since the beginning, i had been warned that this would happen. just because of the nature of the school i'm teaching at, family members of students will die by violence. friends of students will die by violence.
students. students will die by violence.
yesterday at 10:00 a.m., a student who attended my high school was shot in a drive-by shooting.
at 10:30 a.m., he was pronounced dead.
during that half-hour interval, when this young man should've been in school, we were having an all-school assembly about gang violence, about the importance of putting street things aside in order to get educated.
the student who was killed had only been enrolled for 3 weeks. my understanding is that he enrolled, and then only attended classes once after getting his schedule.
i did not know this student. he was not enrolled in any of my classes. i had not encountered him in the halls. if you showed me his picture, i probably couldn't pick him out of a lineup.
but my students did know him. they were friends with him. in the face of their grief, stunned or otherwise, i don't know what to say.
--
at my high school, the topic of gang violence is a frequent dialogue. we talk a lot about the world of the streets vs. the community within the school, and how the two cannot intermingle. i know for a fact that my principal has, in the past, called the leaders of the latin kings into his office in order to intercede with them about letting our kids leave school, no matter their affiliation. but the influence of the school does not extend as far as we might hope; just a block away, the world of the streets reigns supreme.
and i, i, with my basic suburban white-person midwestern-that-isn't-chicago notion of what gangs are--we were flooded with information about them in the fifth grade; i vaguely remember that the crips and bloods would battle on the football field one thursday afternoon but didn't know who belonged to either--i cannot grasp this. i don't know what it means, if it was expected or unexpected. i don't know if i should be sad, or sorry, or angry, or depressed.
i really thought that going to school to become a teacher would include information about this. but this is what nobody talks about, what nobody wants to bring up--your students, they will die. your students, they will get cancer, or they will get shot, or they will get in car wrecks--and nobody tells you how to deal with that. not as a person, and not as a teacher.
i did not know this boy, and still i am torn up inside.
--
today, when the assembly was called after lunch to talk about the boy that died, i listened. i heard the circumstance. i heard how his dad reacted. and the only thing that came to mind was
my friend, you would not tell with such high zest
to children ardent for some desperate glory
the old Lie: dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori.
because the similarities are very close. we, as a culture, have largely rejected the notion of war. we believe in pacifism, in working things out, in peace treaties, in arguments, in military accords. but we do not believe in people--children--dying for a cause that is not unequivocally just.
and yet--within our cities, on our streets, warfare rages. the battles might take place too late at night, or too early in the morning for anyone to notice--but they happen. the battles might be too subtle--a single shot, a savage yet near-silent beating--but they happen. and for what? for territory, for the right to sell drugs, for the right to stand on a certain corner anywhere in chicago and get recognized?
at this point, my students would inevitably say, miss kate, you're tweakin'.
and yet, dears, i assure you i am not. because i know that many of my kids are the second-generation descendants of gang members, and what were they told? die for your brothers, fight your enemies. and what are they, in turn, telling their children? sure, they're tiny-toddling now, but what about a decade from today? will you want them, guns in hand, fighting for the brothers you keep so close?
and for what? for what?
--
a boy, gunshot to the chest, leaves the place of his assault on foot. he tears down four blocks or so, before falling down. pitching forward, loss of blood, torn of organs, dead.
if a gangbanger falls in the forest, does anyone hear it?
17 November 2009
09 November 2009
winding down
well, here it is, folks. this week is week 12 of my student teaching experience. what with days off for veteran's day, thanksgiving break, and the like, i've got 16 days left. SIXTEEN. SIXTEEN DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT TO GO.
this is my last full week of teaching--and by "full," i mean i teach tuesday, thursday, and friday--and then next week, my cooperating teacher will transition back to the forefront. the following week is thanksgiving week, meaning classes on monday and tuesday are normal, then wednesday is a big all-school potluck. the week following that is the last week i'll be there, when i'm supposed to observe other teachers (meaning i will start saying my goodbyes and get really weepy).
last week, i wrote a note to my principal and put it in his inbox (he's notoriously hard to get in touch with, unless HE wants to see YOU) asking him if there might be room for me on the staff as a part-time teacher next semester. everyone was frantic all week with the alternative school network inspection, so i didn't really get a chance to talk to him about it. i'm going to try and track him down sometime this week to discuss it further. i know for a fact that one of the history/social science teachers is leaving in january. in an alternative school, you don't have to be certified to teach your particular subject, or certified at all; while i'm not saying that i'm totally qualified to teach latin american history...dude, i bet i could pull it off. also, i bet they could stand to add another section or two of an english class (or two).
i'm hoping he'll go for it. last night i had a horrible dream about going back to work in the restaurant that i used to work in and plan on returning to (and guess i still technically work for). i couldn't find my vest and my manager was yelling at me and my locker was full of putrid frozen yogurt (don't ask; we don't even sell frozen yogurt there).
i'd just rather keep on being with these kids, teaching them, learning from them, however you want to put it. i'd rather not go back to upselling high-end half-size pastas if i could do something more in line with my future career, y'know?
--
additionally, a propos of nothing, here is my menu for the upcoming thanksgiving holiday. i'm hosting 9 people--10, including myself--and i'm really excited about doing it all up. to the point that i'm having a hard time delegating.
THANKSGIVING MENU 2009
--
earlier this week, i was talking to a student about varying things. he showed up in my classroom really early--around 8:00 or so, when i first get there--and we ended up talking for nearly an hour before 1st period started. at some point, we got around to talking about places i've travelled, and amsterdam came up. i realize that all my students think it's So Crazy Cool that i've been to amsterdam--they know exactly what amsterdam is known for, and so i see no point in pretending that i didn't partake in the activities while i was there. anyway, we were talking about amsterdam, and stuff i did while i was there, and the following conversation occurred:
student: what's it like there?
me: what do you mean?
student: like, what does it look like?
me: i'm still not sure what you mean.
student: like, are the houses made out of mud and sticks and stuff?
and while i wanted to say, "WHAT!?", instead i said, "oh, honey, no. amsterdam's been a city longer than we've been a country," and then told him about all the canals.
this is my last full week of teaching--and by "full," i mean i teach tuesday, thursday, and friday--and then next week, my cooperating teacher will transition back to the forefront. the following week is thanksgiving week, meaning classes on monday and tuesday are normal, then wednesday is a big all-school potluck. the week following that is the last week i'll be there, when i'm supposed to observe other teachers (meaning i will start saying my goodbyes and get really weepy).
last week, i wrote a note to my principal and put it in his inbox (he's notoriously hard to get in touch with, unless HE wants to see YOU) asking him if there might be room for me on the staff as a part-time teacher next semester. everyone was frantic all week with the alternative school network inspection, so i didn't really get a chance to talk to him about it. i'm going to try and track him down sometime this week to discuss it further. i know for a fact that one of the history/social science teachers is leaving in january. in an alternative school, you don't have to be certified to teach your particular subject, or certified at all; while i'm not saying that i'm totally qualified to teach latin american history...dude, i bet i could pull it off. also, i bet they could stand to add another section or two of an english class (or two).
i'm hoping he'll go for it. last night i had a horrible dream about going back to work in the restaurant that i used to work in and plan on returning to (and guess i still technically work for). i couldn't find my vest and my manager was yelling at me and my locker was full of putrid frozen yogurt (don't ask; we don't even sell frozen yogurt there).
i'd just rather keep on being with these kids, teaching them, learning from them, however you want to put it. i'd rather not go back to upselling high-end half-size pastas if i could do something more in line with my future career, y'know?
--
additionally, a propos of nothing, here is my menu for the upcoming thanksgiving holiday. i'm hosting 9 people--10, including myself--and i'm really excited about doing it all up. to the point that i'm having a hard time delegating.
THANKSGIVING MENU 2009
- Roast Turkey with Maple Herb Butter
- Garlic Mashed Potatoes
- Cranberry Sauce
- Chestnut Stuffing
- Maple Glazed Yams with Pecan Topping
- Green Beans with Shallots and Pancetta
- Zucchini Casserole
- Kate's Thanksgiving Cornbread (courtesy of my kindergarten teacher's recipe)
- Pumpkin Roll
- Apple Pie
--
earlier this week, i was talking to a student about varying things. he showed up in my classroom really early--around 8:00 or so, when i first get there--and we ended up talking for nearly an hour before 1st period started. at some point, we got around to talking about places i've travelled, and amsterdam came up. i realize that all my students think it's So Crazy Cool that i've been to amsterdam--they know exactly what amsterdam is known for, and so i see no point in pretending that i didn't partake in the activities while i was there. anyway, we were talking about amsterdam, and stuff i did while i was there, and the following conversation occurred:
student: what's it like there?
me: what do you mean?
student: like, what does it look like?
me: i'm still not sure what you mean.
student: like, are the houses made out of mud and sticks and stuff?
and while i wanted to say, "WHAT!?", instead i said, "oh, honey, no. amsterdam's been a city longer than we've been a country," and then told him about all the canals.
04 November 2009
Week 11 Reflection
**Below is the text of the reflection journal I turned in for my grad school seminar. I know it's long, but stick with me. It's worth it.
-----
Initially, I had every intention of using this reflection to talk about a multitude of things: the start of second quarter, the upcoming accreditation inspection on Friday, starting my kids in their first big project. However, following today’s staff meeting, I’m going to talk about that instead. I think my rationale will rapidly become clear.
Today at the staff meeting, one of the teachers brought up a recent incident in order to determine consequences / a course of action. This particular teacher is white. Toward the end of a class a few days ago, a student not enrolled in the class came in. Matt allowed him to stay, since class was nearly over. However, the student in question was cursing and being derogatory toward other students. Matt chastised him and told him to be respectful, but the situation kept escalating. It ended when class did—and when, upon leaving, the student got inches from Matt’s face and said, “Somebody needs to fuck your bitch.”
This led into a discussion of consequences, and the culture of the school, and the culture of the streets in which these students live. It seemed pretty clear that no matter where the students come from, the school should not tolerate that kind of language or abuse from its student population.
AND THEN.
One of the teacher/mentors got up and started talking. This teacher/mentor is a big believer in the ideology of early Malcolm X, by the way. (Yes, I’m talking all that “white devil” business—I know he buys into that, even if he doesn’t go around dissing white people all the time.) The teacher/mentor starts talking about how the staff at my school doesn’t understand the culture, races, and lives of the student population that we serve. He said that we are all, always, spouting the language of the White Oppressor, putting our students at a disadvantage because our personal frameworks differ vastly from the realities of the students in the school.
But it didn’t stop at that. This teacher/mentor said that NOBODY in the room—not me, not Matt, not the African-American vice principal, not the Filipino English teacher, not the Nigerian math teacher—understands our students’ lives and minds. He made it seem like he was the only one who did (though his reasoning for this belief was not entirely clear.) He screamed and he shouted and he pointed fingers, and a lot of the staff got out of their chairs and did the same thing right back to him. He brandished a book by a Malcolm X disciple, telling us we needed to read the truth, and then slammed it down on the table.
I don’t feel like I am out of line in saying that the situation makes me uncomfortable. But not because I am white, or because I am female, or because I came from a firmly-middle-class suburban upbringing, or because I live in a nice apartment with my white husband and our $1500 dog.
I am uncomfortable with it because this teacher/mentor is making this a racial and cultural issue, when it IS NOT. Under any circumstances, in any culture—especially a multicultural educational environment—it should be considered inappropriate for a student to get up in anyone’s face—teacher, fellow student, custodian, whoever—and say, “Somebody needs to fuck your bitch.” That is NOT okay, and SHOULD NOT be okay anywhere, at any time
And it makes me uncomfortable because I know that this teacher/mentor, in his mentor role, has students come to him and talk to him about issues with teachers and administrators. I really believe that if a student has a problem with me, or any other teacher, it’s not because we’re of different races or are from different cultures; it’s because one of us has done something unfair, or is being too harsh, or is being unreasonable. It’s not because we’re black or white or Filipino or Nigerian or Sri Lankan or Ghanaian. It’s because we’re two people, differing on a fundamental level about something that happened in the classroom environment. And I’m pretty sure that if a student went to this teacher/mentor with any problem, of any nature, this teacher/mentor will warp the problem into a racial or cultural one. I think he will tell kids that the fundamental issue isn’t that we disagree on a classroom policy; we differ because we’re either infected by, or represent, the White Oppressor. He’ll skew the issue to fit his framework, and then press that framework upon the student in question.
That’s wrong. Anywhere you go, that’s wrong. It’s wrong to push and impress and batter your beliefs on other people—especially when those other people are in distress.
Just like it’s wrong to say “Somebody needs to fuck your bitch” to anyone, it’s equally wrong to shout and point and throw books at your colleagues. And I don’t think that’s my white, female, suburban ideology saying it’s wrong; I think that within any human context, that’s disrespectful.
There’s no difference. And this is supposed to be an environment advocating social justice? Really, you could’ve fooled me.
Maybe next time I’ll bring a copy of Inga Muscio’s Cunt to throw right back.
-----
Initially, I had every intention of using this reflection to talk about a multitude of things: the start of second quarter, the upcoming accreditation inspection on Friday, starting my kids in their first big project. However, following today’s staff meeting, I’m going to talk about that instead. I think my rationale will rapidly become clear.
Today at the staff meeting, one of the teachers brought up a recent incident in order to determine consequences / a course of action. This particular teacher is white. Toward the end of a class a few days ago, a student not enrolled in the class came in. Matt allowed him to stay, since class was nearly over. However, the student in question was cursing and being derogatory toward other students. Matt chastised him and told him to be respectful, but the situation kept escalating. It ended when class did—and when, upon leaving, the student got inches from Matt’s face and said, “Somebody needs to fuck your bitch.”
This led into a discussion of consequences, and the culture of the school, and the culture of the streets in which these students live. It seemed pretty clear that no matter where the students come from, the school should not tolerate that kind of language or abuse from its student population.
AND THEN.
One of the teacher/mentors got up and started talking. This teacher/mentor is a big believer in the ideology of early Malcolm X, by the way. (Yes, I’m talking all that “white devil” business—I know he buys into that, even if he doesn’t go around dissing white people all the time.) The teacher/mentor starts talking about how the staff at my school doesn’t understand the culture, races, and lives of the student population that we serve. He said that we are all, always, spouting the language of the White Oppressor, putting our students at a disadvantage because our personal frameworks differ vastly from the realities of the students in the school.
But it didn’t stop at that. This teacher/mentor said that NOBODY in the room—not me, not Matt, not the African-American vice principal, not the Filipino English teacher, not the Nigerian math teacher—understands our students’ lives and minds. He made it seem like he was the only one who did (though his reasoning for this belief was not entirely clear.) He screamed and he shouted and he pointed fingers, and a lot of the staff got out of their chairs and did the same thing right back to him. He brandished a book by a Malcolm X disciple, telling us we needed to read the truth, and then slammed it down on the table.
