Week 3 - Planning Units is Time Consuming

Starting with my week, ending with Dreamland Burning. 

This past week started very abruptly. I received a call at 7am from my co-teacher saying that she is throwing up and she can't make it in. She then proceeded to ask me if I would prefer we try to find a sub or teachers to cover each class or if we shouldn't bother. I told her that I wanted to try to be completely on my own (its gonna have to happen at some point right?). So I gave her to okay to abandon me and that's the story of y very first day being a real teacher. I was nervous that the students would act differently/more wild/harder to control/won't listen/ etc. with my co-teacher not in the room. I always had an underlying fear that the only reason the kids ever listened to me was because my oc-teacher was also in the room. I am happy to announce that they are just as insane with or without my co-teacher in the room. Meaning, I was able to control them since I knew what to expect (since they were the same as always). Coincidentally that day was a review day for their exam the following day so I just had to go through the exam review with them, and I did bookwork with Algebra (since it was way too last minute to try to teach full on lesson). I think Monday went really well considering I was alone, but dang, I was scared. Also, during 8th hour (definitely the loudest and craziest class), the head principle walked in to observe me (I'm assuming to see how I can handle the wildest class). Luckily everything went well while he was observing, which is lucky since I had no idea he was watching me. I was busy answering questions/keeping students on track/etc., so I didn't even notice when he walked in. 

That was a fun/scary day, but I'm glad it happened. In other news, I start my unit on Monday. Lesson one is gonna take 2 days and lesson 2 is gonna take 3 days, with lessons 3 and 4 taking another week and a half. What sucks about this timeline is that we have two assembly's AND two field trips scheduled during the two and half to three weeks that it will take me to complete my unit. Hopefully this won't through me off too bad, but hey! I guess I should start getting used to normal teacher distractions (like assembly's and field trips). I feel pretty prepared for the first two lessons of my unit but not so much for the last 2 lessons, but I'm hoping to become more confident with those as I start to devote more time to them. 

other shocking events of the week include: 

• got to sit in on an IEP meeting with the special needs student, parent, and the whole team
• the administration is slowly talking to me more often and inquiring more and more about my life
• a student of ours tested out of special needs so we had a pretty stacked party the next day (in the very small skills class that that student is in)
• I overheard students talking about me when they thought I couldn't hear and it was all good stuff
• I got to watch how each class period solves stuff differently (it was super cool to see 8th hour solve ratios but getting unit rates while 1st and 3rd only did it with proportions) 
• student came in screaming curse words during skills class, we immediately cleared the room and let her vent (this is unlike this student). Glad I got to watch that get handled because I wouldn't have known what to do if I were alone 
• got to watch my co-teacher handle an issue of a students' sexuality (sensitive subject), she did so well in fact that this student came back up to my co-teacher after school, crying and hugging her saying, "thank you so much for earlier today, I needed it." 
• I administered my pre-assessment, it was pretty cool watching them take an assessment that I wrote 

Dreamland Burning: 

text-to-self: one of the biggest things I struggle with on a daily basis is not being able to truly and completely understanding what other people of color have gone/are going through. It frustrated/upsets/aggravates me to no end that I want nothing more to understand and mediate while also knowing that I can never understand what people of color must go through on a daily basis. I can never 100% understand white privilege because of the subconscious privilege I get every single day (because of the color of my skin). I love that this book allows me to hear conversations between young people of color as well at the thoughts that these kids are having everyday in regards to white privilege and the injustice they see everyday because of their skin alone. 

text-to-world: I know I'm choosing the obvious answer here but the biggest relation from the book to the world is the issue of racism. We (especially as teachers) witness, deal with, mediate (to the best of our ability), and teach against racism. This book deals with racism from the past and racism in the present and the highlights the concerning parallels between racism throughout the centuries. This relates to our world in every way. 

text-to-text: this book remind me of The Color Purple because of the type of world all the characters are trapped in, our world. The characters in both books relate the injustice they receive because of the color of their skin to the injustice in the world and society. In addition, both main characters (Rowan and Celie) seem to have become obedient to the injustice, having learned that you must do what it takes to get by. Celie learns not to disobey men, always say yes to white men, and always do what you're told (a more explicit obedience). While Rowan has (consciously or subconsciously) conformed to our current society and in doing so has even lost some of the struggle that people of color are facing in the world today (as evident in her conversations with James).  Rowan is obedient in her conformity of what our society expects of a well-off young woman of color - to not question the injustice. In Rowans case specifically, she has even begun to ignore said injustice, and luckily, is reminded by a loyal friend.