Author: Kate Golden '19

Today was an awesome day! For the first time all semester, Suzanne and I decided to leave campus a little earlier than usual and stop at Starbucks on the way to school. I’m honestly impressed we’ve lasted this long because we were regular customers at the Starbucks off exit 16 this summer. This little treat was the perfect pick me up and gave us more time to catch up than the usual 15 minute drive to Doherty and back.

After collaborating and catching up with my teachers during first period, I went straight into teaching periods two, three, and four. It was a B day today, which meant second period was long. Lucky for my PreCalc Honors students, I came armed with some tricky trig word problems for them to do independently with the support of a partner.

Today was a big day in Geometry because we finally transitioned from triangles to a new shape, parallelograms. For a while there it felt like the only shape of importance was a triangle, so I’m excited to change course and think about things other than triangles!

After school, Kat (another TEP student at Burncoat Middle) and I went and got our nails done. We have been on the same exact track throughout our four years at Holy Cross because we’re both math majors and in the TEP, so this is our first semester of not being together 5 days a week. It’s definitely been an adjustment!

Once I got back to campus, I had a little break filled with making copies and getting ready for tomorrow before I headed to Nativity for evening study. My time at Nativity each week is one of my favorite parts of the week. I love getting to see my students from this summer and seeing them continuing to grow into Nativity men. Of course, they’re still middle schoolers, so I also love hearing updates on the basketball team and just catching up with the boys.

I am so excited and humbled to be working at Nativity for the next two years after graduation!

I forgot to blog yesterday, so here is a two for one combo of my Tuesday and Wednesday this week!

Yesterday was a great and busy day! Over the weekend, Holy Cross sent out acceptance decisions and some Doherty Highlanders found out that they will be Holy Cross Crusaders next year! 

After the school day ended, I rushed back to campus to interview people for SPUD leadership positions for next year. We have 43 sites we work with in Worcester and a majority of our leadership comes from the senior class which means we have a lot of spots to fill! I was able to knock out five interviews yesterday back to back, so I was definitely a little frazzled by the end but am excited to see what the SPUD of 2019-2020 will look like!

After some time lesson planning in Dinand, I headed to Pub Night with some friends. Since I woke up at 5:50, I was starting to crash by 10:30 but was glad I got to see friends outside of Dinand.

Today was another busy day. One of my teachers was absent, so I covered her classes which helped me get a few more hours towards my 100 required hours of direct instruction for the semester. I think the students were hoping for a substitute, so they wouldn’t have to do too much work. Instead, they had a regular day of testing and group work with me.

After school, Suzanne and I decided to stop at Dunkin’ on our way back to campus for some coffee before practicum. We took a different route from the normal 290 and saw some of the students I work with at Boys and Girls Club who go to Woodland Academy and a dog basking in the sunlight in the front seat with some sunglasses.

During Practicum, we talked about our weeks and had dinner with some junior TEP students. The dinner with TEP seniors and juniors is a great tradition because it gives us time to give advice and some clarity to the experience. I’m excited to hear about their experiences next year!

Today was the start of our first full week of student teaching! We have managed to have a snow day or delay every single week since the start of the semester, so we’ll see how this goes. 

Daylight Savings Time has definitely made the whole waking up thing a little bit harder, but it makes it easier to stay up later. When I left my room this morning at 6:30, it was still dark outside. 

Once I trekked to the parking garage in Williams and drove to Doherty, I could finally see the beginning of sunlight from the student lot. 

But before the sun could rise, I was inside, in my classroom, getting ready to teach my classes with my two awesome teachers, Mrs. Razzaq and Mrs. O’Leary. We all have a common planning period first period, so we are able to collaborate and catch up. 

Today was an extra busy day because my program supervisor came to observe me, and we had an all faculty meeting. I definitely tried my best to stay organized throughout my three periods of teaching but definitely lost it as the day progressed. 

Once the clock struck 3:30, I left Doherty and headed straight to Boys and Girls Club, one of the SPUD sites I volunteer at. I got to hang out with some elementary school students and attempted to convince them to do their homework. One of my lucky Geometry students gets to see me during the school day AND at Boys and Girls Club every Monday. 

Since getting back to campus, I’ve been printing and lesson planning in Dinand, eating dinner in Lower Kimball (still need to spend my dining dollars), and getting milkshakes with friends from Cool Beans. 

Hi everyone! It’s Kate! I’m student teaching High School Math at Doherty Memorial High School. I’ll be taking over the blog again this week. You may recognize me from the great pictures Suzanne shared of me last week!