I don’t feel like I am out of line in saying that the situation makes me uncomfortable. But not because I am white, or because I am female, or because I came from a firmly-middle-class suburban upbringing, or because I live in a nice apartment with my white husband and our $1500 dog.
I am uncomfortable with it because this teacher/mentor is making this a racial and cultural issue, when it IS NOT. Under any circumstances, in any culture—especially a multicultural educational environment—it should be considered inappropriate for a student to get up in anyone’s face—teacher, fellow student, custodian, whoever—and say, “Somebody needs to fuck your bitch.” That is NOT okay, and SHOULD NOT be okay anywhere, at any time
And it makes me uncomfortable because I know that this teacher/mentor, in his mentor role, has students come to him and talk to him about issues with teachers and administrators. I really believe that if a student has a problem with me, or any other teacher, it’s not because we’re of different races or are from different cultures; it’s because one of us has done something unfair, or is being too harsh, or is being unreasonable. It’s not because we’re black or white or Filipino or Nigerian or Sri Lankan or Ghanaian. It’s because we’re two people, differing on a fundamental level about something that happened in the classroom environment. And I’m pretty sure that if a student went to this teacher/mentor with any problem, of any nature, this teacher/mentor will warp the problem into a racial or cultural one. I think he will tell kids that the fundamental issue isn’t that we disagree on a classroom policy; we differ because we’re either infected by, or represent, the White Oppressor. He’ll skew the issue to fit his framework, and then press that framework upon the student in question.
That’s wrong. Anywhere you go, that’s wrong. It’s wrong to push and impress and batter your beliefs on other people—especially when those other people are in distress.
Just like it’s wrong to say “Somebody needs to fuck your bitch” to anyone, it’s equally wrong to shout and point and throw books at your colleagues. And I don’t think that’s my white, female, suburban ideology saying it’s wrong; I think that within any human context, that’s disrespectful.
There’s no difference. And this is supposed to be an environment advocating social justice? Really, you could’ve fooled me.
Maybe next time I’ll bring a copy of Inga Muscio’s Cunt to throw right back.
02 November 2009
Success v. Fail
Appropriate Staff Meeting Topic: How can we best prepare ourselves for the ASN accrediting visit this Friday? Who should we pick for student and staff focus groups? What do we need to be prepared to know?
Inappropriate Staff Meeting Topic: When you eat seedless grapes, you are absorbing less knowledge than if you were to eat grapes with seeds, because the seed of a fruit is what contains all the nutrients and knowledge. Ditto seedless v. seeded watermelon. Agree or disagree? Discuss!
(One guess as to which one we spent more time (i.e. an hour) on at today's record-breaking 3.5 hour staff meeting.)
Inappropriate Staff Meeting Topic: When you eat seedless grapes, you are absorbing less knowledge than if you were to eat grapes with seeds, because the seed of a fruit is what contains all the nutrients and knowledge. Ditto seedless v. seeded watermelon. Agree or disagree? Discuss!
(One guess as to which one we spent more time (i.e. an hour) on at today's record-breaking 3.5 hour staff meeting.)
30 October 2009
The Bearer of Bad News
Today is the first day of my three-day Halloween weekend, and even though I have zero plans to dress up like a sexy [insert profession / object here], I'm going to enjoy it because I know that I have earned it.
Wednesday and Thursday of this week were evaluations. The school I'm at doesn't do the report card business that I remember from high school, where we went to our first period class at the end of the day and picked them up. They don't even follow the model that seems to be the case these days, where they have a report card pickup at the end of school (because the students! they can't be trusted to not edit their report cards with scanners and Photoshop! what I want to know is, where were the scanners and Photoshop when I was getting Fs and Ds in physics?! but I digress.)
No, my school has students sign up to come in and conference with their teachers, one at a time, on a one-on-one basis, to talk about everything from attendance and behavior to ability to work in groups. And, oh yeah, give out grades.
Wednesday was fine, because I mostly gave out As all day. I don't blame those A-getting kids; if I knew I'd rocked my classes, I'd want to get in there early and get the proof and then get out and enjoy a 4-day weekend. So I got to make a lot of kids smile, tell them they're awesome and smart and their grades indicate this, now go and take your two kids trick-or-treating, sweetie!
Thursday? Thursday sucked.
Thursday was the day when the stragglers came in. Thursday, I got to tell a lot of kids, to their faces, and to their great surprise in some cases, that they'd failed. Even with a curve, even with bonus points, even with a grudging addition (on my part) of points of attendance, they'd failed. F. Failed. Sorry, baby.
It sucks to have a kid sit down next to you, all smiles and anticipation, and have to look into their face and say, "You failed the quarter." It's hard to see their faces fall, the disappointment and confusion cloud their eyes, when to you, the proof was obvious--if you miss class 10 times in one quarter and don't make up the work...what did you THINK was going to happen? And it's even worse when it's a kid whose attendance has been fine, but their focus is nonexistent and the work doesn't get done and there are no points for 20 assignments in my gradebook. Those kids think they should pass the class on the simple merits of having shown up, when that's just not how education or the real world work.
These kids made me saddest of all. I'm thinking of one in particular. I know his crazy backstory, and that his home life sucks. He only missed two days, but when he's there...his body is there, but his mind is somewhere else. He can't stay on point long enough to accomplish much of anything, without running his mouth or taking a nap or doing everything BUT his class work.
If it were me, and my whole life was turmoil, I think I'd be glad for the quiet and order of school, the departure from the distractions and violence and poverty and fear. Just to do something DIFFERENT.
But these kids? No. The worst part of all is, they are so smart. They are so goddamn capable of doing the work, of getting As, of going on to do bigger and better and impressive things...but they don't. They can't, maybe.
I just wanted to put my hands on their shoulders and look them in the face and say, "You are SO smart. You are SO talented. You have SO MUCH to offer...and you're fucking it up."
Instead, I looked away from the disappointment in their faces. I wrapped up the conference. I told them that next quarter is a fresh start. I told them that I know they can do better this time around.
And then, I watched them walk out the door, shoulders slumped. And then I did it all over again, to someone else.
Wednesday and Thursday of this week were evaluations. The school I'm at doesn't do the report card business that I remember from high school, where we went to our first period class at the end of the day and picked them up. They don't even follow the model that seems to be the case these days, where they have a report card pickup at the end of school (because the students! they can't be trusted to not edit their report cards with scanners and Photoshop! what I want to know is, where were the scanners and Photoshop when I was getting Fs and Ds in physics?! but I digress.)
No, my school has students sign up to come in and conference with their teachers, one at a time, on a one-on-one basis, to talk about everything from attendance and behavior to ability to work in groups. And, oh yeah, give out grades.
Wednesday was fine, because I mostly gave out As all day. I don't blame those A-getting kids; if I knew I'd rocked my classes, I'd want to get in there early and get the proof and then get out and enjoy a 4-day weekend. So I got to make a lot of kids smile, tell them they're awesome and smart and their grades indicate this, now go and take your two kids trick-or-treating, sweetie!
Thursday? Thursday sucked.
Thursday was the day when the stragglers came in. Thursday, I got to tell a lot of kids, to their faces, and to their great surprise in some cases, that they'd failed. Even with a curve, even with bonus points, even with a grudging addition (on my part) of points of attendance, they'd failed. F. Failed. Sorry, baby.
It sucks to have a kid sit down next to you, all smiles and anticipation, and have to look into their face and say, "You failed the quarter." It's hard to see their faces fall, the disappointment and confusion cloud their eyes, when to you, the proof was obvious--if you miss class 10 times in one quarter and don't make up the work...what did you THINK was going to happen? And it's even worse when it's a kid whose attendance has been fine, but their focus is nonexistent and the work doesn't get done and there are no points for 20 assignments in my gradebook. Those kids think they should pass the class on the simple merits of having shown up, when that's just not how education or the real world work.
These kids made me saddest of all. I'm thinking of one in particular. I know his crazy backstory, and that his home life sucks. He only missed two days, but when he's there...his body is there, but his mind is somewhere else. He can't stay on point long enough to accomplish much of anything, without running his mouth or taking a nap or doing everything BUT his class work.
If it were me, and my whole life was turmoil, I think I'd be glad for the quiet and order of school, the departure from the distractions and violence and poverty and fear. Just to do something DIFFERENT.
But these kids? No. The worst part of all is, they are so smart. They are so goddamn capable of doing the work, of getting As, of going on to do bigger and better and impressive things...but they don't. They can't, maybe.
I just wanted to put my hands on their shoulders and look them in the face and say, "You are SO smart. You are SO talented. You have SO MUCH to offer...and you're fucking it up."
Instead, I looked away from the disappointment in their faces. I wrapped up the conference. I told them that next quarter is a fresh start. I told them that I know they can do better this time around.
And then, I watched them walk out the door, shoulders slumped. And then I did it all over again, to someone else.
23 October 2009
Long Time Gone
Sorry for the break in updates, folks. I had big intentions of writing on Tuesday night, but Blogger was down and I wasn't feeling up to writing in a Word document and re-pasting things here later.
Let's do this by the numbers:
9: Weeks of student teaching I've completed so far.
6: Weeks of student teaching I have left.
4: Weeks during which I will be actually teaching; the last week, I'm back to observing.
2: Days next week which are business as usual aka class (Monday & Tuesday).
2: Days next week which are devoted to evaluations, aka the report card system designed with the express purpose of making teachers crazy. (Wednesday & Thursday).
1: Day next week that I don't to go to school (Friday), giving me one
3: Day weekend. And I don't have a Halloween costume. Yet.
45%: Of students seem to be failing my classes, even though I'm grading on a HUGE curve and giving them ample opportunity to make up late work. I kind of want to cry.
1: Big freakout that I had on Wednesday, thinking I might never get hired anywhere, because postings for the 2010-2011 school year aren't really happening yet.
1: Big compliment that I got from my principal today, when he asked me how things were going and I told him I love my school and he told me that they would hire me.
2: Hours at the end of the day that I spent wondering if I can parlay this compliment into a part-time job until the end of the school year. I'd love to stay with my kids, and I'd love to build my resume. Everyone wins!
3: Episodes of 'Mad Men' that I watched while making an interminable stack of very boring flash cards for the APT.
22: Days until I take the APT. Aside from the flashcard-making...I haven't studied.
1: Hot stone massage that I'm getting tomorrow, having finally scheduled my birthday present from my husband.
1: Very big reason to be excited--my final grad school class is available with an online option. Hooray for a potential lack of midwinter nighttime commutes on the train! Hooray for completing my Master's in a very 21st-century way!
3: Class periods next week when I will allow students to make up missing assignments in attempt to get their grades from Fs to Ds.
1: Long Tuesday night when I grade all those papers and re-do the curves to make sure all my information is accurate and up-to-date for evaluations.
1: Very endearing student who got very, VERY happy when I informed him today that not only is he doing well--he's got the best grade in his class.
5: Cups of Dannon Light&Fit yogurt that I go through every week, eating breakfast at school.
25: Minutes I stood outside in the rain this morning, because I was
5: Minutes early, and the custodian was
20: Minutes late.
25ish: Minutes I stood under the hand dryer in the womens' bathroom in attempt to dry off my jeans, so that I wouldn't have to wear wet pants all day.
24.5: Minutes of this process that I felt like a total creep and hoped nobody would come into the bathroom and see me drinking coffee with my left thigh held under the hot air.
I think that's all for now. I actually have a lot on my mind worth mentioning regarding this evaluations process, but it's Friday night and I'm really tired and I'll write about it tomorrow after I use a gift certificate to have somebody rub my body with hot stones for an hour (gratuity included!).
Let's do this by the numbers:
9: Weeks of student teaching I've completed so far.
6: Weeks of student teaching I have left.
4: Weeks during which I will be actually teaching; the last week, I'm back to observing.
2: Days next week which are business as usual aka class (Monday & Tuesday).
2: Days next week which are devoted to evaluations, aka the report card system designed with the express purpose of making teachers crazy. (Wednesday & Thursday).
1: Day next week that I don't to go to school (Friday), giving me one
3: Day weekend. And I don't have a Halloween costume. Yet.
45%: Of students seem to be failing my classes, even though I'm grading on a HUGE curve and giving them ample opportunity to make up late work. I kind of want to cry.
1: Big freakout that I had on Wednesday, thinking I might never get hired anywhere, because postings for the 2010-2011 school year aren't really happening yet.
1: Big compliment that I got from my principal today, when he asked me how things were going and I told him I love my school and he told me that they would hire me.
2: Hours at the end of the day that I spent wondering if I can parlay this compliment into a part-time job until the end of the school year. I'd love to stay with my kids, and I'd love to build my resume. Everyone wins!
3: Episodes of 'Mad Men' that I watched while making an interminable stack of very boring flash cards for the APT.
22: Days until I take the APT. Aside from the flashcard-making...I haven't studied.
1: Hot stone massage that I'm getting tomorrow, having finally scheduled my birthday present from my husband.
1: Very big reason to be excited--my final grad school class is available with an online option. Hooray for a potential lack of midwinter nighttime commutes on the train! Hooray for completing my Master's in a very 21st-century way!
3: Class periods next week when I will allow students to make up missing assignments in attempt to get their grades from Fs to Ds.
1: Long Tuesday night when I grade all those papers and re-do the curves to make sure all my information is accurate and up-to-date for evaluations.
1: Very endearing student who got very, VERY happy when I informed him today that not only is he doing well--he's got the best grade in his class.
5: Cups of Dannon Light&Fit yogurt that I go through every week, eating breakfast at school.
25: Minutes I stood outside in the rain this morning, because I was
5: Minutes early, and the custodian was
20: Minutes late.
25ish: Minutes I stood under the hand dryer in the womens' bathroom in attempt to dry off my jeans, so that I wouldn't have to wear wet pants all day.
24.5: Minutes of this process that I felt like a total creep and hoped nobody would come into the bathroom and see me drinking coffee with my left thigh held under the hot air.
I think that's all for now. I actually have a lot on my mind worth mentioning regarding this evaluations process, but it's Friday night and I'm really tired and I'll write about it tomorrow after I use a gift certificate to have somebody rub my body with hot stones for an hour (gratuity included!).
13 October 2009
Defective
Hi. I made you a list to read. This is a list of Things That Are Annoying Me Today:
1) I slept from 8:30-6:15 and I have been exhausted all day. THESE MATHEMATICS DO NOT ADD UP.
2) I dread teaching my 4th period. I really do. I like 60% of the kids, and the other 40%...I really just want to strangle. Well, no, not really, but sometimes I get really scared that I'll snap and just go "AHHHHHHH! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Today I was trying to wrap up class and these four kids converged in the back and WOULD NOT stop talking. And not only would they not stop talking, but they would not stop talking in SPANISH and I couldn't get a word in edgewise so I just stood there and stared at them. Very pointedly. Until they looked up at me AND CONTINUED TO TALK and I said, "Seriously? You're going to keep talking even though I'm up here staring at you like 'Shut up'?" AND THEY KEPT TALKING. So help me God, my sanity is in danger.
