I turned in my keys to my room yesterday morning. I can’t believe that my first year is complete! I have a bunch of things to say, but I’m not in the mood right now. More later.

I put something on my to-do list that said “Fix ramstedtonline.com” with no other context. Looking at it, I’m not sure what I wanted to fix. It seems more neglected than broken. So, here is the update.

Spring semester was incredibly challenging. I thought I would have more time to reflect on here than I did. It was bad. However, I learned so much about reading and writing and how they relate to each other, as well as how they have instructional facets which are completely unrelated. I also learned about classroom management and made a giant classroom management book for myself.

However, the largest part of the semester was my field block assignment. This was two half-days of being a teacher’s assistant. I also had to prepare and execute my first two lesson plans. In hindsight, I wished I wrote blog posts about them, but backward is not a direction I specialize in. This was also my first experience with fourth graders. Right now, the challenges of working with older elementary students is something I may not be ready for, but I’ll keep trying.

Over the summer, I took 3 classes – Social Studies, Theatre, and The Family. Again, I wished I had taken the time to write about it at the time. But I completed all of them – 2 A’s and 1 B.

That brings me to today. I am still awaiting my placement for student teaching, which starts in 7 days. I am stressing a little waiting for something I thought I would know 2 weeks ago. I’m trying to remember that I am entering an industry where I will need to rely on others and be patient with them, much in the same way they will need to be patient with me. Working by myself for years has spoiled me.

No promises about more to come, but I’ll stay hopeful.