Things have been real busy at West Valley High School since returning from Spring Break. I am currently teaching in three Western Civ courses, in two we are finishing up the French Revolution and moving on to the Napoleonic Wars and in my other class we have just started WWI, including a great lesson on the relationship that Spokane had with Archduke Ferdinand. I am starting to become more familiar with my students and some of their idiosyncrasies. I have one student who is gone quite a bit and when he is in class he is pretty disruptive. Turns out that he has a some medical issues which include a cyst inside his brain that pushes on his orbital nerve, because he is constantly at a certain pain thresh hold and he doesn't like talking pain meds he tries to keep himself busy. Unfortunately that means he tries to engage others to keep himself busy.
Having been out of high school for quite a while it is funny watching how the kids interact and what is important in their lives. I have had to separate students because they couldn't stop talking during lessons and were more focused on Prom and what they were going to wear than about Napoleons rise to power.
My cooperating teachers are both great teachers but with two completely different styles of teaching and it is a challenge to adjust my lessons to compliment each of their styles. I do feel though that with this variety of styles that I am being exposed to will help me in the development of my teaching style.