3) My advisor was supposed to come watch me teach the aforementioned 4th period today and he just DIDN'T SHOW UP! Have I mentioned that I am having anxiety attacks about teaching my 4th period? And that my advisor will likely only observe me teaching it once? And that I'd really just LIKE TO GET THAT OVER WITH? Except that I can't! Because he didn't show up!
3b) I emailed my advisor and was very "Hey, you didn't show, hope everything's okay, let me know when you want to come in." The email I get in response says: "See you tomorrow!" No explanation! No apology! No APPROXIMATE TIME OF ARRIVAL! STFU DUDE! I emailed him back to let him know that I only teach one class, from 9:52-10:42 tomorrow, and that if he comes in the afternoon, activities will be going on and there won't be anything to observe. $20 says he screws it up.
4) My cooperating teacher's after-school advice on how to tame 4th period? STALL! Oh great! I'm supposed to make them listen to me by RAMBLING ON AIMLESSLY. Hooray for American education.
5) The books I ordered to be sent to my branch of the library still aren't here and I really could use some escapist leisure reading right now.
6) I have to take the APT in less than a month and I can't get motivated to make flash cards to save my life.
7) I don't know what I'm going to do with my American Lit kids once we finish the unit on Malcolm X. I was GOING to do a unit on "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg but that seems to convoluted and frankly, I don't know my students would handle lines like, "Holy are the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas." HELP THANX.
8) I have had bad dreams about my old restaurant job TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. No offense, cafe people, but when I wake up in a cold sweat because I can't remember how Aloha works...that's messed up.
9) It's really cold here.
10) There were no good magazines at the gym.
11) I am 90% sure that fresh figs are finally out of season.
1) I slept from 8:30-6:15 and I have been exhausted all day. THESE MATHEMATICS DO NOT ADD UP.
2) I dread teaching my 4th period. I really do. I like 60% of the kids, and the other 40%...I really just want to strangle. Well, no, not really, but sometimes I get really scared that I'll snap and just go "AHHHHHHH! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Today I was trying to wrap up class and these four kids converged in the back and WOULD NOT stop talking. And not only would they not stop talking, but they would not stop talking in SPANISH and I couldn't get a word in edgewise so I just stood there and stared at them. Very pointedly. Until they looked up at me AND CONTINUED TO TALK and I said, "Seriously? You're going to keep talking even though I'm up here staring at you like 'Shut up'?" AND THEY KEPT TALKING. So help me God, my sanity is in danger.
3) My advisor was supposed to come watch me teach the aforementioned 4th period today and he just DIDN'T SHOW UP! Have I mentioned that I am having anxiety attacks about teaching my 4th period? And that my advisor will likely only observe me teaching it once? And that I'd really just LIKE TO GET THAT OVER WITH? Except that I can't! Because he didn't show up!
3b) I emailed my advisor and was very "Hey, you didn't show, hope everything's okay, let me know when you want to come in." The email I get in response says: "See you tomorrow!" No explanation! No apology! No APPROXIMATE TIME OF ARRIVAL! STFU DUDE! I emailed him back to let him know that I only teach one class, from 9:52-10:42 tomorrow, and that if he comes in the afternoon, activities will be going on and there won't be anything to observe. $20 says he screws it up.
4) My cooperating teacher's after-school advice on how to tame 4th period? STALL! Oh great! I'm supposed to make them listen to me by RAMBLING ON AIMLESSLY. Hooray for American education.
5) The books I ordered to be sent to my branch of the library still aren't here and I really could use some escapist leisure reading right now.
6) I have to take the APT in less than a month and I can't get motivated to make flash cards to save my life.
7) I don't know what I'm going to do with my American Lit kids once we finish the unit on Malcolm X. I was GOING to do a unit on "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg but that seems to convoluted and frankly, I don't know my students would handle lines like, "Holy are the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas." HELP THANX.
8) I have had bad dreams about my old restaurant job TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. No offense, cafe people, but when I wake up in a cold sweat because I can't remember how Aloha works...that's messed up.
9) It's really cold here.
10) There were no good magazines at the gym.
11) I am 90% sure that fresh figs are finally out of season.
04 October 2009
Sick Day
For only the third time in my adult working life, I have called in sick. The first occasion was when I was in Yosemite, and a friend was in the hospital two hours away (in lovely Fresno) with a compound fracture and I thought I might not get a chance to see him before he went back to Virginia. The second occasion was when I got the flu in March 2008 and was so achy that I actually cried--more than once!--because it hurt my butt to sit on it.
This third time is kind of lame. I have a cold.
I get sick around this time every year. When I look back on my life, I can clearly remember the circumstances of getting sick every October, because 1) I rarely get sick, and 2) it is seriously an annual occurrence almost to the day. During my sophomore year of college, getting sick coincided with Greek Week and I stupidly figured that a bunch of alcohol in my bloodstream would kill all the germs (wrong), so I kept going to parties all week until finally I fell asleep. At the bar. At 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. A trip to the doctor's office showed that a cold had evolved in to a sinus infection AND a DOUBLE ear infection--awesome! (Dumb.) During my senior year of high school, getting sick coincided with the ADPi 5k and it rained and I was so pissed that I had to be sick, standing in the rain, holding a sign that directed people along the route.
This year, being sick coincided with a dinner party that I'd been planning for over a month. Yesterday I woke up with what was obviously going to be A Bad Cold. And last night I had friends over to eat lasagna and swap good books and drink wine and talk about life. After all this planning and anticipation, I wasn't about to let a (bad) cold get in the way! Oh no! So I ate lasagna and gave out a few books and definitely drank too much wine (because clearly I am kind of dumb) and talked about life.
And then I woke up this morning sounding a lot like Barry White.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't let A Bad Cold stop me from going to school. The guilt! The shame! The falling-behind-ness! But this morning when I got up, I took my temperature, and I had a fever. And the cardinal rule for this kind of situation, according to my mother, is You Can't Stay Home From School Unless You Have A Fever. And I did! I had a fever! Which doesn't normally happen when I get colds!
This is as good a time as any to point out that I have a resting body temperature of 97.7--almost a full degree below the "norm" of 98.6. The implications of this are HUGE. For example, if my temperature is 99, that's like other people having a fever of 100! Which is a fever NO DOUBT! When I think of all the times over the years when I was sick and my mom would take my temperature and it would be 98.6 and she wouldn't let me stay home because it was "normal" when in fact it was NOT--I was instead running a low-grade fever--I really could just cry. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH DAYTIME TV I WAS ROBBED OF!??!
So. I had a fever. And I called my mom, to 1) ask her what I should do, which was really 2) getting her to justify that I was okay in staying home from school tomorrow, because 3) she's got the strictest standards for that kind of stuff. My mom said what I thought she would--that I should stay home from school. That I had a fever! That meant I could stay home! And even if I DIDN'T have a fever--I should still stay home! To rest up! Because being a teacher is hard work!
Now, here's the rub: having your mom tell you that you're sick and can stay home from school just isn't the same at 25 as it was at 12. At 12, even though you feel like garbage and you're snotting everywhere and your throat has the surface quality of a belt sander--you don't have to go to school! You can stay home and watch Nick Jr. and Sally Jesse Raphael and sleep in your mom's waterbed and eat all the ice cream and then blame it on your brother later! But at 25, you just feel guilty. I waited until 4:00 to call my cooperating teachers to let them know I won't be coming in (after taking my temperature and making sure that I still had The Necessary Fever) because I wanted to see if napping would make a difference. Both teachers were totally understanding--hey, people get sick, I can cover you, no problemo--but I still feel like a schmuck, like I ought to suck it up and go in. Except that I know that if I do, 1) I might still be contagious and give people my sick! 2) it will take me all of this week and most of the next to really "get better, and 3) I will be totally miserable and ineffective. The idea of teaching my 6th period tomorrow makes me want to die.
I know my husband is totally going to give me an eye roll later for staying home (earlier, he was all, "you're an adult and you can do what you want, but I really think you shouldn't stay home tomorrow") but I think it is the best idea. So I'll be here, camped out with my lotion-y tissues and my lo-cal orange juice, and I'll write some lesson plans and all will be okay in the world.
In other news--as of today, my husband and I have been together for 3 years. He says it doesn't count as an anniversary anymore, no not really, because we're married now and the dating anniversary is now a moot point. I say, can it. Because I made a pumpkin-and-chocolate-chip cake that I'm about to cover in cream cheese frosting, and if there's one thing that cream cheese frosting screams, it's THANKS FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME FOR OVER 1000 DAYS!
This third time is kind of lame. I have a cold.
I get sick around this time every year. When I look back on my life, I can clearly remember the circumstances of getting sick every October, because 1) I rarely get sick, and 2) it is seriously an annual occurrence almost to the day. During my sophomore year of college, getting sick coincided with Greek Week and I stupidly figured that a bunch of alcohol in my bloodstream would kill all the germs (wrong), so I kept going to parties all week until finally I fell asleep. At the bar. At 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. A trip to the doctor's office showed that a cold had evolved in to a sinus infection AND a DOUBLE ear infection--awesome! (Dumb.) During my senior year of high school, getting sick coincided with the ADPi 5k and it rained and I was so pissed that I had to be sick, standing in the rain, holding a sign that directed people along the route.
This year, being sick coincided with a dinner party that I'd been planning for over a month. Yesterday I woke up with what was obviously going to be A Bad Cold. And last night I had friends over to eat lasagna and swap good books and drink wine and talk about life. After all this planning and anticipation, I wasn't about to let a (bad) cold get in the way! Oh no! So I ate lasagna and gave out a few books and definitely drank too much wine (because clearly I am kind of dumb) and talked about life.
And then I woke up this morning sounding a lot like Barry White.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't let A Bad Cold stop me from going to school. The guilt! The shame! The falling-behind-ness! But this morning when I got up, I took my temperature, and I had a fever. And the cardinal rule for this kind of situation, according to my mother, is You Can't Stay Home From School Unless You Have A Fever. And I did! I had a fever! Which doesn't normally happen when I get colds!
This is as good a time as any to point out that I have a resting body temperature of 97.7--almost a full degree below the "norm" of 98.6. The implications of this are HUGE. For example, if my temperature is 99, that's like other people having a fever of 100! Which is a fever NO DOUBT! When I think of all the times over the years when I was sick and my mom would take my temperature and it would be 98.6 and she wouldn't let me stay home because it was "normal" when in fact it was NOT--I was instead running a low-grade fever--I really could just cry. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH DAYTIME TV I WAS ROBBED OF!??!
So. I had a fever. And I called my mom, to 1) ask her what I should do, which was really 2) getting her to justify that I was okay in staying home from school tomorrow, because 3) she's got the strictest standards for that kind of stuff. My mom said what I thought she would--that I should stay home from school. That I had a fever! That meant I could stay home! And even if I DIDN'T have a fever--I should still stay home! To rest up! Because being a teacher is hard work!
Now, here's the rub: having your mom tell you that you're sick and can stay home from school just isn't the same at 25 as it was at 12. At 12, even though you feel like garbage and you're snotting everywhere and your throat has the surface quality of a belt sander--you don't have to go to school! You can stay home and watch Nick Jr. and Sally Jesse Raphael and sleep in your mom's waterbed and eat all the ice cream and then blame it on your brother later! But at 25, you just feel guilty. I waited until 4:00 to call my cooperating teachers to let them know I won't be coming in (after taking my temperature and making sure that I still had The Necessary Fever) because I wanted to see if napping would make a difference. Both teachers were totally understanding--hey, people get sick, I can cover you, no problemo--but I still feel like a schmuck, like I ought to suck it up and go in. Except that I know that if I do, 1) I might still be contagious and give people my sick! 2) it will take me all of this week and most of the next to really "get better, and 3) I will be totally miserable and ineffective. The idea of teaching my 6th period tomorrow makes me want to die.
I know my husband is totally going to give me an eye roll later for staying home (earlier, he was all, "you're an adult and you can do what you want, but I really think you shouldn't stay home tomorrow") but I think it is the best idea. So I'll be here, camped out with my lotion-y tissues and my lo-cal orange juice, and I'll write some lesson plans and all will be okay in the world.
In other news--as of today, my husband and I have been together for 3 years. He says it doesn't count as an anniversary anymore, no not really, because we're married now and the dating anniversary is now a moot point. I say, can it. Because I made a pumpkin-and-chocolate-chip cake that I'm about to cover in cream cheese frosting, and if there's one thing that cream cheese frosting screams, it's THANKS FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME FOR OVER 1000 DAYS!
25 September 2009
Technological Advances
This entry is coming to you in the coolest of cool ways. Because I am writing it on my brand-spankin'-new iPhone. I admit, I was a skeptic. "Who needs to be that connected?" I said.
The correct answer: me. I need to be that connected.
In other news, the trip to Chinatown went great. I had carefully, lovingly made this scavenger hunt for the kids. I looked at signs and went into stores and paid close attention to my surroundings. And what happened? We got down there, and the kids started stopping any Asian person in sight and asking them questions off the list. This was mostly funny, because there is really nothing like hearing one of the
say, "Hey yo! Do you know how much it costs for onepound of dried sea cucumber?"
It took some explaining to get them to realize that not every Chinese person knows every single thing about Chinatown. That, in fact, some of the Asian people they were talking to were probably tourists, too.
Also, yesterday during my seminar, my adviser took the tome to congratulate me on doing a great job teaching while he was visiting me. He said that if I keep up the enthusiasm I have now, I will make a wonderful teacher. I kind of felt like saying, "Dude. I am only that spastic because I feel like I have no idea what the hell I'm doing 90% of the time."
This just strikes me as further proof that if you ACT like you know
what you're doing, people will tend to believe that you really do.
The correct answer: me. I need to be that connected.
In other news, the trip to Chinatown went great. I had carefully, lovingly made this scavenger hunt for the kids. I looked at signs and went into stores and paid close attention to my surroundings. And what happened? We got down there, and the kids started stopping any Asian person in sight and asking them questions off the list. This was mostly funny, because there is really nothing like hearing one of the
say, "Hey yo! Do you know how much it costs for onepound of dried sea cucumber?"
It took some explaining to get them to realize that not every Chinese person knows every single thing about Chinatown. That, in fact, some of the Asian people they were talking to were probably tourists, too.
Also, yesterday during my seminar, my adviser took the tome to congratulate me on doing a great job teaching while he was visiting me. He said that if I keep up the enthusiasm I have now, I will make a wonderful teacher. I kind of felt like saying, "Dude. I am only that spastic because I feel like I have no idea what the hell I'm doing 90% of the time."
This just strikes me as further proof that if you ACT like you know
what you're doing, people will tend to believe that you really do.
22 September 2009
Real Simple
Again with the lists. I have people over on a spontaneous basis, making dinner and playing chess; so sue me.
1) This is now my second week of teaching, and it is going MUCH more smoothly. I think that my kids are now used to me--and, more importantly, I'm now used to my kids. I can anticipate who's going to fall asleep without my noticing, who's going to volunteer answers, and who won't have their homework. Like G.I. Joe said: "KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!"
