Mock Trials, Teaching and Movies

Hello Everyone! Right now I am observing a mock trial meeting. The girls on the mock trial team are meeting with a lawyer going over their case for the first round of trials. Its very interesting! I had done mock trials in school with the Salem Witch Trials and the Julius and Ethel Roseburg case, but this is kind of different. The case they are working on is about a traffic accident with a commodore and a hay truck.

Things over the past week have been going well. Everything is well on its way. Everyday I am getting to use different teaching skills and running into new scenarios in the classroom. I think the major things I am currently dealing with are students being unprepared and working with the MYP assessment program, which is very different than assessments that I am familiar with. If you have any suggestions for how to deal with student unpreparedness, definitely send them my way! I know its not a new issue or that I am the only teacher in the world dealing with it, but I just want to learn and try different techniques while I can.

This past weekend I was able to get out a little bit. I went into the city to do some shopping and get some things for class, and really, just to have some time outside Annesley to myself. I really need to get some pictures of the city and get them posted. It is a fun place to go :-) On Saturday I was able to go out with the boarders. Each Wednesday the boarders have to submit their weekend plans and then from there the boarding staff work out who will take the girls out. I like to go out on these just to get to know some of the boarders that aren't my students. Also, usually one of the junior staff girls are on the escort with them. So Saturday I went to two movies, one with the year 10s and one with the year 11s. I saw Jumper, which I thought was pretty good for the most part, I didnt know what it would be about, but its one of those supernatural powers movies and how those sort of powers would affect people in the world. Getting to the theater was kind of crazy. Amber and I really had no idea how to get from Annesley to the cinema and got very vague directions. The tram doesn't go directly there so we had to walk a little bit from the tram and then jump on the bus. We did make it, even though we had to walk a bit, since we got off the bus a couple stops early since we didn't really know where we were going. The second movie I went to was Fool's Gold with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. It was entertaining enough, but overall not that great of a movie.