I alays wanted to be Road Warrior Hawk back in the hey-day of tag team wrestling in the WWF.

Ben, why did you ever tell me my weekends would be free?

I don't think I've had a real day off in forever. Sure, there's been plenty of fun along the way, both the type I can talk about and the type I can't, but with all the weekend traveling I've done (4th of July, visiting Catherine in Nashville, searching for apartments in Jackson, etc.) I've been pretty worn down by it all. And it shows. It'll just be really nice when the summer is over, not that it's been a bad summer by any means, but just to be able to curl up in bed with a book and sleep once every so often and feel refreshed would be nice. But hey, would you like a little whine with your cheese, Dave?

First thing's first: the reunion was spectacular. The ever modest Ben would have us think that Ginny did all the work, and let's face it, Ginny rocks our socks off even when we wish they would just stay on, but I saw how stressed and busy our Mr. Guest was all week. I'm very into taking pride in what I've done and where I've been, and MTCorps is right up there somewhere in between Notre Dame and those crazy Saints from Seton Catholic Central. The town hall meeting could have been run a little smoother but was a general success and the dinner with the keynote from former Governor William Winter was fantastic. (Fantastic? General success? Whatever, go look this stuff up in your own damn thesaurus.) I do enjoy putting on my fancy pants for a fancy pants sort of dinner now and again, and usually there's a small degree of discomfort throughout those sort of nights, but not so here. I small talked with the best of the alumni, who are generally interesting and interested people, it was the best dinner I've had in awhile, and Winter's speech was short, energetic, and captivating while providing some real substance. If (And that is a big if.) I live to be 82 years old someday, I'm not planning on doing much besides enjoying being brain dead and watching Jerry Springer all day in bed, let alone being a sharp, witty, energetic character who writes brilliant speeches and commands the respect of his audience not by age but by sheer merit and skill. I was expecting to be somewhat underwhelmed by this somewhat famed Mississippi politician but was pleasantly and decidedly overwhelmed. I would really, truly like to personally thank you for the night, Ben, and I hope you know that the whole weekend, especially Saturday night, was a glowing success.

So, Mr. I'm The Best Small Talker Since Oscar Wilde, is that all that occurred during this awesome night? No way, Jose. Afterwards, the alumni beat us to the punch inviting us out for drinks, and fortunately they paid for our drinks at Murff's. Great conversation ensued - these alumni are decent people, and I mean that in a very positive way. They are good freakin' people. I learned a great deal and was never was patronized, almost like I'm a real adult now like I always thought I might be some day. The details aren't particularly important, but suffice to say it was something of a coming-of-age moment (The post-adolescent Delusions of Grandeur are just rolling off my tongue tonight, huh?), as in, "Holy crap, I'm a teacher and a real human being now!" And frankly, even if you're not the type to get drunk anymore, having a face-to-face heart-felt talk and meeting new people over a few quaffs of brew at ye olde public house is a time-honored social tradition which I fully appreciate and I feel is a somewhat dying art. That's neither here nor there, but hey, I hope you feel silly and guilty if you can't appreciate that and don't have a mature excuse to not attend a respectable social gathering, especially with people who have traveled many a mile to do exactly that with you.

Of course, the drinking of many more beverages of ill repute capped the whole affair as a wonderfully and painfully long night, turning into morning which turned into day again like the change of the gods' beautiful seasons, but I suppose for present purposes we can give a nostalgic grin for all our lost and reckless days of youth and move on.

Before I begin the graded, assigned portion of this post, let me just offer some suggestions for next year to the Powers That Be. Mandating blog-work: good. Assigned blogs: bad. You may or may not agree, and I realize this suggestion may not be terribly practical, but I personally feel much more impelled to write when I don't have to. As soon as I have a specific topic and a deadline, the reverse psychology rears its ugly head; I wait until the last minute and dread coming to the actual content about which I'm being compelled to write for a grade. Of course this is just me, but I feel like the whole blog thing would have gone more swimmingly for me if someone had said, "Write one blog every weekend this summer about something pertinent to the MTCorps experience." The blogs I wrote in the beginning and portions of some of my later work that didn't feel forced were much more insightful, better written, and more enjoyable than the assigned stuff. Again, I know there's probably not much to be done about it, but still, this is my blog and you have to read it.