2) Yesterday I was trying to help a student with her classwork, pointing something out on her paper, and she totally recoiled and said, "YOUR HANDS IS UGLY!" She's not wrong. I've got some ugly monkey paws. I felt a little better when she followed that up with, "...but my hands is ugly too."
3) I was observed by my university adviser for the first time yesterday. This is something that is going to happen 4 times (so 3 more) over the course of my student teaching. Highlights include:
a) Me being super-annoyed because he showed up 20 MINUTES EARLY, thus cutting into my lunch because teachers and students were fluttering around while I tried to eat my salad, telling me that someone was waiting! For me! Upstairs! GO FIND HIM NOW! Dude, I gave you a schedule. Try to follow it.
b) Me being super-annoyed because 6th period was supposed to start at 1:05, and when it didn't start at 1:05 because students hadn't been dismissed from lunch, my adviser gave me Big Eyes and TAPPED HIS WATCH and said, "Time for 6th period, Katherine!" in this ridiculously cheery voice, like I was Alice and he was the Cheshire Cat. Dude, I'm happy for 6th period to start but I'VE GOT NO STUDENTS.
c) Me being super-annoyed because I TOTALLY SAW that he was taking copious notes, but he left before the period was over so that I couldn't talk to him, and I have yet to receive an email. This means I will have to stay EVEN LONGER after my seminar on Thursday. This is only okay because
4) I have an unexpected 3-day weekend! Friday is professional development. My school is going to be doing intensive course descriptions / curriculum overhaul using their new curriculum system, Understanding By Design. I've asked for a UBD workbook, but I apparently can't have one. My cooperating teacher said I could come if I wanted to, but suggested that I probably wouldn't want to, on pain of severe boredom. Hey, that's cool. No school on Friday for me!
5) I'm taking over my third and final class on Monday, and I'm nervous. Mostly because I'll be going through that one-plus-week-of-hell transitionary period again. The 4th period World Lit class is a HANDFUL, to say the least. I love them--they're ridiculously smart--but they are NEEDY PERSONALITIES. Take a room of 24 kids and have every one of them saying at the same time, "Look at me! LOOK AT ME! Help me with my work! Isn't this funny! Let me tell you a story about marijuana! LOOK AT ME!" and it gets difficult to get much of anything done. I think this will be my biggest challenge.
6) I'm taking my first field trip to Chinatown on Thursday, to coordinate with our unit on The Good Earth. 3 chaperones + 30 students + 1 bus + 1 scavenger hunt + Chinatown = hopefully, less chaos than I am anticipating.
7) Figs are still in season.
8) I am debating heading out of town for the Columbus Day weekend. Michigan? Cincinnati? Suggestions?
1) This is now my second week of teaching, and it is going MUCH more smoothly. I think that my kids are now used to me--and, more importantly, I'm now used to my kids. I can anticipate who's going to fall asleep without my noticing, who's going to volunteer answers, and who won't have their homework. Like G.I. Joe said: "KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!"
2) Yesterday I was trying to help a student with her classwork, pointing something out on her paper, and she totally recoiled and said, "YOUR HANDS IS UGLY!" She's not wrong. I've got some ugly monkey paws. I felt a little better when she followed that up with, "...but my hands is ugly too."
3) I was observed by my university adviser for the first time yesterday. This is something that is going to happen 4 times (so 3 more) over the course of my student teaching. Highlights include:
a) Me being super-annoyed because he showed up 20 MINUTES EARLY, thus cutting into my lunch because teachers and students were fluttering around while I tried to eat my salad, telling me that someone was waiting! For me! Upstairs! GO FIND HIM NOW! Dude, I gave you a schedule. Try to follow it.
b) Me being super-annoyed because 6th period was supposed to start at 1:05, and when it didn't start at 1:05 because students hadn't been dismissed from lunch, my adviser gave me Big Eyes and TAPPED HIS WATCH and said, "Time for 6th period, Katherine!" in this ridiculously cheery voice, like I was Alice and he was the Cheshire Cat. Dude, I'm happy for 6th period to start but I'VE GOT NO STUDENTS.
c) Me being super-annoyed because I TOTALLY SAW that he was taking copious notes, but he left before the period was over so that I couldn't talk to him, and I have yet to receive an email. This means I will have to stay EVEN LONGER after my seminar on Thursday. This is only okay because
4) I have an unexpected 3-day weekend! Friday is professional development. My school is going to be doing intensive course descriptions / curriculum overhaul using their new curriculum system, Understanding By Design. I've asked for a UBD workbook, but I apparently can't have one. My cooperating teacher said I could come if I wanted to, but suggested that I probably wouldn't want to, on pain of severe boredom. Hey, that's cool. No school on Friday for me!
5) I'm taking over my third and final class on Monday, and I'm nervous. Mostly because I'll be going through that one-plus-week-of-hell transitionary period again. The 4th period World Lit class is a HANDFUL, to say the least. I love them--they're ridiculously smart--but they are NEEDY PERSONALITIES. Take a room of 24 kids and have every one of them saying at the same time, "Look at me! LOOK AT ME! Help me with my work! Isn't this funny! Let me tell you a story about marijuana! LOOK AT ME!" and it gets difficult to get much of anything done. I think this will be my biggest challenge.
6) I'm taking my first field trip to Chinatown on Thursday, to coordinate with our unit on The Good Earth. 3 chaperones + 30 students + 1 bus + 1 scavenger hunt + Chinatown = hopefully, less chaos than I am anticipating.
7) Figs are still in season.
8) I am debating heading out of town for the Columbus Day weekend. Michigan? Cincinnati? Suggestions?
19 September 2009
Race Relations
WARNING: This blog post includes gratuitous profanity, used in a journalistic manner. I just tell it like I heard it, yo; I can't help the vernacular.
Thus far, Fridays have been pretty whacked-out days. The first week of school was orientation; the second week, we had orientation hoopla; the third week's Friday was 9/11, the remembrance of which you may recall from an earlier post.
This past Friday (Friday #4, for those of you keeping a running tally) was a normal-enough one at the outset. Then, during lunch, my cooperating teacher came over to me and told me that the kids would be getting together for a short assembly about gun violence in this city. Okay, fine; that seems straightforward enough. These kids already know all about gun violence here--realistically, they're probably some of the people perpetrating gun violence in this town.
Now, if you live here in this city (or any other large city in this country, for that matter), maybe you've seen these people. They're the kind of shiftless-looking dudes hanging out at bus stops and train stations with dirty sneakers, trying to sell you a newspaper for $2. Except that these people are NOT HOMELESS, no they are not! Rather, they work for an organization (called Revolutionarie, I think?) that calls attention to police brutality against civilians. Most importantly, at present, they are drumming up support for Anti-Police Brutality Day on October 22 (mark your calendars! wear black to show solidarity! Steve Byrne circa 2003, I AM LOOKING AT YOU).
Yeah--these guys. These guys are the presenters for this assembly.
It becomes rapidly apparent that in no way is this going to be a "short assembly." These Revolutionarie guys have arrived bearing two massive posters covered in short profiles of civilians who have been killed by police in this city over the past 18-20 months. Upon the unveiling of these posters, one female student commences to TOTALLY FREAK OUT. Her cousin is one of the profiles on the poster; he was 16 when he was shot and killed on July 2, 2009, as she stood next to him in an alley.
Any discussion about police brutality toward minorities in poorer sections of the city is going to inevitably lead to one thing: a discussion of race. Forget talking about police, forget gang activity. Forget racial profiling, even. What began has a query for support by the Revolutionarie dudes turned into a shouting match of Why White People Are Out To Get Us in the hands of my students.
I was sitting in the front row, twisting around in my seat, trying to keep up with who was talking and what they had to say. I sat there and mashed my lips together as I heard my students--the same kids that I say "Good morning" to every day, the same kids that I help with late work--say things like "Fuck all the white people!" and "I fucking hate white people!" and "I'd kill all the white people if I could!" and "Every single fucking white person is a fucking racist!"
The whole thing kind of went down in flames. Kids were feeding off of one another's rage, and the teaching staff did little to keep things under control.
So, I sat there. And I listened. And I wanted to cry, a little bit.
I wake up every day and go to that school, where I am obviously, painfully The Young White Teacher Lady Who Knows Nothing About The Ghetto. The color of my skin, and the life that I have led, and the cruelties that both of these things have protected me from, regularly make me say or do or question things that leave my students shaking their heads. "Miz Kate," they say, "how can you NOT KNOW what 'shadiddy' means? How is it that you are 25 and you don't know where to buy a crack pipe?"
Race is such an uncomfortable, gross issue, and it's even worse when you sit in a room full of people where you are irreparably The Other and listen to people you genuinely like count the reasons why they hate you, hate what you stand for, hate your kindness and hate your help. Hate you for condescending; hate you for ignoring them. Hate you for what people you're definitely not related to did to people they probably ARE related to, over 200 years ago. Hate you for being in the room, hate you hate you HATE YOU in case you didn't catch it the first time.
As if, since some white people act like racists now, and many white people acted like racists in the past, it is okay to be racist in return. As if shouting about it is going to solve anything.
It made me think of my junior year of high school, when the race riots were going on in Cincinnati. We heard about them around lunchtime in our suburban high school, and the frisson in the hallways was very much one of "Yeah! Let's go riot! Let's go flip some cars and throw some shit!" That feeling lasted until word got out that the cops had progressed from crowd control to beanbag guns and tear gas. After that, we were frightened down to our little white-kid cores. Being hit with a beanbag?! Shot from a cannon-like mechanism?! That would hurt! No rioting for us!
My students are not afraid of beanbag guns. They are not afraid of tear gas. They are not afraid to stand up in a room full of their peers and mentors and spout their racist ideas at the top of their lungs.
They are not afraid, once the room clears and life returns to normal, to come over to me in the hallway between classes and say, "Miz Kate, I'm sorry that you had to hear me say 'ig'nant bitch' at the end of what I said. It was really low-class."
Man oh man oh man.
Thus far, Fridays have been pretty whacked-out days. The first week of school was orientation; the second week, we had orientation hoopla; the third week's Friday was 9/11, the remembrance of which you may recall from an earlier post.
This past Friday (Friday #4, for those of you keeping a running tally) was a normal-enough one at the outset. Then, during lunch, my cooperating teacher came over to me and told me that the kids would be getting together for a short assembly about gun violence in this city. Okay, fine; that seems straightforward enough. These kids already know all about gun violence here--realistically, they're probably some of the people perpetrating gun violence in this town.
Now, if you live here in this city (or any other large city in this country, for that matter), maybe you've seen these people. They're the kind of shiftless-looking dudes hanging out at bus stops and train stations with dirty sneakers, trying to sell you a newspaper for $2. Except that these people are NOT HOMELESS, no they are not! Rather, they work for an organization (called Revolutionarie, I think?) that calls attention to police brutality against civilians. Most importantly, at present, they are drumming up support for Anti-Police Brutality Day on October 22 (mark your calendars! wear black to show solidarity! Steve Byrne circa 2003, I AM LOOKING AT YOU).
Yeah--these guys. These guys are the presenters for this assembly.
It becomes rapidly apparent that in no way is this going to be a "short assembly." These Revolutionarie guys have arrived bearing two massive posters covered in short profiles of civilians who have been killed by police in this city over the past 18-20 months. Upon the unveiling of these posters, one female student commences to TOTALLY FREAK OUT. Her cousin is one of the profiles on the poster; he was 16 when he was shot and killed on July 2, 2009, as she stood next to him in an alley.
Any discussion about police brutality toward minorities in poorer sections of the city is going to inevitably lead to one thing: a discussion of race. Forget talking about police, forget gang activity. Forget racial profiling, even. What began has a query for support by the Revolutionarie dudes turned into a shouting match of Why White People Are Out To Get Us in the hands of my students.
I was sitting in the front row, twisting around in my seat, trying to keep up with who was talking and what they had to say. I sat there and mashed my lips together as I heard my students--the same kids that I say "Good morning" to every day, the same kids that I help with late work--say things like "Fuck all the white people!" and "I fucking hate white people!" and "I'd kill all the white people if I could!" and "Every single fucking white person is a fucking racist!"
The whole thing kind of went down in flames. Kids were feeding off of one another's rage, and the teaching staff did little to keep things under control.
So, I sat there. And I listened. And I wanted to cry, a little bit.
I wake up every day and go to that school, where I am obviously, painfully The Young White Teacher Lady Who Knows Nothing About The Ghetto. The color of my skin, and the life that I have led, and the cruelties that both of these things have protected me from, regularly make me say or do or question things that leave my students shaking their heads. "Miz Kate," they say, "how can you NOT KNOW what 'shadiddy' means? How is it that you are 25 and you don't know where to buy a crack pipe?"
Race is such an uncomfortable, gross issue, and it's even worse when you sit in a room full of people where you are irreparably The Other and listen to people you genuinely like count the reasons why they hate you, hate what you stand for, hate your kindness and hate your help. Hate you for condescending; hate you for ignoring them. Hate you for what people you're definitely not related to did to people they probably ARE related to, over 200 years ago. Hate you for being in the room, hate you hate you HATE YOU in case you didn't catch it the first time.
As if, since some white people act like racists now, and many white people acted like racists in the past, it is okay to be racist in return. As if shouting about it is going to solve anything.
It made me think of my junior year of high school, when the race riots were going on in Cincinnati. We heard about them around lunchtime in our suburban high school, and the frisson in the hallways was very much one of "Yeah! Let's go riot! Let's go flip some cars and throw some shit!" That feeling lasted until word got out that the cops had progressed from crowd control to beanbag guns and tear gas. After that, we were frightened down to our little white-kid cores. Being hit with a beanbag?! Shot from a cannon-like mechanism?! That would hurt! No rioting for us!
My students are not afraid of beanbag guns. They are not afraid of tear gas. They are not afraid to stand up in a room full of their peers and mentors and spout their racist ideas at the top of their lungs.
They are not afraid, once the room clears and life returns to normal, to come over to me in the hallway between classes and say, "Miz Kate, I'm sorry that you had to hear me say 'ig'nant bitch' at the end of what I said. It was really low-class."
Man oh man oh man.
17 September 2009
Fell on Black Days
Has the honeymoon period ended? "So soon!" you say. Yes, friends, the age of difficulty and disillusionment may be upon us.
I have two cooperating teachers. One, I like a lot and I wish she'd give me constructive criticism (so far, all I've been told is "be more mean!") and I wish she'd be more present in the classroom to see how I'm doing, but she's in and out and altogether not around. The other--she's just okay, I guess, she means well--but she is THERE ALL THE TIME and constantly interrupting my instruction to tell the class about how what we're reading relates to her home country in Africa in these 10-minute tangents, and my students are very "we don't care."