Today, I spent most of my day at Holy Cross, in Dinand prepping for the week. I had a lot of lesson planning and printing (lots of it) to do and some work for my job as a SPUD intern and homework for our practicum class. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who had left all of my work to do for Sunday, so I was surrounded by lots of friends while doing work.

After a nice five hours of work, my friend, Sam, and I headed to Trader Joe’s to do our weekly food shopping. It was. a quick trip, so she could get back to study for a midterm and I could get ready for tomorrow.

Once I got back to campus, I meal prepped for the week by making breakfast for the week, lunch organized for tomorrow, and even managed to get my coffee in my coffee machine, so I all I have to do tomorrow morning is press the on button. I haven’t quite adjusted to waking up at 5:30, so I get as much done as possible the night before. That way, I can get ready in 30 minutes and get an extra 30 minutes of sleep in.

After prepping for tomorrow, I got dinner with one of my friends in Crossroads.  I have a plethora of dining dollars and am trying my best to spend them all by the end of the semester.

Once I got back to my room, I continued to prep for the week by doing laundry and doing the homework I assigned my students for the weekend. Sundays definitely are a catch up day now that I am working full-time. The week days are definitely more exciting and eventful!

Thursday and Friday blended into one day because my cousin came to visit from Minnesota. She is a junior and high school, so she is starting the college search! After a two hour drive to Logan Airport due to traffic, I was excited to finally see her, but we had a long drive back to campus thanks to rush hour traffic.

We thankfully got back to campus just in time for my Student Programs for Urban Development (SPUD) intern reflection. Since Campion was closed, we were able to have the reflection in the chapel. It was the perfect, quiet place to have our reflection and could not have come at a better time for all of us. We definitely needed those thirty minutes to focus on relaxation and centering.

Part of why I love being an intern for SPUD is getting to know the other interns. We all share a common passion for service and social justice. The responsibility of overseeing sites and planning events on campus can make it feel more business-like, but it is the reflections that we have every other week that bring us back to why we do SPUD.

The reflections give us time to reflect upon the injustices we see in Worcester as well as the wealth of knowledge, growth, and potential we see in the community. We all work with different populations, so it is helpful to come together so that we can find the commonalities between our work. Then, we are able to work with our lead community organizer to see what we can do to further engage our community in the hopes of enacting change.

Today, after an early morning of working out and classes,  my cousin and I got lunch at the Pub and then went on a tour of campus. The main attraction was of course the Holy Cross Bookstore. After visiting Dinand Library and the academic buildings, we made our way to St. Joseph Chapel to finish the tour.

After our day of exploring campus, we went into Worcester for dinner at in the Canal District. As if we weren’t full from dinner, we went to the Queen’s Cups for cupcakes for dessert.

We went back to campus quickly so we could catch the volleyball game in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They invited the organization, the Pink Hippy, to campus for the game and honored the women who are currently fighting breast cancer.

Today, I started my morning with observations at Doherty Memorial High School with my two supervising practitioners, Mrs. O’Leary and Mrs. Razzaq. I will be taking over Mrs. O’Leary’s Honors Pre-Calculus class and Mrs. Razzaq’s English Language Learner (ELL) Geometry and College Prep Geometry classes.

Mrs. O’Leary is starting to implement more technology into her classroom, so we focused on helping students set up online accounts so that they could then complete assignments online and receive instant results. Although we were running around a lot, helping different students, I enjoyed it because I finally got to get to know my future students better by working with them one-on-one.

Since I have been working with Mrs. Razzaq since last year, I have taken a more active role this year in the classroom. I am constantly walking around, helping students who are struggling with concepts. I’m happy to say I think I have finally learned all of the students’ names in her ELL Geometry class, but I still need to work on learning the names of her College Prep Geometry class of thirty students.

I am so excited to be at Doherty in the Spring and am so lucky to have such amazing and supportive supervising practitioners.

After observations, I went straight to class and then office hours for help on my problem set with Ally. She is at Sullivan Middle School this year and knew as soon as she saw me that today was my day for observations thanks to my work outfit!

After my busy day of observations and school, I was excited to get off campus to tutor my Montserrat professor’s daughter. I love being able to get off campus and to feel like I’m at home when home is so far away in Florida. We always make sure to get homework done while also having a good time. I also love getting to catch up with my professor each week. Our Montserrat class became a tight-knit group that is still friends today.

After tutoring, I went straight to the gym to work out, so I was excited when I got back to campus to make a quick dinner: pasta and brussel sprouts.