You live and you learn.

This week I learned a valuable lesson about classroom disruptions. You just can't avoid them! This week, I probably witnesses around 20 classroom interruptions. The phone rang, someone knocked on the door, the phone rang again, the video played at the inappropriate time, someone was bleeding, etc. If it could interrupt class, it happened. It is hard to teach in a classroom where you are being interrupted every five minutes but somehow, my CE managed with only getting moderately annoyed. It made me think about how I would handle disruptions to my own classroom and to the classroom next semester. I realized you just have to roll with the punches and continue on the best that you can. I also realized that it's important to keep the students on task even if you're having to talk to 8,000 people while you're trying to teach.

I also learned that not everything turns out the way that you hoped. I had high hopes of getting to go to first and second block. I have never been to first and I have only been to second two or three times. Instead, I found myself in the courthouse waiting to be called about a traffic ticket. I got there at 8:00 and did not leave until 1:00. Needless to say I was highly agitated and annoyed (even though it was dismissed) that I missed first block. I found this lesson to be true in the classroom as well. My CE had put her students in third block in groups and had them work on an activity. They had been learning about different government types and on the paper they were to read about different types of government (some they had learned and some they have not) and then decide what type of government certain countries had based on a short description about the country's government.  The groups struggled. They couldn't understand what to do. It ended up that she had to go over a few of the questions with them and go back over the different government types. It took up a lot of time that should have been used to do other activities. It really made me understand how a lesson plan is more of a guide than a plan set in stone. Sometimes we will have to divert from our plan to make sure our students understand a topic or concept, even if it puts us behind in the curriculum or behind another class. Fourth block was able to do the same activity with ease and they were able to do the other activity she had planned.

Sometimes the distractions and diversions are not school related. This week I saw more students trying to get out of doing work than I ever have before. I saw one student pick their ear until it bled just so they could leave the classroom. There was another student who couldn't participate or talk because he got hurt at the football game. Along with these two, there were probably four or five more students who tried to get out of participating and doing their work. It just surprised me what students are willing to do and say to get out of doing what they are supposed to do.