First Time

It was exciting to enter the classroom as a TCV for the first time and I felt the activity went well overall. The people at Cesar Chavez PCHS were great. I was fortunate to be paired up with Keith Bocian who had taught a lesson previously. It worked out well to meet up after we both had done some baseline reading. We were able to develop a flexible framework to go off that drew from the lesson plan that had been prepared for global water futures.

We both arrived at the school early and had ample time to get set for the lesson. Mr. Zand was quite enthusiastic and I would suspect that is a common trait amongst the teachers participating in the program. I think having easy stuff that can be drawn on a whiteboard worked well; we used the Stephen Covey 4 quadrant diagram as well as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I feel they both helped us communicate the material more effectively.

Having a loose outline proved beneficial. We both had instances where we were able to interject in an area the other was speaking to. This helped maintain a flow and I was pleased the students were engaged throughout the entire period. As Keith wrote we had a fairly small group in this rigorous course, but they were all able to respond throughout the period.

The students showed interest in our personal backgrounds which was great. This allowed us to speak to post-secondary options and how those decisions led us to this point (although not the explicit purpose, I felt that was very complimentary). The final part of the period was an excellent back and forth on experiences that we have had working in foreign policy.

The night before the lesson I had laid out a world map with some sticky tack as I did not know the setup of the classroom. Of course I forgot it, but that may be a good thing to bring regardless of the subject matter in the future.

It sounds like the program is really in high gear and I am very pleased to be part of it. See you next time………