There are 13 students enrolled in my 6th period class. Today, four showed up. And one left early. TO MAKE THINGS EVEN BETTER, the student who asked to leave early didn't even ask me--she asked my cooperating teacher. Who said yes. Without consulting me or telling me what was going on. Consequently, I couldn't collect that student's homework.
IT GETS BETTER.
I have no desk, or place to put my crap. I mentioned this, right? As a result, I feel like I'm constantly disorganized because there is no place for me to put my stuff when I'm teaching. Today, my university advisor suggested that I keep my belongings in the department office and I almost started laughing because DEPARTMENT OFFICE? We don't even have a teacher's lounge!
Also, whose great idea was it to have students read a 400-page novel about agrarian China in the early 20th century??? It is day one of reading the novel and my kids are already bored to tears. The book gets better once you get into it--and I told them as much--but they seem unconvinced. I can't blame them. I know that a great teacher can make even the dullest material come alive, blah blah blah and all that other Dead Poets Society crap--but throw me a frickin' bone here! I'm new at this! Don't make me teach something that students are immediately finding to be boring and irrelevant and obscure!
Today, I had a student say, "When can we read something else?" And I almost, but didn't, say, "In another 390 pages." But it's true; I doubt my coordinating teacher would appreciate it if I switched gears completely mid-stream. Because I'd much rather teach Things Fall Apart or Night or some other piece of shorter, more accessible World Literature, and instead I am mired in the fields of China for the rest of my forseeable life.
Hoo boy. Okay.
So. Let's look at the bright side:
1) I still love my students.
2) It's Thursday, and I had my seminar, and then came home to my wonderful husband making spaghetti sauce from scratch.
3) Tomorrow is Friday.
4) Figs are still in season.
I have two cooperating teachers. One, I like a lot and I wish she'd give me constructive criticism (so far, all I've been told is "be more mean!") and I wish she'd be more present in the classroom to see how I'm doing, but she's in and out and altogether not around. The other--she's just okay, I guess, she means well--but she is THERE ALL THE TIME and constantly interrupting my instruction to tell the class about how what we're reading relates to her home country in Africa in these 10-minute tangents, and my students are very "we don't care."
There are 13 students enrolled in my 6th period class. Today, four showed up. And one left early. TO MAKE THINGS EVEN BETTER, the student who asked to leave early didn't even ask me--she asked my cooperating teacher. Who said yes. Without consulting me or telling me what was going on. Consequently, I couldn't collect that student's homework.
IT GETS BETTER.
I have no desk, or place to put my crap. I mentioned this, right? As a result, I feel like I'm constantly disorganized because there is no place for me to put my stuff when I'm teaching. Today, my university advisor suggested that I keep my belongings in the department office and I almost started laughing because DEPARTMENT OFFICE? We don't even have a teacher's lounge!
Also, whose great idea was it to have students read a 400-page novel about agrarian China in the early 20th century??? It is day one of reading the novel and my kids are already bored to tears. The book gets better once you get into it--and I told them as much--but they seem unconvinced. I can't blame them. I know that a great teacher can make even the dullest material come alive, blah blah blah and all that other Dead Poets Society crap--but throw me a frickin' bone here! I'm new at this! Don't make me teach something that students are immediately finding to be boring and irrelevant and obscure!
Today, I had a student say, "When can we read something else?" And I almost, but didn't, say, "In another 390 pages." But it's true; I doubt my coordinating teacher would appreciate it if I switched gears completely mid-stream. Because I'd much rather teach Things Fall Apart or Night or some other piece of shorter, more accessible World Literature, and instead I am mired in the fields of China for the rest of my forseeable life.
Hoo boy. Okay.
So. Let's look at the bright side:
1) I still love my students.
2) It's Thursday, and I had my seminar, and then came home to my wonderful husband making spaghetti sauce from scratch.
3) Tomorrow is Friday.
4) Figs are still in season.
15 September 2009
Best conversation of my student teaching career thus far:
Juice (no, his name is not actually Juice, but if you call him anything BUT Juice, he will ignore you): Miz Kate, what's opium?
Me: Opium is a really strong drug. Like heroin.
Juice: Will that shit fuck you up?
Me: Yes. That shit will fuck you up.
So I'm two days in, teaching my own classes. I've taught one double bell of World Lit, and one bell of American Lit, and so far, so good. Though I do have the following conclusions:
1) No matter how foolproof and awesome and engaging you think your lesson plan is, you will get in front of the class and actually have to teach it, expect them to do your carefully-planned activities and do the readings that you so lovingly selected, and you will think: Oh my god, what was I thinking, this whole lesson is a TERRIBLE idea! At this point, you are stuck, and you have no choice to do what you've planned to do. And it will probably be pretty much fine. I had a professor once who told our class that we would be wonderful teachers if, at the end of the year, we looked back on the things/way we taught at the beginning of the school year and cringed. Uh, yeah...is it appropriate to cringe at the end of the day?
2) Observing is not the same as teaching. "Your kids" will think you are totally cool when you are just the casual observer, offering comments and extra help. But it's a totally different thing once they are finally your kids--when you're the one writing hall passes and collecting homework and giving grades. Students who were congenial and talkative will suddenly become sullen and skeptical. You will have to win them over. Again. I've decided it's nothing personal. Also, see #1.
3) Your library card is your friend. Your best friend (unless it wasn't already--in which case, FOR SHAME!). It is because of my library card that I was able to locate, reserve, and have shipped to my local branch in a timely fashion the documentary on Jim Crow laws that's currently in my bag, ready to go for tomorrow. Approximate time spent on searching, procuring, and screening: 20 min. Most excellent.
4) Your accordion folder is your second-best friend. The problem with being a student teacher is that there's no place to put your stuff. As in, you have no desk, no filing cabinet, no closet space. Everything you bring with you, you take home again, and vice-versa. Having to organize handouts, homework (graded and non-graded), late work, ongoing assignments, etc. for three (or four) classes is virtually impossible without an accordion folder. If you find of or know of some other, more ingenious way of organizing, please tell me. For now, I want to give my accordion folder a hug for being so awesome.
5) I will be distraught when fresh figs are no longer in season. Not related to teaching, but totally cool.
6) I have been careful to give my students space to warm up to me; I am a minority in my school, in that I am one of two white women who work there, and one of three white women who are there on a regular basis. I didn't want to crowd them, or be boisterous, or seem nosy or overbearing. Now, on week four, they're finally starting to warm up to me, I think. I guess they had to sniff me out a little, see what I was about. Today on the bus, I ended up sitting near two of my students. We didn't talk about anything earth-shattering--cars and cell phones, hello high school--but it was nice to feel like they weren't going to ignore me after we made eye contact.
7) I love my job. I do. I guess it's not my "job," but it's what I do every day that takes up the bulk of my time, so it's a job even though I'm not getting paid. This is the first time in a long time (since, to be exact, I was working at a hotel with my husband and had a crush on him and looked forward to going to work so that I could be around him) that I've looked forward to going to work. Today I realized that I'm already well into week 4 out of 15 and I got really sad. In week 4! Maybe by week 15 I'll be sick of everything...but for now? I love what I'm doing, my students are (almost) all incredibly rockstar, I've got good lessons going, I'm staying balanced.
I can definitely, definitely do this for 30 years.
Juice (no, his name is not actually Juice, but if you call him anything BUT Juice, he will ignore you): Miz Kate, what's opium?
Me: Opium is a really strong drug. Like heroin.
Juice: Will that shit fuck you up?
Me: Yes. That shit will fuck you up.
So I'm two days in, teaching my own classes. I've taught one double bell of World Lit, and one bell of American Lit, and so far, so good. Though I do have the following conclusions:
1) No matter how foolproof and awesome and engaging you think your lesson plan is, you will get in front of the class and actually have to teach it, expect them to do your carefully-planned activities and do the readings that you so lovingly selected, and you will think: Oh my god, what was I thinking, this whole lesson is a TERRIBLE idea! At this point, you are stuck, and you have no choice to do what you've planned to do. And it will probably be pretty much fine. I had a professor once who told our class that we would be wonderful teachers if, at the end of the year, we looked back on the things/way we taught at the beginning of the school year and cringed. Uh, yeah...is it appropriate to cringe at the end of the day?
2) Observing is not the same as teaching. "Your kids" will think you are totally cool when you are just the casual observer, offering comments and extra help. But it's a totally different thing once they are finally your kids--when you're the one writing hall passes and collecting homework and giving grades. Students who were congenial and talkative will suddenly become sullen and skeptical. You will have to win them over. Again. I've decided it's nothing personal. Also, see #1.
3) Your library card is your friend. Your best friend (unless it wasn't already--in which case, FOR SHAME!). It is because of my library card that I was able to locate, reserve, and have shipped to my local branch in a timely fashion the documentary on Jim Crow laws that's currently in my bag, ready to go for tomorrow. Approximate time spent on searching, procuring, and screening: 20 min. Most excellent.
4) Your accordion folder is your second-best friend. The problem with being a student teacher is that there's no place to put your stuff. As in, you have no desk, no filing cabinet, no closet space. Everything you bring with you, you take home again, and vice-versa. Having to organize handouts, homework (graded and non-graded), late work, ongoing assignments, etc. for three (or four) classes is virtually impossible without an accordion folder. If you find of or know of some other, more ingenious way of organizing, please tell me. For now, I want to give my accordion folder a hug for being so awesome.
5) I will be distraught when fresh figs are no longer in season. Not related to teaching, but totally cool.
6) I have been careful to give my students space to warm up to me; I am a minority in my school, in that I am one of two white women who work there, and one of three white women who are there on a regular basis. I didn't want to crowd them, or be boisterous, or seem nosy or overbearing. Now, on week four, they're finally starting to warm up to me, I think. I guess they had to sniff me out a little, see what I was about. Today on the bus, I ended up sitting near two of my students. We didn't talk about anything earth-shattering--cars and cell phones, hello high school--but it was nice to feel like they weren't going to ignore me after we made eye contact.
7) I love my job. I do. I guess it's not my "job," but it's what I do every day that takes up the bulk of my time, so it's a job even though I'm not getting paid. This is the first time in a long time (since, to be exact, I was working at a hotel with my husband and had a crush on him and looked forward to going to work so that I could be around him) that I've looked forward to going to work. Today I realized that I'm already well into week 4 out of 15 and I got really sad. In week 4! Maybe by week 15 I'll be sick of everything...but for now? I love what I'm doing, my students are (almost) all incredibly rockstar, I've got good lessons going, I'm staying balanced.
I can definitely, definitely do this for 30 years.
12 September 2009
Lazy Saturday
My dad just left after a whirlwind, 24-hour visit. We had a FAN-TAS-TIC time. He got in yesterday and picked me up at school and took me home (shades of elementary school, right there), then we went to Kuma's for dinner (I had a burger called The Lair of the Minotaur, which had brie and bourbon-soaked pears on it, HEY DELICIOUS). Today we went to Uncommon Ground for breakfast, then hit this
RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME exhibit at the mca. It was short, but we had a good time hanging out, riding buses, seeing the city, and drinking icees.
There are definitely times that make me wish I still lived in Cincinnati so that I could hang out with my family more often, and today was one of them.
--
I'm starting to get a little nervous about when I'm actually going to take over the "teaching" portion of this student teaching.
See, on Thursday, I had my first seminar. Seminars are where four or five of us student teachers (who have been grouped by the university) meet for two hours with our university-assigned program adviser, and basically vent like crazy about how things are going. (I.e., this is the only university-approved forum for me to say things like, "Staff meetings are making me ponder seppuku.") At this seminar, we all went around and said where we were student teaching and how things were going. The advisor made sure to ask us when we would be assuming responsibility for classes.
One person started on Tuesday of last week, and will assume teaching duties a week from then, on this upcoming Tuesday.
One person has been at her school for three weeks, and has been teaching FOR THREE WEEKS.
One person has been at her school for two weeks and starts this Monday.
This Monday will start my fourth week. I'm only doing fifteen total. I'm taking control of the double period on Monday, and theoretically, the American Lit class on Tuesday. But the single period World Lit? That one is slow in coming. I don't know what happened last week, but they got so far behind that my cooperating teacher has barely dipped her toe into the unit she had planned.
I can see where she would want to wrap things up nicely, to achieve her goals and create a sense of purpose and accomplishment, but DAMN, WOMAN. I'm already supposed to teach a 400-page book with 28 chapters and two days' worth of pre-reading activities! And I'm not going to come in for free on my days off after December 4 to finish the unit! So let's get a MOVE ON!
I am, however, incredibly excited about being in charge (of some things) starting on Monday. I've got some kickass things planned--or, at least, I think they're kickass--and I'm looking forward to seeing how they actually pan out in reality.
--
Friday was the 8th anniversary of 9/11. Yeah, yeah, teachable moments, reflection, moments of silence, deep pondering, investigation into history--I bet these were things that schools all around the country did.
My school?
Um, at my school, the 9/11 commemoration activity was to get the whole school together to watch Loose Change. If you haven't seen this movie, don't; it's a poorly-edited piece of hyperliberal, finger-pointing propaganda--and this is coming from someone who's a pretty tree-hugging, skeptical-of-the-government liberal herself.
The movie is full of holes, and conspiracy theories abound. Any "documentary" that cites Wikipedia circa 2004 as a reliable source is already skewed and poorly researched, in my opinion.
And now, consider that these students were about 11 years old when 9/11 happened. Consider that their day-to-day survival is clearly the more immediate concern, versus what the insidious American government might be doing to trick us. Consider that these kids haven't seen or heard of "Fahrenheit 9/11" (a much better 9/11 hyperliberal finger-pointing documentary, I think). Consider that two teachers stood in front of the student body and preached at them that The White Government Is Out To Get Them.
I admit that I got pissed off. I tuned out. And not because I'm white--there's a lot of anti-white sentiment in that school, and I try to not let it get to me because it's not personally about me, and let's face it, white people have done a lot of really crappy stuff to black and Hispanic people over the years. No, I got pissed off because it's dangerous and unfair to present that type of movie to impressionable students, and present it as The Truth. Loose Change is no more The Truth than the picture that the media originally painted of 9/11 was The Truth. I can see where the film might fit into a media literacy class, discussing portrayals of events from different standpoints and sources, or part of an activity that asks students to really question what they're being told. Tell these kids that the Twin Towers blew up because the CIA had planted bombs, and they'll believe it. A lot of them probably do, now, because of the presentation on Friday.
It was frustrating. I understand wanting to commemorate 9/11 and inform students of the information that's out there...but this wasn't the way to do it.
RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME exhibit at the mca. It was short, but we had a good time hanging out, riding buses, seeing the city, and drinking icees.
There are definitely times that make me wish I still lived in Cincinnati so that I could hang out with my family more often, and today was one of them.
--
I'm starting to get a little nervous about when I'm actually going to take over the "teaching" portion of this student teaching.
