Two weeks of an Almost-Teacher

Today marks the last day of my clinicals for my IMB semester. IMB stands for Integrated Methods Block in the College of Education. I'm not sure if it works the same way at other colleges like it does at UNCC, but you are dismissed from education courses for two weeks to gain required clinical experience (40 hours) in an assigned elementary school. For the last two weeks I have felt what it's like to be a teacher everyday and it has been so awesome and reassuring.

For IMB, I was required to teach a social studies lesson, literacy lesson, science lesson, and observe all of these subjects as well, including math. I could not have been placed at a more perfect school or in a more perfect 4th grade class. My CT's (cooperating teacher's) were so helpful and provided me with so many teaching resources- it was like teacher material heaven! I taught an integrated social studies and literacy lesson about comparing and contrasting NC transportation (4th grade social studies standards are all about NC) and a disturbance cycle lesson in science about oil spills. They're way more fun in person than how they sound in writing!

Weekly essentials: coffee + packed lunch

I was so nervous about teaching my lessons, as it was my first time teaching whole group lessons! I had my lesson plan "script" in-hand and ready to go, then I started teaching and didn't even look at it. I was so proud of myself y'all- the lessons went so, so much better than I expected and they flowed so well! My main CT observed my literacy/social studies lesson and went over her observations with me afterward. Her observation comments were so helpful and completely boosted my teaching-confidence. I am not trying to be braggy when I say this, but I think it's good to be proud of yourself, so I'm going to share. She said it's clear when teaching comes naturally and she could tell that it came naturally to me. I will forever hold that compliment in my heart because I was so worried I would have to look at my lesson plan the whole time to see what I needed to say. It was such a reassuring moment. My students turned in their transportation Venn diagrams after the lesson was over and I was so proud of their work! It is definitely one of my favorite teaching experiences so far!

I mainly wanted to write this post to share about my experience, but also what I learned about myself during these past two weeks.  

• I am an official grandma of my generation- well I've been a grandma probably since high school. I am not one to stay up super, super late or go out and party, so going to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 every night was probably one of the best things about these last couple of weeks y'all. Have to get enough sleep to keep up with those kids!
• Being called "Ms. Hatcher" is not as weird as it used to be! At first, I wanted to be like "that's my mama's name," but now I've learned to accept it. It comes with time.
• I really love working with 4th grade. I didn't think I would not like it, but I didn't think I would love it as much as I did either! Teaching 4th grade in the future is a very real possibility! 
• Teaching is so much fun, duh. Really putting in an effort to make your lessons interesting and interactive for the students pays off. I enjoyed teaching the material so much more when I saw that the students were genuinely interested in learning it!
• I did not want to leave those precious students after these last two weeks! It only takes a whole 2 minutes to get attached to them, let alone 40+ hours!

I had so much fun during these IMB weeks being an almost-teacher. Planning lessons and implementing them in the classroom made this experience so real and encouraging. I can't wait to be able to do this for a living!