Reality

Today I started my Holocaust unit. I went through the entire lesson with the first three bell. Since the last two bells were way behind to begin with they just got the worksheet. Second bell was by far the best bell! They were so well behaved and their questions were awesome! I could tell they understood the visual discovery activity. The first bell was alright, but Diante was making me so angry with his comments. I talked to him later and he acted like he saw no problem. But I need him to realize I am the authoritative figure in the class and I need to be taken seriously no matter how much he joked around with me during the last lesson. Third bell I am using as as my focus class for this TPAC that education majors need to finish. This means that I use them in my planning commentaries, I have to film myself teaching the class, and I have to use their assessments for how I reached my objectives. I filmed myself teaching today (I will NOT put that up on here - hahaha). Well, of course third bell (who is usually the most behaved) had to keep being reminded to stay quiet. Hopefully tomorrow will be much better.

If you want to check out my Prezi I posted it below:

Holocaust on Prezi

For the visual discovery I would ask the students questions and they would write their responses down. There were three levels of questioning and the point was to get the students to think about the Holocaust. The questions below accompany the picture in the Prezi. Then after each question I would have volunteers (and some students I called upon) to share what they wrote.

Level One: Gathering evidence

• What do you see in this image?
• What are some key details, or pieces of evidence you see?
• How would you describe this scene and the people?
• What do you hear or smell in this scene?

Level Two: Interpreting Evidence

• What do you think is the approximate date of this scene? Give one piece of evidence to support your answer.
• Where might this scene have taken place? Give two pieces of evidence to support your answer.
• What do you think is happening in this scene? Give two pieces of evidence to support your answer.

Level Three: Making Hypotheses from Evidence

• How do you think these people were feeling at this time and place?
• Why do you think these people look this way?

I asked 'How would you describe the scene and the people.' One of my students in third bell goes, "They look like David" (another kid in the class). I had to remind him that that was not appropriate to say especially since I warned them about making fun of the subject. I do not want to watch that clip. I hate watching myself teach!

Yesterday I didn't drink any caffeine. Problems arouse. 1. I couldn't concentrate on my homework last night and slept too much. 2. I had a massive headache today. By the time lunch rolled around all I wanted to do was take ibuprofen and sleep. But I couldn't. Luckily it went away after I put more caffeine in my body. I'm too addicted to caffeine.

Today I found out that one of my students was the victim of an arson. Her families house was burned down on purpose and they lost everything. It just brings into perspective the type of situation these kids are in. My heart just breaks for them. I want to collect donations for her and her family. If anyone reading this has anything they need to donate please let me know!

Also, Happy 30th Birthday to the Department of education!
NPR's link can be found here.
National Archive's link can be found here.

Finally, I received a package today from one of my best friends from back home! She made me a Cleveland painting and sent me a news clipping of Cleveland. If you couldn't tell we love Cleveland. All my friends back home are huge Cleveland fans. I love receiving and sending mail! So, if you ever want to mail something I will always bear that burden! :)