See, on Thursday, I had my first seminar. Seminars are where four or five of us student teachers (who have been grouped by the university) meet for two hours with our university-assigned program adviser, and basically vent like crazy about how things are going. (I.e., this is the only university-approved forum for me to say things like, "Staff meetings are making me ponder seppuku.") At this seminar, we all went around and said where we were student teaching and how things were going. The advisor made sure to ask us when we would be assuming responsibility for classes.
One person started on Tuesday of last week, and will assume teaching duties a week from then, on this upcoming Tuesday.
One person has been at her school for three weeks, and has been teaching FOR THREE WEEKS.
One person has been at her school for two weeks and starts this Monday.
This Monday will start my fourth week. I'm only doing fifteen total. I'm taking control of the double period on Monday, and theoretically, the American Lit class on Tuesday. But the single period World Lit? That one is slow in coming. I don't know what happened last week, but they got so far behind that my cooperating teacher has barely dipped her toe into the unit she had planned.
I can see where she would want to wrap things up nicely, to achieve her goals and create a sense of purpose and accomplishment, but DAMN, WOMAN. I'm already supposed to teach a 400-page book with 28 chapters and two days' worth of pre-reading activities! And I'm not going to come in for free on my days off after December 4 to finish the unit! So let's get a MOVE ON!
I am, however, incredibly excited about being in charge (of some things) starting on Monday. I've got some kickass things planned--or, at least, I think they're kickass--and I'm looking forward to seeing how they actually pan out in reality.
--
Friday was the 8th anniversary of 9/11. Yeah, yeah, teachable moments, reflection, moments of silence, deep pondering, investigation into history--I bet these were things that schools all around the country did.
My school?
Um, at my school, the 9/11 commemoration activity was to get the whole school together to watch Loose Change. If you haven't seen this movie, don't; it's a poorly-edited piece of hyperliberal, finger-pointing propaganda--and this is coming from someone who's a pretty tree-hugging, skeptical-of-the-government liberal herself.
The movie is full of holes, and conspiracy theories abound. Any "documentary" that cites Wikipedia circa 2004 as a reliable source is already skewed and poorly researched, in my opinion.
And now, consider that these students were about 11 years old when 9/11 happened. Consider that their day-to-day survival is clearly the more immediate concern, versus what the insidious American government might be doing to trick us. Consider that these kids haven't seen or heard of "Fahrenheit 9/11" (a much better 9/11 hyperliberal finger-pointing documentary, I think). Consider that two teachers stood in front of the student body and preached at them that The White Government Is Out To Get Them.
I admit that I got pissed off. I tuned out. And not because I'm white--there's a lot of anti-white sentiment in that school, and I try to not let it get to me because it's not personally about me, and let's face it, white people have done a lot of really crappy stuff to black and Hispanic people over the years. No, I got pissed off because it's dangerous and unfair to present that type of movie to impressionable students, and present it as The Truth. Loose Change is no more The Truth than the picture that the media originally painted of 9/11 was The Truth. I can see where the film might fit into a media literacy class, discussing portrayals of events from different standpoints and sources, or part of an activity that asks students to really question what they're being told. Tell these kids that the Twin Towers blew up because the CIA had planted bombs, and they'll believe it. A lot of them probably do, now, because of the presentation on Friday.
It was frustrating. I understand wanting to commemorate 9/11 and inform students of the information that's out there...but this wasn't the way to do it.
07 September 2009
3 Day Weekend
Have we met? Because I love lists. If you didn't know that already, you do now.
1) I'm working on putting lesson plans together at a panicked-type pace these days, simply because as of a week from today, I will Be In Charge of THREE WHOLE CLASSES OMFG! These kids! They will get their learning! From ME! Responsibility be thy name! I realize that I had three straight days off, and I didn't do any actual "planning" per se until today (i.e. put stuff into the Taskstream template that my university requires me to use) but I did do a LOT of thinking and requesting books and movies via the library website.
A caveat: did you realize that the library will only let you put FIVE ITEMS on hold at one time?! That is ridiculous! I need my holds to accomodate both my personal and scholastic needs! I'm wondering if I can go to the library with my teacher ID and tell them that it's totally cool (and actually really necessary) for them to update my capability to put more than 5 things on hold at once.
1.b) In making a lesson plan for Malcolm X, I re-discovered this movie:
Makes you think, doesn't it?
2) Did you know that teachers get a discount at J.Crew? They do. But only if you buy your stuff at a J.Crew store, in person. The arrival of this knowledge makes me wonder what other kinds of discounts I can get. I kind of feel like I did when I moved to England and got my ISIC card and would go everywhere, asking for discounts. As in: "Hi, can I get a discount on this baguette?" "Hi, can I get a discount on this train pass?" "Hi, can I get a discount on this copy of The Daily Mail?" And if I couldn't get a discount, I just wouldn't buy it.
3) Labor Day weekend is like other American holiday weekends in that it means that the cable TV station of your choice will be Having a Marathon. For example--TODAY ALONE!!--TLC has had a Jon & Kate + 8 marathon, followed by a Toddlers & Tiaras marathon, leading up to a Cake Boss marathon. This is all fine and dandy, but I am feeling SOMEWHAT SLIGHTED by the fact that Food Network is NOT having an Ace of Cakes marathon. Should I cut back on my tv consumption? Oh, probably. But look--I need background noise for all the lesson planning.
4) If your significant other volunteers to commandeer cooking dinner, you should let them. BUT--if your significant other volunteers to commandeer cooking dinner, and then announces that s/he will be making prime rib, START SUPERVISING. Last night, Andrew announced his intention to make prime rib for dinner today. I said, okay, cool, let's find a recipe. We did--from one of my favorite favorite recipe blogs. Today, we went to Jewel (because we were smart enough to know that prime rib is expensive stuff, and if we bought it at Whole Foods, we would end up spending $80) to get groceries and other dinner-related necessities. We got there, and asked the butcher to make us a rib roast. He informed us (like I had read last night) that we should plan on serving 2 people per rib, and asked us how many ribs we wanted. Andrew said, "6!!" I said, "Hey, whoa, how about 3 or 4?" I mean, we want leftovers...but not THAT many leftovers. With that information, I went on my merry way, picking out apples and cereal and yogurt. As I'm walking up the canned vegetable aisle, I notice Andrew walking toward me, carrying the Biggest Piece of Meat, Ever. I'm talking a basketball of meat. A yule log of meat. A piece of wood from the petrified forest of meat. It's HUGE. And it is only 4 ribs. And it costs $80. We bought it and brought it home and promptly cut it in half to freeze some. BUT STILL. $80! Imagine if we had gone to Whole Foods! We'd have had to sell the dog!
6) My dad is coming to visit this Friday, and I am SO, SO excited. I realized today that this is the first time, ever, that my dad will have come to visit me by himself and stayed overnight. He's a busy dude, and I'm already making Big Plans so that we can maximize our fun for the short time he's in town. He's picking me up from school on Friday, and then I envision cocktails! Then Kuma's! Then Uncommon Ground (with the dog!) for breakfast! And then maybe the art museum! And then I don't know what! But it's going to be fun!
Anyway, that's all for now. On deck this week: final four days of observation, my first university-led seminar, the necessity of creating a homework sheet, hitting the gym, staying sane, cleaning the house, watching Project Runway, and trying out my dad's air-conditioned seats.
1) I'm working on putting lesson plans together at a panicked-type pace these days, simply because as of a week from today, I will Be In Charge of THREE WHOLE CLASSES OMFG! These kids! They will get their learning! From ME! Responsibility be thy name! I realize that I had three straight days off, and I didn't do any actual "planning" per se until today (i.e. put stuff into the Taskstream template that my university requires me to use) but I did do a LOT of thinking and requesting books and movies via the library website.
A caveat: did you realize that the library will only let you put FIVE ITEMS on hold at one time?! That is ridiculous! I need my holds to accomodate both my personal and scholastic needs! I'm wondering if I can go to the library with my teacher ID and tell them that it's totally cool (and actually really necessary) for them to update my capability to put more than 5 things on hold at once.
1.b) In making a lesson plan for Malcolm X, I re-discovered this movie:
Makes you think, doesn't it?
2) Did you know that teachers get a discount at J.Crew? They do. But only if you buy your stuff at a J.Crew store, in person. The arrival of this knowledge makes me wonder what other kinds of discounts I can get. I kind of feel like I did when I moved to England and got my ISIC card and would go everywhere, asking for discounts. As in: "Hi, can I get a discount on this baguette?" "Hi, can I get a discount on this train pass?" "Hi, can I get a discount on this copy of The Daily Mail?" And if I couldn't get a discount, I just wouldn't buy it.
3) Labor Day weekend is like other American holiday weekends in that it means that the cable TV station of your choice will be Having a Marathon. For example--TODAY ALONE!!--TLC has had a Jon & Kate + 8 marathon, followed by a Toddlers & Tiaras marathon, leading up to a Cake Boss marathon. This is all fine and dandy, but I am feeling SOMEWHAT SLIGHTED by the fact that Food Network is NOT having an Ace of Cakes marathon. Should I cut back on my tv consumption? Oh, probably. But look--I need background noise for all the lesson planning.
4) If your significant other volunteers to commandeer cooking dinner, you should let them. BUT--if your significant other volunteers to commandeer cooking dinner, and then announces that s/he will be making prime rib, START SUPERVISING. Last night, Andrew announced his intention to make prime rib for dinner today. I said, okay, cool, let's find a recipe. We did--from one of my favorite favorite recipe blogs. Today, we went to Jewel (because we were smart enough to know that prime rib is expensive stuff, and if we bought it at Whole Foods, we would end up spending $80) to get groceries and other dinner-related necessities. We got there, and asked the butcher to make us a rib roast. He informed us (like I had read last night) that we should plan on serving 2 people per rib, and asked us how many ribs we wanted. Andrew said, "6!!" I said, "Hey, whoa, how about 3 or 4?" I mean, we want leftovers...but not THAT many leftovers. With that information, I went on my merry way, picking out apples and cereal and yogurt. As I'm walking up the canned vegetable aisle, I notice Andrew walking toward me, carrying the Biggest Piece of Meat, Ever. I'm talking a basketball of meat. A yule log of meat. A piece of wood from the petrified forest of meat. It's HUGE. And it is only 4 ribs. And it costs $80. We bought it and brought it home and promptly cut it in half to freeze some. BUT STILL. $80! Imagine if we had gone to Whole Foods! We'd have had to sell the dog!
6) My dad is coming to visit this Friday, and I am SO, SO excited. I realized today that this is the first time, ever, that my dad will have come to visit me by himself and stayed overnight. He's a busy dude, and I'm already making Big Plans so that we can maximize our fun for the short time he's in town. He's picking me up from school on Friday, and then I envision cocktails! Then Kuma's! Then Uncommon Ground (with the dog!) for breakfast! And then maybe the art museum! And then I don't know what! But it's going to be fun!
Anyway, that's all for now. On deck this week: final four days of observation, my first university-led seminar, the necessity of creating a homework sheet, hitting the gym, staying sane, cleaning the house, watching Project Runway, and trying out my dad's air-conditioned seats.
03 September 2009
2nd Thursday
In the words of Paula Deen: HEY Y'ALL!
I'm happy to say that the concern regarding my 2 preps / 4 classes issue has been alleviated. The plan--which has been cleared by my university adviser--is for me to teach one 50-minute American Literature, one 50-minute World Literature, and one 100-minute World Literature. The 100-minute World Literature, being a double bell, will count as two classes. I'm happy with this compromise, I think, though it means two things:
1) I will have two coordinating teachers, as the 100-minute World Literature is taught by a different teacher than my assigned coordinating teacher. I am okay w/ this, though, because I like this second teacher pretty well and she seems to be happy to give me free rein to do whatever I want.
2) I'm not really sure how I'm going to go about planning for a double bell. The 100-minute class is only held twice a week, so I think the theory is that I will cram two lessons into one period (i.e. I will plan four lessons for World Literature per week; I will teach each one once, to my 50-minute period, and smush two together for my two 100-minute periods). I'm not really sure how that will work without boring my students to tears, so we'll see.
The first book I'm teaching for World Literature is about China, so at the very least, one Thursday I can be all, "SURPRISE!!!" and let them order Chinese food BECAUSE IT'S TOPICAL.
I also find that I am tired ALL THE TIME. I am tired in the morning. I am tired on the bus. I am tired at school, to the point that sometimes I feel like I'm observing my students through a pane of dirty glass. I am tired when I get home. I guess it's just a matter of getting used to the different sleep / time schedule, but DAMN! At first, I kept thinking, How was I able to go to bed at midnight and get up at 6:00 a.m. every day in high school?! But then I realized--ah, yes. I was SEVENTEEN. That explains a lot.
Today is Thursday, which means my best pal will come over later, and we'll eat dinner at watch Project Runway. And tomorrow is Friday. And after that is a 3-day weekend.
All in all, things are pretty good.
I'm happy to say that the concern regarding my 2 preps / 4 classes issue has been alleviated. The plan--which has been cleared by my university adviser--is for me to teach one 50-minute American Literature, one 50-minute World Literature, and one 100-minute World Literature. The 100-minute World Literature, being a double bell, will count as two classes. I'm happy with this compromise, I think, though it means two things:
1) I will have two coordinating teachers, as the 100-minute World Literature is taught by a different teacher than my assigned coordinating teacher. I am okay w/ this, though, because I like this second teacher pretty well and she seems to be happy to give me free rein to do whatever I want.
2) I'm not really sure how I'm going to go about planning for a double bell. The 100-minute class is only held twice a week, so I think the theory is that I will cram two lessons into one period (i.e. I will plan four lessons for World Literature per week; I will teach each one once, to my 50-minute period, and smush two together for my two 100-minute periods). I'm not really sure how that will work without boring my students to tears, so we'll see.
The first book I'm teaching for World Literature is about China, so at the very least, one Thursday I can be all, "SURPRISE!!!" and let them order Chinese food BECAUSE IT'S TOPICAL.
I also find that I am tired ALL THE TIME. I am tired in the morning. I am tired on the bus. I am tired at school, to the point that sometimes I feel like I'm observing my students through a pane of dirty glass. I am tired when I get home. I guess it's just a matter of getting used to the different sleep / time schedule, but DAMN! At first, I kept thinking, How was I able to go to bed at midnight and get up at 6:00 a.m. every day in high school?! But then I realized--ah, yes. I was SEVENTEEN. That explains a lot.
Today is Thursday, which means my best pal will come over later, and we'll eat dinner at watch Project Runway. And tomorrow is Friday. And after that is a 3-day weekend.
All in all, things are pretty good.
31 August 2009
The X is Black
In the interest of staying positive...
When I was a sophomore in college, I took a class from my adviser (the inimitable Dr. Hinson). This particular class was American Survey of Literature, which I took because it was required. I was fully anticipating that we would read some Anne Bradstreet, some Harriet Jacobs, some Walt Whitman--and that did happen.
However, in one of the first classes, we read the following poem. And I love this poem. I've loved this poem from the first time I heard and saw it. This poem reminds me of why I want to become a teacher--so that I can share amazing stuff like this with my students. (I'm also going to be using it as part of my unit on Malcolm X.)
