Thank you Kayne....

For the first time ever on September 15th I had the opportunity to teach in front of a classroom. The class was Jennifer Hileman’s Government class at Liberty High School. The topic was the U.S. Constitution.
Originally I had planned for this class to go for the full 85 minutes but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to be the case. When first period began, I was so ready to go I got right into everything. Big mistake there because I was done with my notes in about 40 minutes. Then came the group discussion, I learned the hard way of thinking on the fly. The class didn’t participate in the discussion on flag burning at all. So I switched to a topic on Kanye West and the first amendment, which worked for a little bit as well. So I was done with 40 minutes to go with class! Eepp! So my mentor teacher took over for the rest of the time.
2nd period was a little better but still ran into road blocks. The class has a significant amount of kids with learning disabilities in it. I’ve been told from a friend who’s a special Ed teacher that its way more than it should be. So there is a co-op teacher in there. Except he was out on maternity leave due to his wife being pregnant. So I was left with a substitute who was having his third or fourth class EVER, and my mentor teacher. My mentor teacher left me in charge of everything and it was interesting.
I slowed down compared to first period and it worked in terms of time management. However they led to more problems. I slowed down and allowed time for the kids with bad learning disabilities to write things down. This led to a lost of control of the class. Yikes!!! I had to stop myself several times during the class to quiet the class down.
The conversation over the debate was better because I managed to keep them into it switching from flag burning to Kayne to Joe Wilson to Obama it was an interesting conversation.
When I sat down with the mentor teacher I realized three important things. 1) Keep better control of the class. 2) For those with learning disabilities bring extra copies of your notes, so you can share 3) If a class doesn’t want to participate in a discussion give them bookwork. It will help you with your time. These are some lessons I will incorporate into my next lesson.