Teaching summer school was a really, really, fun experience. I loved having my own classroom (I co-taught with a classmate), and the kids were amazing. I learned a ton, and I am a better teacher now than I was when the four weeks started. It was a challenge to be under constant scrutiny. It was like a never ending job interview or a performance evaluation. The principal, the curriculum coordinator, my mentor teacher or the program coordinator could walk in at anytime and start taking notes. It was emotionally exhausting to be "on" all the time.
And you might want to sit down for this, but my two favorite subjects to teach are now science and math. I loved teaching math. Who knew? And I think because I struggled with math as a kid (and ok, if I'm being honest, a college student) I think I understood what needed to be shown or said for it to click. Of course I didn't get through to all the kids, but when you have kids who are bummed when math groups get cancelled for the day, you realize you might be on to something.
I also loved teaching science. We taught around the theme of water all summer. And we tried to incorporate the theme in all of our lessons. Of course science was probably the easiest.
One of the most fun lessons I have ever taught was about water filtration. We cut water bottles in two, inverted the top to make it a funnel, and then placed it in the bottom part of the bottle. Then we used rocks, cotton balls, and paper napkins as filtering material. I made the yucky water in front of the kids. I started with drinkable, clean water, and told a story about a giant flood that contaminates the water. We had dirt from the road, oil from a pipeline breaking, hay from a farm, leaves from trees and food coloring from the town dump. I let the kids figure out how to layer the materials, and we recorded their plan on the board. Then, we ran the dirty water through the filters. The kids did a great job. You would have been able to use water from 3 out of the 5 groups who did the experiment.
We had been told by our program graduates that we would want to quit during summer school. And you know what? I did. There was one week in there that I had to literally sit on my hands to keep from calling our coordinator and quitting the whole program. But I am so glad I stuck it out. As with most things in life, the hardest things have the most value.
I am now on a 2 week break until regular school starts. I will be student teaching in 3rd grade. I am looking forward to it and feel much more prepared than I did before summer school.