The X is Black by Amiri Baraka
If the flag catch
fire, & an X
burn in, that X is black
& leaves an
empty space. It
is that place
where we live
the Afro American
Nation.
If the flag
catch afire
& an X burn in
the only stripes is
on our back
the only star
blown free
in the northern sky
no red but our
blood, no white
but slavers and Klux in robes
no blue
but our songs
If the flag catch fire
& an X
burn in
that X is black
& the space that is left
is our history
now a mystery
we only live
where the flag
is not
where the air is funky
the music
hot
inside the hole
in the American soul
that space, that place
empty of democracy
we live
inside the burned boundaries
of a wasted symbol
X humans, X slaves, unknown, incorrect
crossed out, multiplying the wealth of others
(From The United States of Poetry,
Ed. Diana Murphy. NY: Abrams, 1996.)
When I was a sophomore in college, I took a class from my adviser (the inimitable Dr. Hinson). This particular class was American Survey of Literature, which I took because it was required. I was fully anticipating that we would read some Anne Bradstreet, some Harriet Jacobs, some Walt Whitman--and that did happen.
However, in one of the first classes, we read the following poem. And I love this poem. I've loved this poem from the first time I heard and saw it. This poem reminds me of why I want to become a teacher--so that I can share amazing stuff like this with my students. (I'm also going to be using it as part of my unit on Malcolm X.)
The X is Black by Amiri Baraka
If the flag catch
fire, & an X
burn in, that X is black
& leaves an
empty space. It
is that place
where we live
the Afro American
Nation.
If the flag
catch afire
& an X burn in
the only stripes is
on our back
the only star
blown free
in the northern sky
no red but our
blood, no white
but slavers and Klux in robes
no blue
but our songs
If the flag catch fire
& an X
burn in
that X is black
& the space that is left
is our history
now a mystery
we only live
where the flag
is not
where the air is funky
the music
hot
inside the hole
in the American soul
that space, that place
empty of democracy
we live
inside the burned boundaries
of a wasted symbol
X humans, X slaves, unknown, incorrect
crossed out, multiplying the wealth of others
(From The United States of Poetry,
Ed. Diana Murphy. NY: Abrams, 1996.)
A Low Threshold for Irritation
You know, this whole student teaching thing would be FINE if people could get their shit together. The kids? The kids are fine. The planning? The planning is fine. The bureaucracy of coordinating staff members and meetings and requirements? JUST KILL ME NOW.
1) Another staff meeting today. Another 2 hours I'll never get back. Also, no prep period today. I really need to write lesson plans, but when I get home at 5:30 and then Andrew leaves and then the dog immediately throws up on the floor? I just don't feel like it, dude. I really don't.
2) Apparently, this fine state requires student teachers to have two preps, and teach four classes. This means: to get my certification, I need to plan two sets of lesson plans for two completely different courses, and teach four classes a day. My coordinating teacher only TEACHES four courses, and is pretty much totally unwilling to let me have all four of them. That's fine, I guess; I can understand not wanting to do anything all day, every day, for the next 3.5 months. So, she said I could have one section of each of her classes--one World Lit, and one American Lit. I emailed my school adviser about this to see if it was copacetic, and his response was: AW HELL NAW, GIRL.
Okay, so what he really said was that the four classes requirement is indeed a requirement, and that I need to fulfill it. He suggested that I teach another teacher's class(es). I say: that's cool, dude, but that gives me three preps and that is more work than this fine state requires and so I'm not going to do that.
The only reasonable conclusion is for my coordinating teacher to give me her whole courseload, which I am NOT stoked about (but whatever), and which she isn't going to do (a big problem). I guess I will have to email her and say: hi, I need to teach everything, kthanxbai, please call my advisor at 555-2929.
3) We are supposed to be observed 4 times throughout the semester by our advisers. In the response email I got about all this stupid prep/classes business, my adviser also threw in this: "I'm going to come observe you next week so Mapquest me some directions OKAY!" I responded: "You are welcome to come visit next week, but I will not be teaching, so I'm not sure how much there will be to actually 'observe.'" HEY! Here's an idea! HOW ABOUT WE FIND A TIME TOGETHER, rather than you TELLING ME when you're going to show up!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
INSERT GRATUITOUS FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1) Another staff meeting today. Another 2 hours I'll never get back. Also, no prep period today. I really need to write lesson plans, but when I get home at 5:30 and then Andrew leaves and then the dog immediately throws up on the floor? I just don't feel like it, dude. I really don't.
2) Apparently, this fine state requires student teachers to have two preps, and teach four classes. This means: to get my certification, I need to plan two sets of lesson plans for two completely different courses, and teach four classes a day. My coordinating teacher only TEACHES four courses, and is pretty much totally unwilling to let me have all four of them. That's fine, I guess; I can understand not wanting to do anything all day, every day, for the next 3.5 months. So, she said I could have one section of each of her classes--one World Lit, and one American Lit. I emailed my school adviser about this to see if it was copacetic, and his response was: AW HELL NAW, GIRL.
Okay, so what he really said was that the four classes requirement is indeed a requirement, and that I need to fulfill it. He suggested that I teach another teacher's class(es). I say: that's cool, dude, but that gives me three preps and that is more work than this fine state requires and so I'm not going to do that.
The only reasonable conclusion is for my coordinating teacher to give me her whole courseload, which I am NOT stoked about (but whatever), and which she isn't going to do (a big problem). I guess I will have to email her and say: hi, I need to teach everything, kthanxbai, please call my advisor at 555-2929.
3) We are supposed to be observed 4 times throughout the semester by our advisers. In the response email I got about all this stupid prep/classes business, my adviser also threw in this: "I'm going to come observe you next week so Mapquest me some directions OKAY!" I responded: "You are welcome to come visit next week, but I will not be teaching, so I'm not sure how much there will be to actually 'observe.'" HEY! Here's an idea! HOW ABOUT WE FIND A TIME TOGETHER, rather than you TELLING ME when you're going to show up!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
INSERT GRATUITOUS FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
29 August 2009
End of Week 1
One down, fourteen to go.
While nothing academic was accomplished during this week, I think I got a good feel for what this experience is going to be like. I've already started committing students' names to memory (which seems to have impressed some of them), and I've already started to keep an eye on a couple of students that I know will end up being trouble in class (and God help me if all 5 or 6 of them end up in the same class at the same time). I'm starting to see the dynamics between staff members, which are helpful in order to navigate situations but make it hard, at times, to remain a neutral party.
One thing that has been harder than I expected is walking the line between being firm and being friendly with students. I think it's because we've been in a less-than-structured environment for the past week, getting to know one another and working on the group dynamic. There haven't been many "disciplinary" moments or opportunities, aside from when I taught the micro-sessions on note-taking on Wednesday (and in that instance, I was fine). Some of these kids are the same age as my little brother--or older. And while I'm nowhere near the point of saying anything like, "Hey, let's hang out this weekend!", if they ask me how long I've been married, I'll answer truthfully without being all evasive and weird. So maybe that's not being friends with them--it's just being honest. And I think things will be different once I am actually teaching classes.
My coordinating teacher and I worked out a schedule for the next few weeks, so that I can start thinking about writing formal lesson plans for the two classes I'm going to be teaching. I've got some good ideas; for one, I've decided to use "The X is Black" by Amiri Baraka as part of my unit on The Autobiography of Malcolm X--which is exciting, because it's one of my favorite favorite favorite poems ever. I read it in my American Survey class during my sophomore year of college and was really blown away--especially since we saw Baraka read it as part of a "United States of Poetry" special that PBS put together--and I think the kids will like it, too.
/end Literature Nerd Rant.
One thing that was very cool about yesterday: there was time to kill in the morning before the cookout happened, and so one of the teachers got up in front of the whole group and gave students the opportunity to take part in an open mic of sorts. As in, if anyone wanted to get up and sing a song, read a poem, do a rap, or dance a little, they could feel free to do so. A couple of kids got up and said short poems they'd written, or sang songs they'd written. About four people in, a girl that I would classify as shy got out of her seat and went up to the microphone. And proceeded to perform, from memory, a lengthy (10+ minutes) poem of her own creation that totally brought down the house. She had to stop three or four times to wait for the cheering to stop so she could go on. Aside from the fact that the poem was incredible--about a cheating, no-good ex-boyfriend--I wouldn't have expected this particular student to give such a powerful performance.
More students got up and performed after her, but hers was really the standout moment of the whole thing. When she was coming through the line for the cookout, and I was handing out cookies, I said to her, "Hey, you know, your poem was awesome." And she made big eyes and said, "Really? You liked it?" And it was kind of like--well yeah, dude, who didn't?
Anyway, today I'm taking it easy and doing Weekend Things Like People Do. I went to the library and the grocery store. I ran five miles. I'm going to make a pumpkin pie, because today August is pretending to be October and that's just fine with me.
The only bad thing: I was at Whole Foods when I was suddenly overcome by a craving for a Pyramid Apricot Ale. Three stores--including Whole Foods--later, I'm empty-handed and more than a little sad. Bonus points to anybody who can deliver some Pyramid Apricot Ale to me. I'll even throw in a piece of pie.
While nothing academic was accomplished during this week, I think I got a good feel for what this experience is going to be like. I've already started committing students' names to memory (which seems to have impressed some of them), and I've already started to keep an eye on a couple of students that I know will end up being trouble in class (and God help me if all 5 or 6 of them end up in the same class at the same time). I'm starting to see the dynamics between staff members, which are helpful in order to navigate situations but make it hard, at times, to remain a neutral party.
One thing that has been harder than I expected is walking the line between being firm and being friendly with students. I think it's because we've been in a less-than-structured environment for the past week, getting to know one another and working on the group dynamic. There haven't been many "disciplinary" moments or opportunities, aside from when I taught the micro-sessions on note-taking on Wednesday (and in that instance, I was fine). Some of these kids are the same age as my little brother--or older. And while I'm nowhere near the point of saying anything like, "Hey, let's hang out this weekend!", if they ask me how long I've been married, I'll answer truthfully without being all evasive and weird. So maybe that's not being friends with them--it's just being honest. And I think things will be different once I am actually teaching classes.
My coordinating teacher and I worked out a schedule for the next few weeks, so that I can start thinking about writing formal lesson plans for the two classes I'm going to be teaching. I've got some good ideas; for one, I've decided to use "The X is Black" by Amiri Baraka as part of my unit on The Autobiography of Malcolm X--which is exciting, because it's one of my favorite favorite favorite poems ever. I read it in my American Survey class during my sophomore year of college and was really blown away--especially since we saw Baraka read it as part of a "United States of Poetry" special that PBS put together--and I think the kids will like it, too.
/end Literature Nerd Rant.
One thing that was very cool about yesterday: there was time to kill in the morning before the cookout happened, and so one of the teachers got up in front of the whole group and gave students the opportunity to take part in an open mic of sorts. As in, if anyone wanted to get up and sing a song, read a poem, do a rap, or dance a little, they could feel free to do so. A couple of kids got up and said short poems they'd written, or sang songs they'd written. About four people in, a girl that I would classify as shy got out of her seat and went up to the microphone. And proceeded to perform, from memory, a lengthy (10+ minutes) poem of her own creation that totally brought down the house. She had to stop three or four times to wait for the cheering to stop so she could go on. Aside from the fact that the poem was incredible--about a cheating, no-good ex-boyfriend--I wouldn't have expected this particular student to give such a powerful performance.
More students got up and performed after her, but hers was really the standout moment of the whole thing. When she was coming through the line for the cookout, and I was handing out cookies, I said to her, "Hey, you know, your poem was awesome." And she made big eyes and said, "Really? You liked it?" And it was kind of like--well yeah, dude, who didn't?
Anyway, today I'm taking it easy and doing Weekend Things Like People Do. I went to the library and the grocery store. I ran five miles. I'm going to make a pumpkin pie, because today August is pretending to be October and that's just fine with me.
The only bad thing: I was at Whole Foods when I was suddenly overcome by a craving for a Pyramid Apricot Ale. Three stores--including Whole Foods--later, I'm empty-handed and more than a little sad. Bonus points to anybody who can deliver some Pyramid Apricot Ale to me. I'll even throw in a piece of pie.
27 August 2009
Reason #1,000,000 Why I Won't Go To A Strip Club In This City
Well, friends, orientation week is nearing a close. Yesterday was spent teaching the same half-hour lesson on Cornell Note-Taking to eight different groups of students. Today was spent doing different team-building activities. Tomorrow is a cookout / game day. Schedules will be handed out on Monday morning, and regular classes will start immediately thereafter.
This morning, students did two activties:
1) A scavenger hunt. One question of the scavenger hunt asked the students to identify the two new members of the staff. As such, I spent half an hour spelling my first and last name over and over and over.
2) An activity called "The Tree of Life." Essentially, students were divided up into smaller groups. Each student was given a large piece of paper and asked to draw a tree and illustrate / label it, from their early lives to the present, in order to tell the story of how they came to be at this school, doing what they're doing, living the lives they lead.
So, okay, I join a table of students and grab myself a piece of paper and some markers and start working on my Tree of Life, trying to set a good example about how to stay on task and do the project. I'm putting down stuff that's happened to me, good and bad.
And then, I start looking around at the Trees that the kids around me are writing, and thinking about how what I've got on my Tree must look like compared with their Trees.
Item: "My dog dies. My parents get me a rabbit." vs. "I am born. My daddy already has 17 kids."
Item: "My parents get divorced." vs. "October 1999, my daddy dies. November 2000, my mom dies."
Item: "I move to California." vs. "I get locked up for the first time."
Item: "I decide to study abroad." vs. "I get three stars." (i.e. killed three people as part of gang violence)
Item: "I start college." vs. "I start stripping." (And yes, this student is still a stripper. It's how he supports his girlfriend and their two kids. Going to work to strip was actually what he had to do after school today. He's 19.)
I'm not saying it's a comparison study, or that I feel sorry for these kids, or that I'm embarassed by the fact that I put down "I fail physics" and remember how much that sucked when my students are talking about serious life-or-death things that have happened to them throughout almost every year of their lives.
I just feel out of touch, more than a little out of my depth. I know that kids like these are all over the streets of this city; in the neighborhoods I visit and the circles I run in, I don't encounter them on a personal level. Yeah, I know we're going to get along fine--most of them are really great kids, no matter what kinds of crazy things they've done. We'll talk about books, and I'll nag them to do their homework, and they'll talk too much in class, and I'll get irritated.
Just a week ago, I complained about rude, grouchy guests in the restaurant. I disdained wine that we pour for $13 a glass. And now, getting to know my students a little better, I feel like an asshole for taking my good fortune so lightly. Somewhere, I replaced my gratitude with a sense of entitlement regarding a status and position in life that is purely an accident of birth. I feel--for lack of better phrasing--so white and suburban that it makes my skin crawl a little.
Perspective: it's a good thing.
