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A Temporary Take-Over - ST Week 5.2

As this cold Vermont January comes to a close and I’m welcoming February with a prayer for Punxsutawney Phil to grant us an early spring, I am excited to take a few moments to reflect on the past three days of my student teaching experience. From January 29th through January 31st, the Team Nova general and special education teachers attended a conference led by Ross Greene, an American child psychologist and the author of several books about supporting students with specific needs in the classroom. Having read Greene’s book Lost & Found together, Nova’s driving purpose for participating in the conference was the goal to better support the students on our team with EBD. The last few weeks have proven difficult for students coping with EBD at EMS, and the stress felt by all community members as we try to navigate academics and emotional support together is visibly overwhelming for many. While I have not heard much about the conference and Nova’s takeaways yet, I am eager to hear about how EMS can use Greene’s strategies in our own community on Monday. For now, I would like to reflect on the three days I spent as a full-time substitute for Mr. J as Team Nova’s humanities teacher.




Understandably, the shock of having all substitutes for three days was liberating for some students while anxiety-inducing for others, and the range of behaviors my students exhibited certainly reflected that point. Of course, I was one of the only familiar faces to students while the rest of Nova's teachers were at the conference, minus three paraprofessionals that work as 1:1s on our team throughout the day. Overall, I believe the comfort and growing respect students have for me as an educator in their classroom is why I had an easier time implementing Mr. J’s sub plans and managing the classroom environment compared to the other subs. Students were well aware of the expectations Team Nova teachers had for their behavior this past week, and ultimately, I do think most of our students hit the mark. However, a few students spiraled into their more rebellious selves by Thursday afternoon, and both the science and math substitutes reported a handful of poor student choices. I myself experienced a test of my classroom management skills with my “What I Need” enrichment group, but I am grateful that I was well equipped with some behavior management strategies from my courses at Saint Michael’s and my observations at EMS (I did TAB out a student once, and “make a better choice, please” was a repeated phrase of mine).




As far as content delivery, my students and I are still exploring Westward Expansion in the United States. This week, Mr. J and I co-planned lessons that examine the impact of white settlement on Native American lands. For a contemporary comparison of foreign settlers “discovering” resource-rich but already inhabited lands, students watched the movie Avatar and completed several reading activities to enhance their understanding of the Native American experience circa 1840. So far, the mini-lessons I taught before each segment of the film we watched over the three day conference period have yielded exceptional discussions about Cherokee legends, the Indian Removal Act, and Jackson’s letter to the Cherokee Nation, as well as proficient written responses to related reading prompts. With both my practice of behavior/ classroom management skills and the successful implementation of my co-planned lessons, I am proud of how confident I am starting to feel in the classroom as a leading teacher. In the future, I hope to gain even more experience with classroom management as Team Nova works to incorporate strategies targeted at improving support for students with EBD. Even more, I am excited to take the reins again during my solo weeks with lessons of my own creation, especially since the best moments of my student teaching internship thus far have been the ones where a lesson piece I designed was accessible and engaging for my students.


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