observation day two

(Note: I will be scanning and posting the sub notes that Ms. Howlett gave to Lauren and I pending her approval)

Got to school @ quarter to 8 again.
First Period
During first period Lauren and I mostly just talked with our co-op the entire time. He's going to get us to teach some English and some business stuff to the VAP class that I talked about in my last post (extremely low IQ students). We'll probably do some basic resume stuff with them, the goal with these students of course being to provide life skills primarily.
Second Period
In period two Ms. Howlett's English class was awesome. She had the projector going and played a bunch of YouTube videos. Media's influence is a great topic. The videos ranged from a great one on North American hyper consumerism to a bunch of videos showcasing how negative an unrealistic ads on tv can be. He closure: "Don't buy anything this weekend! You're all beautiful the way you are!" I loved the lesson but her trying to get the students to talk is like talking to a wall, and she admits that. With some class participation the class would be astounding.
Third Period
During third Lauren and I interviewed the vice principal, Mr. Seifert. He mentioned that Information Processing and CPT were going to a kind of combined multimedia course next year as there's not enough interest in both to keep them alive at their school. Martin, if you haven't guess by now, has clients at the lower end of socioeconomic status and many students with special needs. He said if he has to guess about 5% of their students attempt post-secondary.

After the interview, we went with Mr. Csada during his prep to get some Tim Horton's for a few of the teachers. He bought us coffee and we had a great conversation there and back. He has a great insight and isn't afraid to tell us the truth about anything.
Lunch
I was kind of pissed off at lunch. One, because i didn't have time to visit O'Neill like I planned to and also because I was sitting at a table with two teachers and heard overheard something that offended me as a new teacher. I won't get into it here.
Fourth Period (Professional Chef!)
In fourth and fifth period we were with the VAP class. Period four was special in that we got to go to the kitchen and watch a presentation from a professional chef. He was there promoting the Vancouver school of culinary arts, or something close to that name. He made some Ratatouille that was absolutely delicious. Most of the kids enjoyed it as well.

One thing that caught my eye was one of the aboriginal students across the room from me. About half way through the presentation I started looking around the class to see if everyone was enjoying it. This student was absolutely fixated on the chef, a huge grin on his face. Seeing this kind of look on the face of a student who probably has a poor home life and isn't the greatest academically gave me a great feeling. Chopping the ingredients, sweating the onions, putting everything in the right order... This student clearly loved every minute of it.

The chef was fantastic and really related to the kids. Clearly a people-person, the chef must have experience entertaining crowds because this group of kids, mostly VAPPERS, (VAP, by the way, stands for something like vocational aptitude program) couldn't have enjoyed themselves more.
Fifth Period
For fifth we were back in the VAP classroom. The experiment we observed yesterday was still in the process of working so we ending up having sharing circle, which I don't think I mentioned yesterday. Basically we take turns passing around a checkers piece. Whoever has the piece can respond to the teacher's question. Yesterday's question was to share a bit about yourself because Lauren and I were brand new. Today the questions: one thing your learned or liked from the chef's presentation, your high and low of the week, and what you're doing on the weekend.

A lot of the kids get drunk on the weekend (they're all technically in grade ten i think, but range from 16 to soon-to-be 18 year-olds). My low? The homework before this placement? My high? The VAP class. I love those kids. Lauren's high was the VAP class. Her low was losing to Michael (one of the VAPPERS) in UNO yesterday. All of the students laughed at that.

We finished off the day by playing some UNO.

I'm a little concerned about the amount of business material I'll be able to teach. Beyond the some work that we're going to do with the VAP class, there isn't much else business content available to be taught. Ms. Howlett said we can teach her ELA 20, but Mr. Csada has stated that it will be difficult to teach CPT and Info Pro because there really isn't that much instrional time the way he runs the class.

Lauren and I also have plans to check out the Social Studies teacher's class and another English class. We're going to get a wide range of experiences for sure, but right now it's looking like it's going to be slim pickings for business stuff.

Best part of the day: Every Friday some of the staff goes for drinks. We went to Earl's right after school was done. It was great hearing their stories, and they're all great people. I really love the staff.

Usually they're there for one drink, usually they only stay around until four, at the latest, eight. It was a bit later today.

End of day: 9:35.