Also--tomorrow's cookout is going to be delicious. Fried fish, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, etc etc etc. Sign me up.
This morning, students did two activties:
1) A scavenger hunt. One question of the scavenger hunt asked the students to identify the two new members of the staff. As such, I spent half an hour spelling my first and last name over and over and over.
2) An activity called "The Tree of Life." Essentially, students were divided up into smaller groups. Each student was given a large piece of paper and asked to draw a tree and illustrate / label it, from their early lives to the present, in order to tell the story of how they came to be at this school, doing what they're doing, living the lives they lead.
So, okay, I join a table of students and grab myself a piece of paper and some markers and start working on my Tree of Life, trying to set a good example about how to stay on task and do the project. I'm putting down stuff that's happened to me, good and bad.
And then, I start looking around at the Trees that the kids around me are writing, and thinking about how what I've got on my Tree must look like compared with their Trees.
Item: "My dog dies. My parents get me a rabbit." vs. "I am born. My daddy already has 17 kids."
Item: "My parents get divorced." vs. "October 1999, my daddy dies. November 2000, my mom dies."
Item: "I move to California." vs. "I get locked up for the first time."
Item: "I decide to study abroad." vs. "I get three stars." (i.e. killed three people as part of gang violence)
Item: "I start college." vs. "I start stripping." (And yes, this student is still a stripper. It's how he supports his girlfriend and their two kids. Going to work to strip was actually what he had to do after school today. He's 19.)
I'm not saying it's a comparison study, or that I feel sorry for these kids, or that I'm embarassed by the fact that I put down "I fail physics" and remember how much that sucked when my students are talking about serious life-or-death things that have happened to them throughout almost every year of their lives.
I just feel out of touch, more than a little out of my depth. I know that kids like these are all over the streets of this city; in the neighborhoods I visit and the circles I run in, I don't encounter them on a personal level. Yeah, I know we're going to get along fine--most of them are really great kids, no matter what kinds of crazy things they've done. We'll talk about books, and I'll nag them to do their homework, and they'll talk too much in class, and I'll get irritated.
Just a week ago, I complained about rude, grouchy guests in the restaurant. I disdained wine that we pour for $13 a glass. And now, getting to know my students a little better, I feel like an asshole for taking my good fortune so lightly. Somewhere, I replaced my gratitude with a sense of entitlement regarding a status and position in life that is purely an accident of birth. I feel--for lack of better phrasing--so white and suburban that it makes my skin crawl a little.
Perspective: it's a good thing.
Also--tomorrow's cookout is going to be delicious. Fried fish, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, etc etc etc. Sign me up.
25 August 2009
Staff Meetings
Total days of student teaching: 2
Total hours of staff meetings incurred therein: 5.5
Okay. Call me crazy, but so far it seems like the most horrid part about teaching is enduring staff meetings.
What I've witnessed so far is worse than any sorority meeting, worse than any prom committee meeting, worse than any parent-teaching meeting, worse than any restaurant pre-shift I've ever been party to. Each day so far, I've watched grown, professional adults sit in a room and bicker. And I don't even mean bickering about important things, like yearly goals or standardized testing or disciplinary plans. I'm talking bickering about stuff like who's in charge of large group, or whether or not a team building activity involving water balloons is a good idea or not.
About 2 hours into a 2.5 hour meeting today, I felt like standing up and saying, "Shut up! Just SHUT UP! Let's have the varying sides in this discussion make their point in a minute or less per person, and then let's take a vote and be done with it!"
THE MOST IRRITATING PART OF ALL is that every single teacher in the meeting, by the end of the meeting, was grumbling about not having time for lesson plans or working on the new teaching initiative. Do you know why there isn't time for lesson planning or working on the new teaching initiative, and why there potentially won't be time for grading or eating or showering or going to the gym or watching movies or going to the park?
BECAUSE OF ALL THE BICKERING, THAT'S WHY. Part of me wants to drive to Ohio, sneak into any Greek house, steal the gavels that everyone inevitably uses during their meetings, drive back home, go to school, and thrust the gavel at someone and say, "For the love of GOD--USE THIS TO KEEP US IN LINE."
*insert deep breath*
Good things about today:
--This glass of wine I'm currently enjoying
--I have a rocking framework for my unit on The Autobiography of Malcolm X
--Tomorrow is Wednesday
and, best of all:
--Tomorrow I am in charge of teaching a mini-lesson on note-taking strategies with a focus on the Cornell Notes style of note-taking. I made a demo sheet to pass out to students to show what Cornell Notes look like when done correctly. And all of the examples are about Lil Wayne.
Total hours of staff meetings incurred therein: 5.5
Okay. Call me crazy, but so far it seems like the most horrid part about teaching is enduring staff meetings.
What I've witnessed so far is worse than any sorority meeting, worse than any prom committee meeting, worse than any parent-teaching meeting, worse than any restaurant pre-shift I've ever been party to. Each day so far, I've watched grown, professional adults sit in a room and bicker. And I don't even mean bickering about important things, like yearly goals or standardized testing or disciplinary plans. I'm talking bickering about stuff like who's in charge of large group, or whether or not a team building activity involving water balloons is a good idea or not.
About 2 hours into a 2.5 hour meeting today, I felt like standing up and saying, "Shut up! Just SHUT UP! Let's have the varying sides in this discussion make their point in a minute or less per person, and then let's take a vote and be done with it!"
THE MOST IRRITATING PART OF ALL is that every single teacher in the meeting, by the end of the meeting, was grumbling about not having time for lesson plans or working on the new teaching initiative. Do you know why there isn't time for lesson planning or working on the new teaching initiative, and why there potentially won't be time for grading or eating or showering or going to the gym or watching movies or going to the park?
BECAUSE OF ALL THE BICKERING, THAT'S WHY. Part of me wants to drive to Ohio, sneak into any Greek house, steal the gavels that everyone inevitably uses during their meetings, drive back home, go to school, and thrust the gavel at someone and say, "For the love of GOD--USE THIS TO KEEP US IN LINE."
*insert deep breath*
Good things about today:
--This glass of wine I'm currently enjoying
--I have a rocking framework for my unit on The Autobiography of Malcolm X
--Tomorrow is Wednesday
and, best of all:
--Tomorrow I am in charge of teaching a mini-lesson on note-taking strategies with a focus on the Cornell Notes style of note-taking. I made a demo sheet to pass out to students to show what Cornell Notes look like when done correctly. And all of the examples are about Lil Wayne.
24 August 2009
The First Day
Going through the minutiae of today would take too long, so I made this list:
1) Once I start teaching, Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be my easy days. Monday, I teach one section of World Lit; Wednesdays, I teach two sections of American Lit. Yes, that's really all.
2) Most of my female students wore fierce heels today that I doubt I could walk in.
3) Of all the kids there today, I saw one white student. She is 16, pregnant, and lives in a homeless shelter.
4) More than anything else, the most difficult thing I have encountered so far is navigating the personalities that make up the faculty. As in: who is friends, who hates each other, who thinks who is lazy, etc. I don't really know my place, and feel like I don't know my boundaries and responsibilities.
5) Students left at 2:15 p.m.; I left at 5:15 p.m., following a 3-hour staff meeting. Is this a precedent? God, I hope not.
6) I am making cookies for the all-school cookout on Friday, and I am EXCITED because I LOVE BAKING and students LOVE COOKIES, so hopefully we can bond over this a little.
7) I recognize some students from my observations last year, but I don't know anybody's name.
8) I MIGHT GET TO TEACH HAMLET.
9) All the students at the school receive free lunches. However, there is no school kitchen, so the lunches usually consist of a cold-cut sandwich, a bag of chips, some pre-packaged cookies or a wrinkly piece of fruit, and one of those janky juice boxes composed of a plastic cup filled with juice and covered with a piece of tinfoil. This lack of hot lunches is a HUGE sticking point with students. Today, students were asked to list what they liked about last year, what they disliked about last year, and what they would like to see improved this year. Every single group mentioned the caliber of the lunches. I don't really know what the sticking point is with this, but I'm tempted to put up my hand at the next staff meeting and say, "LET ME WRITE A GRANT PROPOSAL FOR THIS."
10) The first full sentence that any student said to me today (besides "Hi," "How are you?" and "What's your name?") was "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like that girl from 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'?" (Meaning Uma Thurman) I said I didn't know what he was talking about, but was thinking, Nope, and nobody's ever told me that I look like Mariska Hargitay, either.
1) Once I start teaching, Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be my easy days. Monday, I teach one section of World Lit; Wednesdays, I teach two sections of American Lit. Yes, that's really all.
2) Most of my female students wore fierce heels today that I doubt I could walk in.
3) Of all the kids there today, I saw one white student. She is 16, pregnant, and lives in a homeless shelter.
4) More than anything else, the most difficult thing I have encountered so far is navigating the personalities that make up the faculty. As in: who is friends, who hates each other, who thinks who is lazy, etc. I don't really know my place, and feel like I don't know my boundaries and responsibilities.
5) Students left at 2:15 p.m.; I left at 5:15 p.m., following a 3-hour staff meeting. Is this a precedent? God, I hope not.
6) I am making cookies for the all-school cookout on Friday, and I am EXCITED because I LOVE BAKING and students LOVE COOKIES, so hopefully we can bond over this a little.
7) I recognize some students from my observations last year, but I don't know anybody's name.
8) I MIGHT GET TO TEACH HAMLET.
9) All the students at the school receive free lunches. However, there is no school kitchen, so the lunches usually consist of a cold-cut sandwich, a bag of chips, some pre-packaged cookies or a wrinkly piece of fruit, and one of those janky juice boxes composed of a plastic cup filled with juice and covered with a piece of tinfoil. This lack of hot lunches is a HUGE sticking point with students. Today, students were asked to list what they liked about last year, what they disliked about last year, and what they would like to see improved this year. Every single group mentioned the caliber of the lunches. I don't really know what the sticking point is with this, but I'm tempted to put up my hand at the next staff meeting and say, "LET ME WRITE A GRANT PROPOSAL FOR THIS."
10) The first full sentence that any student said to me today (besides "Hi," "How are you?" and "What's your name?") was "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like that girl from 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'?" (Meaning Uma Thurman) I said I didn't know what he was talking about, but was thinking, Nope, and nobody's ever told me that I look like Mariska Hargitay, either.
23 August 2009
gearing up
this is not about student teaching, because student teaching does not start until tomorrow and so i really don't have anything to say yet.
except for this:
1) having a self-imposed bedtime is LAME!
2) WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR?!?!
moving on.
oh my GOD is today beautiful. the whole day has been a 65-degree, no-clouds-in-the-sky, pick-some-apples, play-outside, snuggle-under-a-blanket, delicious, wishing-the-leaves-were-turning, interlude-to-fall kind of day. today makes me wish there was a football game on.
this morning i got up around 8:30, feeling a little fuzzy and puff-bellied which is likely due to the fact that i got home around 3:00 after drinking wine and eating takeout chinese food at malleigh's house.
i had a pretty basic, specific list of things to do today that looked a little like this:
--go to the grocery
--go to the gym
--take the dog for a walk
--finish reading the autobiography of malcolm x
--make chicken and dumplings for dinner
--do odds and ends crap to get ready for STUDENT TEACHING WHICH STARTS TOMORROW OH MY GOD
and this stuff didn't really need to happen in any order, so i hung around until andrew got home and we spent a little time together, eating cereal and puttering around on the internet. when andrew went to bed, the dog was acting all indignant about being awake and alive and unentertained, but i elected to go to the grocery store first instead of taking the dog for a walk. i mean, generally, when we leave the dog alone and he's un-walked, he'll just take a nap. it's no big deal.
so i rode my bike to the grocery store and bought a case of pamplemousse lacroix, some sugar-free coffeemate, and a snazzy collapsible coleman lunchbox (with an adjustable shoulder strap! because i'm cool like that! and i hate it when my nectarines get squashed!).
and i walk in the front door and am confronted by the following things:
(this was the part where the dog decided to get all up in my grillpiece while i took photos of the damage he did)
the bits of wood all over the ground in the entryway are from this christmas ornament made out of birch bark in the shape of a bear (i think?), also known as a wijdan
this is approximately 0.75 of a new roll of toilet paper.
the left shoe was in the hallway...
...while the right shoe was in this crowning position--placed squarely in a puddle of pee.
the dog is lucky he is so cute--otherwise, i would have thrown him off a boat a long time ago.
after much chastising and clean-up and putting away of groceries, we went to the dog beach. i talked to my mom on the phone. i went to the gym. i started the chicken and dumplings. i've been reading my book. i've packed my lunch, run the dishwasher, and done laundry.
if this keeps up, sundays will be my favorite days of the week again.
except for this:
1) having a self-imposed bedtime is LAME!
2) WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR?!?!
moving on.
oh my GOD is today beautiful. the whole day has been a 65-degree, no-clouds-in-the-sky, pick-some-apples, play-outside, snuggle-under-a-blanket, delicious, wishing-the-leaves-were-turning, interlude-to-fall kind of day. today makes me wish there was a football game on.
this morning i got up around 8:30, feeling a little fuzzy and puff-bellied which is likely due to the fact that i got home around 3:00 after drinking wine and eating takeout chinese food at malleigh's house.
i had a pretty basic, specific list of things to do today that looked a little like this:
--go to the grocery
--go to the gym
--take the dog for a walk
--finish reading the autobiography of malcolm x
--make chicken and dumplings for dinner
--do odds and ends crap to get ready for STUDENT TEACHING WHICH STARTS TOMORROW OH MY GOD
and this stuff didn't really need to happen in any order, so i hung around until andrew got home and we spent a little time together, eating cereal and puttering around on the internet. when andrew went to bed, the dog was acting all indignant about being awake and alive and unentertained, but i elected to go to the grocery store first instead of taking the dog for a walk. i mean, generally, when we leave the dog alone and he's un-walked, he'll just take a nap. it's no big deal.
so i rode my bike to the grocery store and bought a case of pamplemousse lacroix, some sugar-free coffeemate, and a snazzy collapsible coleman lunchbox (with an adjustable shoulder strap! because i'm cool like that! and i hate it when my nectarines get squashed!).
and i walk in the front door and am confronted by the following things:
(this was the part where the dog decided to get all up in my grillpiece while i took photos of the damage he did)
the bits of wood all over the ground in the entryway are from this christmas ornament made out of birch bark in the shape of a bear (i think?), also known as a wijdan
this is approximately 0.75 of a new roll of toilet paper.
the left shoe was in the hallway...
...while the right shoe was in this crowning position--placed squarely in a puddle of pee.
the dog is lucky he is so cute--otherwise, i would have thrown him off a boat a long time ago.
after much chastising and clean-up and putting away of groceries, we went to the dog beach. i talked to my mom on the phone. i went to the gym. i started the chicken and dumplings. i've been reading my book. i've packed my lunch, run the dishwasher, and done laundry.
if this keeps up, sundays will be my favorite days of the week again.
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