The Joys of Teaching

I am involved in a collaboration model where I teach. 11 RSP students are clustered in an 8th grade Science class, and I co-teach with the general ed instructor. Since 8th grade Science is physical science - think chemistry and physics - I mostly support the teacher. He does let me do the inter-active reader with them as a group, but I don't think he's sold yet on my scientific abilities. But he does appreciate having another adult in the room to monitor progress - and on-task behavior - and he is growing in his confidence in my abilities!!

The students go with me to my room to take their tests, because some of them do better if I read the questions to them. I have 7 of them in my Study Skills class, so they decided to do their water content project as a group - and it was certainly fun to watch them dive into the project. This is significant, because these are kids who traditionally feel like they aren't doing things right, and worry about looking bad in front of their peers.

They did a good job on the project - it was spread out over about 3 weeks - it involved drying out fruit see how much of the fruit was water - a standard middle school science project. I got a display poster for them, and they tabulated their results and did a nice job of displaying the work they had done. When they were finished, they - at least the boys - wanted to take it over to the science room. All 5 boys "carried" the poster across campus to turn it in. It was gratifying to see the joy and sense of satisfaction they displayed.

I guess this is why I keep teaching!!