Hitting My Stride

This was a good work week for me. I am finally feeling more comfortable as a teacher – I’m thinking of myself as a teacher. One reason is that I can feel that the students think of me as their teacher, ask me questions as their teacher, come to me with concerns etc. I am also feeling more comfortable with the classroom management side of things. On Friday during 2nd period, we had a few different activities going on during the period, and part of the time was allotted to a writing assignment. The students were supposed to be working independently, but were having a hard time getting quiet and on task. I had to tell them to get back on task. When we were reflecting after, Mr. M told me that he liked how I handled the situation – he said that I was polite, respectful, but abrupt in the way that I asked them to get back on task, which he said made it clear that I was firm on the issue. I’ve mentioned before that I am uncomfortable "disciplining", so it was good to hear that I handled it well. The most important thing to me is that I find my own style, and that I am fair, consistent, and respectful of each of my students.

Another reason I am feeling more like a teacher, more excited about the profession, more like I’ve found the right profession for me was because I attended the Arizona English Teachers’ Association conference this weekend. It was an uh-mazing experience, I learned so many new and interesting things, books to suggest to my students, techniques to use in the classroom, etc. I appreciated being with people who are passionate about the same things I am, and talking to them about their experiences and the things they do in their classroom. Also, the food was really really good – and free food equals WIN when you are a student teacher. Also also, on Friday night of the conference, there was a performance by spoken word/slam poet Merlyn Hepworth. He rocked my socks off... here is a video of him performing the first poem he performed for us. It's about being caught between two cultures (he is half Caucasion, and half Chicano). It's powerful and amazing:

Overall, good week, I'm doing well, still trying to get through the Tartuffe essays and not getting a whole lot of sleep with prepping still taking me a long time. But I'm happy and I'm learning a lot, and those are the most important things.

Let's do the Time Warp.

"It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right, put your hands on your hips..."

Wait no, I'm not talking about a fun dance performed by a sweet transvestite and his minions. I'm talking about how time works, well, differently, when you are a teacher. That's the only way to explain why a Power Point I spent HOURS creating only takes one hour to present. Or how 5 minutes until the bell rings feels like 20 when you've run out of things to teach, but feels like 5 seconds when you still have too much to teach. It feels like I'm in a time warp, nothing takes the amount of time I think it will, and I've lost all sense of what time means anymore. It's forcing me to get creative, especially when I have too much time leftover - I give them reading time, or I try to think of an interesting discussion topic, anything so they don't know that I am freaking out inside. My mentor teacher likes to give them time to just relax and talk, and I've come to find that can be useful. I especially like to use it at the end of class, maybe 3-5 minutes, and I present it as a reward for their good behavior during quiet reading time or during independent work time during the lesson. I say something like, "You were really good today" or "You had some good discussions" today, "So you can have some time to chat and relax." But then of course if you are running out of time for the lesson, those few minutes are so precious. Like I said, time is a weird ever-changing thing when you're a teacher. That's life in a vacuum.

To go back to Time Warp, the song, I will say these lyrics hold true to the teaching career:

"It's astounding;
Time is fleeting;
Madness takes its toll."

I'm mainly enjoying myself and I think I'm doing a good job, but I constantly feel a bit panicked and on the verge of insanity. I feel guilty for doing anything fun and I know that if I have any free time, I should be planning or grading essays. I tend to shut down when I get panicked or stressed, and that puts me further behind. I'm trying to calm down, but I'm not comfortable enough with it all yet. So madness is definitely taking its toll. I dream strange dreams every night and just can't seem to turn my brain off. Ah, the crazy life of a teacher.

Also, I would like to give myself props for somehow relating Rocky Horror Show and teaching. I can always fall back on a musical to help me out :D

Dun, dun, dun, dun.... ESSAY GRADING!

Apparently, essay grading is worse than being chased by a shark in the middle of the ocean. Apparently, it is the demon spawn of all that is unholy and it will eat my life and I will be sucked into a vortex of bad grammar and word vomit and death and carnage. Or at least that's how my mentor teacher is making it sound.

This week, our unit on Tartuffe is coming to an end, and I’m starting to feel a sense of the overwhelming nature of ending one unit and starting another. I am doing the unit on A Tale of Two Cities on my own, and trying to figure out how to do it is freaking me out a little bit. On top of that, I am about to have essays to grade: On Friday (continuing on Monday for our third group), we had our first big exam with the sophomores, their test on Tartuffe. The test included an essay portion (done in class). This will be my first real experience grading essays – about 100 essays, no less. My mentor teacher has been pretty much putting “the fear of God” into me about how terrible and time-consuming essay grading is, on top of starting a new unit and everything else I have to do. I’m pretty nervous about it as well because this will be the first time that my essay grading will really matter and count (I helped mentor teachers in my internships, etc. but didn't do the full experience). I’m nervous because I know how Mr. M grades (he’s tough, and he’s smart), and I’m worried I won’t be tough enough or won’t measure up. We are figuring out the best way to have me do this – what we decided on is that he would grade one batch this past weekend, and tomorrow we will look over and discuss the ones he graded, and I will grade the rest on my own using his as examples. I am still nervous but at least I have support and I will figure it out.

And I haven't yet had any nightmares about demon essays chasing me down endless halls of devastating gloom and sadness. But there's still time yet.

Kids are germ disseminators

... and I have a terrible immune system. Got my first case of the "I'm a teacher and around kids all day" sickness - I've been out of commission the last two days. Blergh. I felt terrible missing school, but my mentor teacher insisted that I stay home. I just know that when I'm an actual teacher, it won't be that easy so I don't want to be spoiled now. But I guess it's better than getting my teacher and all the students sick. I thought this only happened to elementary school teachers, but I guess high school students don't always wash their hands either. And besides that fact, I'm stuck in a dank, freezing cold room day after day. Our room doesn't even have windows - it's seriously like Gollum's cave. When I leave the classroom and go into the bright sunlight, it's like I've entered another world. I'm pretty sure my mentor teacher likes it that way. PS I would like to point out that being a student teacher is thus far the weirdest experience of my life. Weird in a good way, but weird nonetheless. There's a huge difference between being a teacher and being a student, and it really requires a complete change in the way you think. It's sort of hard to describe, but I'm still at a place where it's a little uncomfortable but the switch in my brain is starting to flip.