay for seventh period on Mondays and Wednesdays in order to get back for class at 2:20. This is annoying because I really would love to stay for the whole day and once I start teaching for the full day will make for a unique challenge for teaching seventh period – who I did not even get to meet today because it is a Wednesday.
Well, I am really glad I started on a Wednesday this week because it makes for a three-day week and I am not sure I would have survived a full week!

Until next time…

I am so glad that the genuinely seemed to like me – even if getting them to learn something and apply their knowledge is what we are really there for, it’s a nice treat if they like and respect you as well! I could definitely stay until the end of the school year with no qualms whatsoever, even if everyone else on this trip is ready to go home. I have absolutely fallen in love with the kids, the school, the teachers and faculty and teaching in general, all over again.

For a while now I have been questioning whether or not to go into education after I finish college. This experience truly cemented the call to teach for me and made it something real and tangible. I was able to experience the hardships and joys of teaching while being in a great environment that clearly supports its teachers with the help and resources that they need. The school had a great discipline system, which is a must for me. And even if the teachers complained about it, did, in my eyes, work effectively to ensure that the students are doing what they should be, when they should be so that they can learn to their highest potential.

Leaving the teachers today was one of the more difficult parts of the day. I have grown to enjoy them individually and as a group so much, and I know that I have learned more than I could have ever have thought possible from them. I think that I really took something from each of their teaching styles and can incorporate it into my own. Lindsay, the head of middle school, gave me some of the highest praise I have ever received. She told me that I seemed like I had been in front of the classroom for years and that the students really respected and enjoyed me as a person and as a teacher. It felt so wonderful to receive such positive feedback from someone that I can really look up to and respect. While it was a sad ending to the day, it was still a positive experience that I know I will grow from.

I know that I have formed relationships with the teachers and administration to the degree that I would feel comfortable one day applying for a job at ISM. I had never hoped to reach this level two and a half weeks ago when I stepped into this school for the first time.

Climbing countless stairs (literally I probably walked up 500 or 600 steps over the course of the whole morning), made my legs burn, but the view was worth it. Every “panorama” I came to the view just got fuller and better until I made it all the way to the top and could see for miles in every direction. After wandering around for about an hour through twisting staircases and up the side of the mountain, I finally found the Cemetaire. It is a cemetery that is a little over 150 years old, and I thought it was going to be much older than that so it was a bit of a shock to see graves that were less than 5 years old! Over all I thought the cemetery was a bit gaudy and showy which kind of freaked me out – beautiful but there was just something a bit off about it.

Finally got the panorama shot lined up perfectly!The weirdest and most decorative (as in tacky) cemetery I've ever been in!

I then grabbed some lunch from the local grocery store – Carfour – and took the train into Monaco. Monaco has been pretty crazy these past two weeks because of all of the construction for the Grand Prix, and we have had to find a new path from the train station to the school every day, but yesterday was even crazier. There are less than four days to the race and everyone is starting to arrive and there are building that were not there three days ago which is crazy! I spent the afternoon on the beach getting some sun and just generally relaxing. I even went into the water, which was very cold but refreshing after laying in the hot sun all day. I always forget that we are in the Mediterranean which is salt water; it’s a bit annoying because for the rest of the day I feel dried out and itchy!

view of Monaco Port from the Palace on the Hillpart of the track for the Grand Prix (ISM is right behind the sign)

Today four of us went up to Eze Village; it was quite a trip to get there, but I am so glad that we did. The village is an ancient medieval city built completely on top of a mountain. We first had to take the train to Eze-sur-Mer (Eze by the sea) and then take a 20 minute bus ride up the mountain to Eze Village. The bus ride was quite possibly the twistiest (is this actually a word) ride of my life and I am really glad I did not have any food in my stomach. The views from the bus were amazing and I am so glad that we did it, though next time (when I am not with other people) I would love to take the 45 minute hike up the mountain to the city.

When we finally arrived at the top we were greeted with gorgeous views and amazing smells, combing the food market in the square with the perfumerie shops everywhere. Nice, and Eze in particular, is known for being the home to perfume factories and stores. We first made our way to Fragonard, which is one of the most well-known perfume factories in Nice and we spent way too long inside of the store smelling all the perfumes and spending way too much money!

the streets of Eze

Then we climbed to the top of the village, winding our way through old streets with shops all along the way, until we finally arrived at the Jardin Exotique (the Exotic Gardens) at the top of the city, we paid our 5 Euro entrance fee and wound our way through the gardens to arrive at the very top of the mountain. We even found a little reflecting pool and managed to twist our feet through the fence to stick them in the cool water. I’m sure that the fence was there exactly for the purpose of keeping people out of the water, but we were too hot to care!

The view from the Jardin Exotique

with our feet in the little pond

We made our way back down to the train station and while we waited went to the beach a few steps away from the station. I am continually amazed at how many beaches there are here, but I suppose we are on the Cote-de-Azur , literal translation, ‘the blue coast’ better known as the French Rivera.

