In-service...Week One at JWMS

The first day started out on a bad foot...not overly so, but it was still awkward. I went into the office to introduce myself and to see if the principal was in his office...luckily for me, the secretaries were expecting me and Mr. J was there. He had sent out an email back in May to the four science teachers for 7th/8th grade science to notify them about a student teacher starting in fall...that email was the last and only communication about me until I walked in the door this past week. Mrs. S (I don't want use full names on the blog) happened to be standing outside of the office and was the first one I was introduced to...she also was the first one told that I'd be with the science department. She has become my head cooperating teacher. I wonder if someone else had been standing there, if they would've been my head coop. teacher instead. The second person I met was Ms. B...who I will be working with also...Mrs. S and Ms. B both teach 7th grade science. I'm happy with my placement...they keep apologizing about not being better prepared due to me falling in their laps...but I keep reassuring them that things are okay and we'll just go with the flow.

The first day was spent in meetings; district, school and 7th grade staff. The main thing that comes to mind was the lack of funding. A referendum failed to pass this past year and the effects are obvious at school. I met a lot of people, helped out in the classroom by putting up posters and photocopying handouts, etc.

The second day was also spent in staff meetings. Mrs. S and Ms. B decided to change around the order of topics to be taught...they're starting out with earth sciences during the first part of the quarter. I'm a life science gal, but I'm looking forward to the earth science unit. Some of the other meetings included computer training with a new online substitute teacher request program and "Power Teacher" which is an online system for attendance, grading, homework, etc,. There was a lot to learn with the power teacher program, but I thought it was a pretty cool system and if I remember correctly...it can be accessed at home too. I photocopied a lot of handouts for Mrs. S...which I don't mind at all...anything that I can do to help her out. She's letting me keep any of her handouts that I'd like to take...labs, vocabulary lists, etc. Her attitude is that teachers should share what works for them instead of keeping everything to themselves...it's a great way to learn and I agree with her.

The third day was just a little more of the same. We finally got class lists today so we were all able to prepare a little more for next week. Unfortunately, we all found out before the end of the day that the 7th grade class lists had errors in them and we might as well throw everything away (in regards to the previous lists). So, Tuesday is going to be a day of flying by the seat of our pants in regards to what students and how many will be walking through the door.