Summer School and the 4th of July Weekend: Two Exhausting Life Journeys
Great googely moogely! (That's great, Doc, but who are the Chefs?)
I just got back from the Dave Jones Magical Midwest Tour of 2005, and I return to Oxford with a few more hairs on my chest than before. I now have two. This post is a smattering of the last three assigned blogs, the topics of which I've mostly covered but need to make official for everyone keeping score at home, namely, Miss Monroe. I did do a little writing here and there over the long weekend on paper but never really had time or convenient internet access to post officially. I guess I was too busy either watching fireworks on a boat in Monroe Harbor in downtown Chicago or driving to Nashville with the top of my car down on the beautiful southern interstates. God bless America and the upper-middle class.
By the way, Ben, I haven't had a chance to read your comments yet, but I'll respond to them at some point this week.
My reactions to my videotaped lesson, I've found, are largely superficial. Then again, maybe you think my reactions to everything so far have been largely superficial, in which case I do bite my thumb at you, sir. I did a lesson that was mostly just sentence diagramming and grammar review for a unit test the kids had the next day, so it wasn't particularly difficult. On my formal evaluation the only thing I got points off for was not walking around the room, which I contest since, alas, my incredibly bulky, ripply-muscled frame couldn't fit through the rows of desks without shoving the poor students over. No, seriously, there wasn't any room. Anyway, the main points of consideration from the video are as follows:
1) I sound stupid on video and therefore in real life as well. Yeah yeah yeah, everybody does to themselves, but looking back on my own high school days, I'm pretty sure if I had a teacher that sounded like I do I would have put him through hell. Not that I was a bad kid, mind you, but if it needs to be pointed out that someone's innate, God-given voice sounds horrendously idiotic, someone needs to step up to the plate, right?
2) For as much as I obviously and desperately tried to monitor activity, the kids did not much work at their desks and pay attention. And I thought I was an old pro who commanded such respect. To be fair, by the end of the lesson, most kids had at least some sort of scribbles in their notebooks, but dammit I shouldn't have been whispering sweet nothings to the whiteboard trying to seduce it almost the entire time. My booming voice that I can in fact project all too well doesn't necessarily impel attention when the kids see an awkward mating ritual between Mr. Jones and an inanimate object at the front of the room in between wandering around in a vain attempt to get them working on the review worksheet I had prepared.
3) Lastly, I say "like" all the time. Not just some of the time or a lot of the time, but all the time. Once again, everyone says it way too much, but considering that my old mock trial coach used to try to beat it out of me and that on the last day of school one of the kids told me that I say like more than she does, it's definitely something that needs to go. It sounds so gross and unprofessional (kind of like the way "shut up" sounds to Miss Monroe), and it's obvious that I'm just stuttering like a jerk and not even realizing it. I notice that I tend to say it more when I'm kind of blanking out and losing my train of thought, but at the same time, it sneaks in a bajillion times when it's obvious I'm on a roll too. But I guess being a better teenage girl than Sammie-Jo counts for something, right?
Once again, it's not exactly earth-shattering stuff, but it's beneficial to ponder.
Moving on, the classroom technique I tried out specifically from the list (this has nothing to do with my videotaped lesson anymore) was the "muddiest part of the lecture." During my small group one day I gave the students a few minutes to fill out cards before the lunch bill about some stuff they didn't understand about "A Rose for Emily" by Faulkner. I had never read it before, but luckily for me, I scored a 190 on the Praxis test for reading comprehension a couple of months ago, so I felt pretty qualified to be an authority. We were reading the story over a two-day period, and charmingly enough, after the first day it became clear that the students were uncertain about the same issues. In this case, it was all about Emily as a microcosm for Southern culture at large: why Emily wouldn't change at all, why she believed the old lies and agreements anyway, and how this defined the Southern stereotype of resisting change, especially progressive change. They also wanted to know if Emily was having sex with the cadaver or just laying there with it, and either way wouldn't it make her throw up, Mr. Jones? Yes, children, it would make us all throw up from the stench and someone would have noticed besides the negro servant, but dammit that's not the point of the story so listen up for once. Anyway, this led to a great conversation about differences between the North and South and sure enough, despite their initial protests and claims of ignorance, the kids all have older relatives who act like Emily in a lot of ways, except the whole being a murderer and necrophiliac thing I assume. But, to each his own I suppose. It actually made them "get it" and class wasn't so horribly boring for me for once either, getting to learn about this backwoods culture and all. Binghamton, New York, after all, is the very cradle of civilization.
I think that about does it except for general classroom reflections. I've already covered this unintentionally, especially concerning my adventures with Andre among others, so I'll keep it brief now and just add that yes, the kids decorated my car on the last day of school. Forgive me for sounding a little juvenile, but how cool is that!? After saying some goodbyes (and whoever was in charge of the skit that included a character named Chief Trees, let me add that that's pure genius) I left for lunch and sure enough there was a bunch of drawing all over my car windows like when kids graduate or win the state chamionship or whatever it is kids do. Since I've been so critical and analytic in most of my posts, let me be sappy and naive now and say that when all is said and done, I haven't felt that good about myself in a long time. I certainly lost a lot of control and respect in the classroom as my energy and teacher facade wore out in the last week, but at least in some small way I connected to more kids in the class in a meaningful way than just with Andre. It's very encouraging now that I'm gearing up for the fall. All my closer friends and family tell me that they're so happy I'm teaching because I was "born" to do it, and while, once again, I have miles to go before my passion grows into artistic skill, this was just a small sign that I am in fact headed in the right direction and can in the future expect some of those bigger rewards that every teacher talks about but you just don't think about on a day to day basis.