Nice has been amazing this week, school has been going so wonderfully and I have been teaching lessons to the Class 8 Writing Process (which would be equivalent to a 7^th grade writing elective class). I realize that I have neglected to talk more about the school that I am working so I will fix that now:

The school is broken down into four parts, Early Years, Primary, Middle School and Secondary School.  I have been working primarily in Middle School with some forays into the Secondary School so that is what I will speak to. The middle school is divided into three years; 7, 8 and 9 – equivalent to 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grades in American schools and the high school is divided into Class 10, 11, 12 and 13. In the middle school each year is divided into three homerooms of anywhere between 10 and 16 students, with an average of 13 or 14 which means that there are about 125 students total in the middle school. I believe there is somewhat slightly less than that number in the Secondary school, but I am not really certain. The students do a lot with their homerooms, which are divided up by a purely random process, and not determined by level. The classes which the students take are divided by skill level, usually into three parts; top set, middle set and bottom set. The teachers and students are well aware of what set they are in and there is no sense of privacy or hiding the fact if students are in a bottom set. I was severely shocked by how often the teachers bring up what set the students are in. I am used to having divisions based on skill levels but not taking about it so openly. All of the lessons, except French class are taught in English to prepare the students for Secondary school where no allowance is given for not speaking English because the end of the year IB exams are taken in English. In the middle school some concepts are still explained in French or another native language to help get the point across.

Since I am working mainly in the English department of the Middle School, I am especially interested in how they determine levels of students, particularly because of the various levels of English that the students have – some are native speakers while others have recently arrived and don’t have much English at all. The regular English classes are divided into three parts, top, middle and bottom. After conversations with several teachers over the past few days, I have figured out that the students are tested for levels and can be placed for several reasons. Usually native English speakers and those who are high achievers are placed in the top set. The middle set is the average student and also contains some students who are still becoming fluent in English but who are quite adept in their native tongue. And the bottom set is those who are still learning English or those who have proficiency in English but who may have other learning disabilities or behavioral issues. All of the students take an English elective, and there are three choices, English support, Writing Process and Spanish. The students who need extra support take and ELL class, most of the students take Writing Process, which combines creative writing, composition, grammar and style with vocabulary, or Spanish for those who are really proficient and ready to start a new language.

I really enjoy working in the school (and the view isn’t so bad either, however, looking out into the port can sometimes be too distracting!) and enjoying working with the teachers and students! I cannot believe that we are only at ISM two days next week and then we are done. It will be very sad to leave the school and I know that I have grown so much, personally and professionally from working there.

Until next time!

I am happy to report that I have had a change of address. I was living in the hotel and now I am staying at a flat (apartment) with one of the other girls on the trip. The flat is a bit further away from everyone else, but Virginia and I are both very independent so we are fine with that. It is also much closer to the center of town and the nightlife – which is great but we hear people talking, laughing and screaming in the streets until 4 or 5 am so we are always waking up really confused and groggy, but I’ll take it over the hotel, which was not in a nice area and rather dark and depressing.

We are honestly living in the world’s smallest flat; the first time I walked in I was shocked. The girl who moved out and took my place at the hotel was always complaining about it and I thought she was just being over-dramatic. No joke, this flat is literally the size of my dorm room. There is a miniscule kitchenette as soon as you walk in the door which has a mini fridge, two burners and a sink. There is a decent sized bathroom that I can stretch my arms out at any point and touch all of the walls. And then there is a living room/bedroom/closet/dining room which is essentially a pull-out couch a small table, chest of drawers and two chairs. When we have the bed pulled out there is nowhere to stand where you are not right on top of someone else. Despite all of this I am in love with where I am living now (and the roommate situation is a bit better) and I am starting to enjoy Nice so much more than I was before!

Bon soir, mes amis!

We ran into some street performers that at first we thought were statues, Pat and Haley got a bit of a shock when they went to take a picture by one and it moved. We saw so many of them, and some were much better than others, we even threw some change to one “mummy” that was completely still. Stopping for gellati along the way was a great treat, and well-deserved too! I had a delicious scoop of raspberry and dark chocolate, my favorite combination. After the quick treat we continued on our way to the Pantheon, which sadly was closed when we got there because there was a mass taking place; we still were allowed to look in and got some – rather blurry – pictures. The next stop on our whirlwind tour was the Fontana di Trevi, or the Trevi Fountain. On the way we stopped at a lot of little shops, I even got a few souvenirs. I was a bit impatient to get on to the fountain, but everyone was just meandering, so I took a deep breath and decided to go along with it. Some of the girls even bought the fake designer purses off of the sketchy men who ran away when the police came. I think designer stuff is silly – especially when its fake and not even going to last, but oh well! We even ran into a woman who knew Mike Maxey, which just proves how small of a world this really is!