And by the way, Ben, since you love the competitive aspect of the program, which I also love, you might want to check out the Alliance for Catholic Education. The address is http://ace.nd.edu/. There are some glaring differences, with the emphasis being on Catholic schools throughout the South (as opposed to public schools) among other things, but it's incredibly, incredibly similar to MTCorps. Also, one point I remember one of the alumni making was that programs like ours and TFA and whatever other programs are out there should really work together to place teachers. Competition is one thing, but it is all about the schools and the kids, right? I haven't put a whole lot of thought into it, but at face-value, I totally agree with that sentiment, and you may want to really think about it.

Okay, so here we go, another post about another video-taped lesson. Now that I'm actually writing lesson plans, it's all simulatnesously easier and more difficult. It's a lot tougher to fine tune lesson plans, tweak my classroom style here and there in addition to rules and procedures, manage time to the minute, etc., but it's a whole different world from going in to summer school and saying, "Hey kids, for the next three hours we'll be reading some short story and maybe if we get done we can have some fun library time. I'm a teacher!" The lesson that was taped actually was one of my better efforts for this team teaching stuff, so I'll just go over a few fine points and move on to some general reflections about my strength and weaknesses.

Apparently, I've eliminated the word "like" from my vocabulary overnight, something that my old mock trial coach and Latin teacher Mr. Hyland wanted to just plain beat out of me for years. And for some funny reason, watching the lesson taught by Ms. Logan has also made me a slow, precise, thoughtful, and detailed public speaker overnight as well. How that happened, I don't know, but nonetheless I watch the tape and this is what I see. I sound professional. I still sound stupid, of course, because I'm watching myself on tape, but also professional in any event. I have a really commanding style but can also be humorous and empathetic which really manifested in the tape in a way it didn't to me from our written feedback. But of course, there's a downside to it all, and it was obvious that I had no idea how to begin the class and end it. Rather, I had no idea how to both review and preview during both the set and closure, and if I was a student in my own class I would be confused as all hell what is expected and what we've been doing in generall terms. Although, I do repeat, repeat, repeat to emphasize whatever may be important, content-wise or procedural. Still, it's something to work on. I also need to slow my lesson planning down, and by that I mean I'm not necessarily bad at time management and transitions, I just happen to plan a 4 day lesson and try to cram it in the space of 40 minutes. To my credit, I've gotten infinitely better at this since the time I was taped, but wow, I just lectured and lectured and rushed and rushed and obviously felt like I got nowhere. I'm slowly but surely learning the value of involving students in as many ways as possible and independent practice, but lecturing and trying to present as much information as I possibly can is going to be a major issue that I'll need to keep in check in the future.

Before I end this post, this leads me to one final issue. While I still prefer a goold, old-fashioned fist fight, or a civilized game of chess, the Sport of Kings, I have read your comments from before, Ben, and I'm taking your point to heart and giving you my naive benefit of the doubt. At the risk of sounding like a snob, one comment I've gotten every single day is that my command and depth of content knowledge really helps keeps students engaged and respectful and is a fine strong point for me, and I'm going to continue wearing that as a badge of honor until the day I die I suspect. Again, however, point taken, and I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. I will say that I understand from this that I need to learn that my teaching personality doesn't necessarily work for others, nor should it, and I'm imagining that some humbling moments are coming my way in a few weeks as it is. We'll call it a stalemate. Well, you kind of win, so we'll say that you reached the end game with a king and a night but can't checkmate my lone king.

Wow, I'm really stretching for material and getting tired now, so it's game over no more quarters to continue for me. But as an aside to all my friends and colleagues who do read this blog, I hope you all enjoy the way I wait for a while and write a lot however tired and disjointed it gets in the end instead of giving a paragraph or two every other day. It helps me sort out important from non-important, anyway, and plus it makes me feel good to procrastinate. Old habits die hard. Until next time...