First week of teaching, DONE!
The beauty of being in a new building is that everything is shiny and new (except the chairs and desks, which I think were brought over from the temporary campus). Those scuff marks on the tiles? I PUT THEM THERE. Not some previous teacher in the 1960′s. I’ve already made my mark on this place. The bad thing about being in a new building is that it isn’t entirely… finished. There were holes in my floor the first two days of school where there were some exposed wires. It was awesome. Anyway, two men came in my class on the second day of school and were installing the covers for the holes right smack in the middle (both in terms of space and in terms of time) of class. Of course, this was a bit distracting, but it wasn’t the hugest deal. We joked about it, they did their thing, class moved on. When they finished up (halfway through my conference period an hour later) they said “man, you’re probably going to be their coolest teacher ever!” And we talked for a good 3 minutes. They liked the way I interacted with the students, and they liked the way I taught. This was just the encouragement I needed after feeling like students were bored out of their minds and not quite feeling class. I remembered talking last year with a few teacher/teacher-in-training friends about needing to cling to the good things that happen each day to help us survive the rough patches.
So after that long long intro, here are just a few of my favorite moments from the week:
We were talking about funding and attendance and the scenario we were given was about being able to fund a trip to go see “The Nutcracker,” with the money received from high attendance rates.
The class: [more laughter than necessary] Haha… nut… cracker… nuts… NUTS!
Me: [stifled laugh] Does anybody know what The Nutcracker is?
Girl: Yeah, I saw the movie!
Me: Good! Okay, what was it about, do you think that would be a fun or at least okay field trip?
Girl: I guess… not really… I mean it’s about Barbie, right?
Me: … Oh… I think that’s the Barbie version of the story…
Class: MAN I’d rather be here than some stupid ass Barbie dance!
We were filling out this “About Me” thing on a ‘myspace’ assignment thing I made and a group of boys in the front row were cracking up.
Me: What happened?
Boy 1: Show her! Show her! Show her your paper!
Me: What? Yeah, show me! What did you write?
Boy 2: No! He wrote it, not me!
[Boy 1 and Boy 2 begin fighting over the paper]
[I decide not to push it and move on to check in with some other students]
[Boy 3 has magically joined the mix and triumphed with the clandestine myspace assignment.]
Boy 3: [as he hands me the paper] Here, Miss! [I take the paper to see what the big deal was]
The paper: “I just got my period.”
Me: …
(Oh, 9th graders)
A girl who seemed disengaged in class asking if she could stay in my class at lunch to work on her homework. We listen to music and chat.
Co-Workers continuing to be the most awesome staff I could ever hope to be a part of.
A few funny names but I probably shouldn’t go there online. Just ask me in person.
Being called Ms. Coooooooool (along with Ms. Jamon and ditching a last name altogether to just call me Miiiiiiiiiss!) more often than Ms. Hamm. But not because I’m cool. Because I apparently say cooool a lot. And after each time, my entire period two says cooooooooool for like 10 seconds just to drive the point home.
I also apparently always have my hands on my stomach. This got pointed out on the first day of school in two of my classes when they asked me if I was pregnant. This was… umm… coooooool of them to ask! I’ve since worked very hard to break the habit. Unfortunately it means I talk with my hands more than ever.
Meeting with my advisory class yesterday and having them actually engage in the activities. The first 2 class meetings were a struggle, to say the least. Yesterday though, the students who had been rolling their eyes the last two days asked me if I could jerk and cracked up at my 1 second demonstration. Another girl was joking and smiling and telling me that she’s “really really crazy once you get to know me.” Kind of reminded me of me back then.
Seriously though, it’s been good. I can honestly say that my students crack me up, that a lot of them have already started to work hard, and that I love being there doing what I’m doing. I can already see which class period is going to be my toughest. So far I have found myself questioning my career path every day that my hard class has met… the other class periods make it all better.
Another hard thing to grasp is that as a 9th grade teacher, I have to undergo the struggle of breaking students into the culture of our school. It is a lot more interactive and community based than their middle schools or even most high schools (at least in LA). By the time they get to be 10th and 11th graders, they are great. Angelic, even. There is a lot of resistance from the 9th graders, though. Already there have been some victories (I went from disliking two class periods and my advisory to only having issues with one of them). I just know that the resistance is probably going to be one of the hardest things on me.
It’s all good though. I wanted to transform students, transform their education. I have my work cut out for me, but I also have the opportunity to do just that.
