Utter Frustration

Last week I was very excited to finally be placed in a school and I should have had two observations completed by now. Unfortunately things did not proceed as planned. My advising principal emailed me reminding me to email him my TB test results and background check or to bring them with me. National Louis requires that we have this completed for practicum two and I'm just beginning practicum one. After talking with several classmates (none of their schools required these documents) I learned that each individual school has its own requirements. I can understand the need for the schools strict requirements but I am am frustrated that I was not made aware of them right away so I could have been working on getting placement elsewhere. The teacher I was to observe emailed me and said she was sorry and that her school even requires there parent volunteers to have both documents. She said that she can see both sides but its frustrating because they have an extremely difficult time getting parents to volunteer and most of the teachers blame all the additional requirements. Enough complaining, tomorrow I will start emailing assistant principals and hopefully next week I will be telling you about my first observation.

Teaching Placement

I am starting to get the hang of customizing my blog but I am still having a hard time getting the words down on the page. Anyone who knows me will this is unusual for me because I am almost never short on words.
I just got placed in a school today on the north side of Chicago. I will be observing for forty hours and be preparing to teach my first lesson to a third grade classroom. My first day observing in the classroom will be this Thursday. I am excited to be sitting in a classroom other then my usual ones at National Louis. It should be a refreshing change of scenery and I will be able to get some much needed hands on experience.

Here I go

I would like to start off my saying that this is the first blog that I have ever written and I never thought I would ever write a blog. I can't say that I am thrilled excited about it. I am more of a private person and I have a hard time sharing my random thoughts with complete strangers. I tend to adapt to situations pretty well so hopefully after a few of these any walls will come down.

I plan on becoming a teacher and one of my required courses is technology in the classroom. Currently I use the internet for basic things and have used power point and excel for work related projects. I did however always work on these projects with other team members and while often I provided most of the content my other team members took care of the technology part. I know its time that I get comfortable with computers because I don't want to have to keep relying on the help of others. When I get my first teaching job I want to be prepared and in order to provide my students with the best and most current education I need to comfortable and knowledgeable when it comes to technology. I feel a little nervous and overwhelmed when it comes to this class but I know I will benefit from it greatly in the near future.