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.
25 September 2009
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.
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