When we finally made it to the Trevi Fountain it was so crowded, but we pushed our way to the front! An old Italian man showed us the right way to throw in our coins, with the right hand over the left shoulder. You are supposed to throw in three coins; one for luck, one for happiness and one for love! I hope that I find all three on this happiness – even if it is just luck in making it back to Nice without having my purse stolen, happiness with my students and the teachers, and love of a new place in the world!! When I got back to Nice and had internet again, I researched a bit about the Trevi Fountain and found out that the first Fountain in this spot was just a small pond built in 1453, but in 1629 plans were drawn up by Bernini for a new fountain, but through a series of events, the fountain that stands today was not completed until 1762. Some estimates site that over 3,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain every day and that the money is donated to food banks for the poor in Rome.

We next made our way to the Spanish Steps which is a beautiful edifice from which one can see a great view of Rome, especially come sun-set. When we arrived there was a huge production taking place and lots of bands from all over Italy covered the steps. Someone in the crowd of people told us that earlier in the week was the 150th anniversary of the Republic, and that it was being celebrated while we were there. While it was sad not to get to go on the steps, it was so much fun to see all of the excitement, and as we wanted to come back to the area where the Steps were located for dinner, we hoped we could see a better view then. We all trooped back to the hotel, probably at least a mile and a half away to change before dinner and take showers and such.

Heading back out into the city around 7:30, clean and rejuvenated, we began looking for somewhere to have dinner. After several failed attempts and awkward moments of walking away after we had already sat down, we finally found a place to eat. To continue the saga, right after we had been served our wine the woman at the next table over threw up all over the floor!! After that little drama was over, we finished a wonderful dinner, that was a bit overpriced and wandered out into the city to find some fun nightlife.  We finally found the Scholars Lounge which was a British hub and seemed to be the gathering place of all of the English speakers in Rome, mostly those from the UK. We grabbed some drinks and sat down in the very crowded pub and started talking to some American college students who had spent the semester studying abroad in Rome. They were really fun and it was great to talk to some other Americans and communicate without hand signals. As the night wore on most of the other people with us went home and it was just two of us left and we made friends with these girls from Chicago and guys from all over the world. We almost went with this guy who looked like a movie star to the Trevi Fountain but due to some miscommunication that didn’t happen and we went back to the hotel after a long day.

Sunday morning we managed to get up early, even after the day we had on Saturday, and headed out to the Vatican City by 9:00am. We were not able to get in, because the line was way too long but we did wander all around the world’s smallest country which was fun. We did some shopping when we “got back to Rome” and then headed to the airport, sad to leave Rome but ready to be back in France.

When we landed we were met by a taxi service that took us to our hotel, which is in this totally sketch part of town and down this rather dark side street and we have to walk up five flights to get to the check-in. At least since we were only there for the weekend we did not have a lot of luggage with us. We were met by a really pretentious hotel manager who made everything take twice as long as it needed to and all we wanted to do was go find dinner (at this point it was already 8:30). Walking to the Santa Maria Maggori square, we found an outdoor restaurant to eat at, and when we walked up, I could see complete annoyance in the waitress’s eyes and knew she was out to get us.

Our dinner was quite wonderful, except Haley order bread for all of us, and thought she had order a bread basket, but they brought us each our own bruchetta which turned out to be 8 Euros each!! I didn’t mind because I was starving and needed something. We all shared a few bottles of red, which went with the food wonderfully! Virginia and I shared a margherita pizza and insalate; the pizza was average (for Italian standards) but the salad was great.

While we were eating our dinner, a man tried to swipe Erica’s purse but our professor saw him and managed to stop him. Less than twenty minutes later, the same man came back to the restaurant and was sneaking around and was about to take this man’s backpack a few tables over. Haley saw him and yelled out “Hey, he’s trying to take your bag” I thought she was just being obnoxious and dramatic, but when I turned around this man was crouched down under this table definitely trying to take this man’s bag. He stood up quickly and said “no, no I wasn’t” and practically ran away. After dinner some of us wandered around and tried to find somewhere to go for the night. we found this “cowboy” themed bar and stayed out for a while, but we were all so tired and knew we were going to be running around town all day on Saturday.

Saturday we started off the day with a good breakfast from the hotel (making sure to fill our pockets with snack for the day). Somehow I was nominated to be the group leader since I was the only one who had been to Rome before, and I can read and follow a map. I lead the way to the Colosseum and we joined a group tour that was a bit more expensive than just the ticket price, but we only had to wait 20 minutes to get in, instead of 90, which was well worth the extra 10 euros. We were really suspicious that the tour people were going to run off with our money but they actually gave us what they promised, despite our doubts.

After the Colosseum, we found a grocery and bought some bread and salad and fruit for lunch. Our entertainment as we ate lunch on the benches by the Colosseum was watching the police cars attempt to run the sunglass, hat and “designer” purse vendors off of the sidewalks. Following lunch we went to the Roman Forum and walked around there for a while and got some great pictures.