My first day of teaching!!

It went better than I ever could have imagined! The program that I taught today was called "Cultures at Jamestown" which is the one that I am most comfortable with. We talk about the three cultures that come together at Jamestown (the Powhatan Indians, the English, and the West Central Africans which we refer to as the Angolans), the similarities and differences between them and how they influenced each other to make Jamestown a lasting legacy. The program lasts an hour, deals with a number of artifacts (I think I use about 20? different items), and is designed for 4th grade students.

I'm most comfortable with this program because of the amount of time I've dealt with the info both on-site and with my time as a tour guide at the Jamestown Settlement museum. I mean, that's what we talk about!! I was anxious this morning before I started because this was my first time spending an hour in a classroom setting with access to all of these artifacts with so many fourth graders. And it could not have gone any better!!

As instructors, we have evaluations that are filled out by the fourth grade teachers and these evaluations are then handed in to our supervisors and sometimes will make their way all the way up to the head of our Foundation. It is also not unheard of for the evaluations to go all the way to the state legislature in Richmond (where we get our funding). Let me just toot my own horn and give you all a sample of my evaluations today (responses from the three teachers of the three classes I taught):

1. How would you rate the overall quality of the educational program your students participated in today?
"Excellent--Nothing beats hands-on learning experiences!"
"Excellent--It all related to our Standards of Learning!"
"Excellent"
2. How would you rate the educational content of the program?
"Excellent--Very hands-on and appropriate for my 4th grade students."
"Excellent--Correlates perfectly with our Virginia curricula."
"Excellent"
3. How would you rate the quality of the instructional skills utilized by the instructor of the program?
"Excellent--Miss Sara was very enthusiastic and kept the interest of all [double underlined here!] of my students! Very good recapping during lessons."
"Excellent--Sara had great control and feedback from students. Compared and contrasted three cultures well."
"Excellent"
4. How would you rate the extent to which the experience was appropriate for your group?
"Excellent--Seeing and touching all the material brought Jamestown to life."
"Excellent"
"Excellent"
5. How would you rate the extent to which the instructor was able to deliver the information in an enthusiastic manner?
"Excellent [TRIPLE underlined!!]--I was very impressed with her lesson. I could tell the children loved it! Thank you so much!"
"Excellent--Very energetic! Please come back next year!"
"Excellent"

I'd call that a successful day, wouldn't you?? In fact, we went to my favorite Vietnamese place for lunch, Saigon Cafe (if you are ever in the Sterling/Cascades area you have to go there) and my fortune cookie said "You will be very successful in your work." Seriously. I'm taping that fortune to the front of my paper organizer, that's for sure!

So the day was fantastic, but it was also incredibly exhausting. We're talking 3 hour-long classes in a row, where you've got to keep your energy up for these darling students. By the end of my third class I was truly wiped out. This was nothing though, because apparently three classes a day are "easy" days. Normally we're supposed to have at least four and sometimes five. In fact, I have a few five-class days next week. That should be fun!! You all will be sure to hear about it...

**Gem of the Day**
For those of you who don't remember much of fourth grade history, an indenture agreement is a contract and what a number of colonists signed in order to get to Jamestown. The indentured servants would work for a number of years, usually 5-7, in exchange for having their passage to Virginia paid for. They would do some pretty grueling work, like searching for that non-existent gold or eventually farming tobacco, but at the end of their term of work they would be awarded a chunk of land. When going over an indenture agreement in class today, a little blonde girl told me that an indenture agreement "makes sure the colonists have teeth."