Pesavento Student Teaching

Well, Week 14 in the books! This will be my last student teaching blog. I have to be honest, writing those words feels pretty awesome!      This week, the students and I continued our investigation into ancient Greece by exploring the many facets of Athens! I divided lessons for Athens into the following themes: values, Athenian democracy, education of Athenian boys and girls, and cultural achievements. For values, we read "The Funeral Oration of Pericles" and highlighted evidence from the text that demonstrated what the people of Athens valued. This lesson played right into the next day's lesson introducing Athenian democracy. To introduce Athenian democracy, I wrote the following word or words on individual index cards: woman, male, male (not-free), metic, male (14,15, or 17 years old), and parents born in (I used a variety of city-states other than Athens). I had the students pick an index card. Then, I led a quick review discussion about the values of Athenians th...

Week 13 is down!      This week, I took over the World Studies class at my second placement and began a unit on Ancient Greece. I have to say that 10th grade is waaaaaaaaay different than 5th grade. This week the students and I looked at the geography of Ancient Greece and how geography affected the development of early city-states. We also read the Greek Creation Myth together, looking for in-text evidence of different aspects of the Greek world that the myth explains. I had the students create their own myths to answer one of these questions: What happens after we die? How did mankind come into existence? a weather event (from the perspective of an ancient Greek person), or how did anger, greed, envy, violence, or hate enter the world? That assignment ended up being really fun and most of the students got into creating their myth. A few even asked if they could take it home to work on it more! That was the highlight of my week. I also had them do a group project wh...

Week 12 in the books! This was my first week at my second placement. My cooperating teacher and I had previously agreed that I would start the week observing while he finished the unit on India. However, he did throw me in the ring to lead class discussions on the first day. I was so nervous! I tried to pretend like I wasn't, and really hope that I succeeded. However, that was nerve-racking. I had a little part in the classes each day after that. I handed out, timed, and collected quizzes, and led another series of class discussions. I know he did that so the students could at least have a little face time with me instead of just being the stranger hanging out in the corner observing. I take over the World Studies class on Tuesday with a unit on Ancient Greece! There are a few factors that I think may affect my experience teaching high school. First, I'm student teaching at a hard time for the students. They had their regular teacher for a few weeks, were off two weeks for...

Well, Week 11 is in the books! I found myself battling frustration and anxiety this week. The unknown end of the CPS strike at the beginning of the week added a level of anxiety to edTPA submission week that gnawed me to the bones. I found myself experiencing increasing levels of anxiety that were unprecedented and affected my day to day life. In addition, my position over the past two weeks of observing rather than teaching became a source of additional anxiety. I just wanted to be in the classroom in the teacher role! I have calmed myself down enough to focus on the tasks ahead of me and curriculum requirements for graduation and will worry about the edTPA when it's time for the scores to be released. If I did not do well, I will do whatever I have to do to resubmit and pass. This is the only career that I want and it took me a VERY long time to figure out where I belong.  My first placement was so incredibly kind to let me stay there, observe, and lend a hand when needed duri...