Rock on, party people.
I just got back from the Dave Jones Magical Midwest Tour of 2005, and I return to Oxford with a few more hairs on my chest than before. I now have two. This post is a smattering of the last three assigned blogs, the topics of which I've mostly covered but need to make official for everyone keeping score at home, namely, Miss Monroe. I did do a little writing here and there over the long weekend on paper but never really had time or convenient internet access to post officially. I guess I was too busy either watching fireworks on a boat in Monroe Harbor in downtown Chicago or driving to Nashville with the top of my car down on the beautiful southern interstates. God bless America and the upper-middle class.
By the way, Ben, I haven't had a chance to read your comments yet, but I'll respond to them at some point this week.
My reactions to my videotaped lesson, I've found, are largely superficial. Then again, maybe you think my reactions to everything so far have been largely superficial, in which case I do bite my thumb at you, sir. I did a lesson that was mostly just sentence diagramming and grammar review for a unit test the kids had the next day, so it wasn't particularly difficult. On my formal evaluation the only thing I got points off for was not walking around the room, which I contest since, alas, my incredibly bulky, ripply-muscled frame couldn't fit through the rows of desks without shoving the poor students over. No, seriously, there wasn't any room. Anyway, the main points of consideration from the video are as follows:
1) I sound stupid on video and therefore in real life as well. Yeah yeah yeah, everybody does to themselves, but looking back on my own high school days, I'm pretty sure if I had a teacher that sounded like I do I would have put him through hell. Not that I was a bad kid, mind you, but if it needs to be pointed out that someone's innate, God-given voice sounds horrendously idiotic, someone needs to step up to the plate, right?
2) For as much as I obviously and desperately tried to monitor activity, the kids did not much work at their desks and pay attention. And I thought I was an old pro who commanded such respect. To be fair, by the end of the lesson, most kids had at least some sort of scribbles in their notebooks, but dammit I shouldn't have been whispering sweet nothings to the whiteboard trying to seduce it almost the entire time. My booming voice that I can in fact project all too well doesn't necessarily impel attention when the kids see an awkward mating ritual between Mr. Jones and an inanimate object at the front of the room in between wandering around in a vain attempt to get them working on the review worksheet I had prepared.
3) Lastly, I say "like" all the time. Not just some of the time or a lot of the time, but all the time. Once again, everyone says it way too much, but considering that my old mock trial coach used to try to beat it out of me and that on the last day of school one of the kids told me that I say like more than she does, it's definitely something that needs to go. It sounds so gross and unprofessional (kind of like the way "shut up" sounds to Miss Monroe), and it's obvious that I'm just stuttering like a jerk and not even realizing it. I notice that I tend to say it more when I'm kind of blanking out and losing my train of thought, but at the same time, it sneaks in a bajillion times when it's obvious I'm on a roll too. But I guess being a better teenage girl than Sammie-Jo counts for something, right?
Once again, it's not exactly earth-shattering stuff, but it's beneficial to ponder.
Moving on, the classroom technique I tried out specifically from the list (this has nothing to do with my videotaped lesson anymore) was the "muddiest part of the lecture." During my small group one day I gave the students a few minutes to fill out cards before the lunch bill about some stuff they didn't understand about "A Rose for Emily" by Faulkner. I had never read it before, but luckily for me, I scored a 190 on the Praxis test for reading comprehension a couple of months ago, so I felt pretty qualified to be an authority. We were reading the story over a two-day period, and charmingly enough, after the first day it became clear that the students were uncertain about the same issues. In this case, it was all about Emily as a microcosm for Southern culture at large: why Emily wouldn't change at all, why she believed the old lies and agreements anyway, and how this defined the Southern stereotype of resisting change, especially progressive change. They also wanted to know if Emily was having sex with the cadaver or just laying there with it, and either way wouldn't it make her throw up, Mr. Jones? Yes, children, it would make us all throw up from the stench and someone would have noticed besides the negro servant, but dammit that's not the point of the story so listen up for once. Anyway, this led to a great conversation about differences between the North and South and sure enough, despite their initial protests and claims of ignorance, the kids all have older relatives who act like Emily in a lot of ways, except the whole being a murderer and necrophiliac thing I assume. But, to each his own I suppose. It actually made them "get it" and class wasn't so horribly boring for me for once either, getting to learn about this backwoods culture and all. Binghamton, New York, after all, is the very cradle of civilization.
I think that about does it except for general classroom reflections. I've already covered this unintentionally, especially concerning my adventures with Andre among others, so I'll keep it brief now and just add that yes, the kids decorated my car on the last day of school. Forgive me for sounding a little juvenile, but how cool is that!? After saying some goodbyes (and whoever was in charge of the skit that included a character named Chief Trees, let me add that that's pure genius) I left for lunch and sure enough there was a bunch of drawing all over my car windows like when kids graduate or win the state chamionship or whatever it is kids do. Since I've been so critical and analytic in most of my posts, let me be sappy and naive now and say that when all is said and done, I haven't felt that good about myself in a long time. I certainly lost a lot of control and respect in the classroom as my energy and teacher facade wore out in the last week, but at least in some small way I connected to more kids in the class in a meaningful way than just with Andre. It's very encouraging now that I'm gearing up for the fall. All my closer friends and family tell me that they're so happy I'm teaching because I was "born" to do it, and while, once again, I have miles to go before my passion grows into artistic skill, this was just a small sign that I am in fact headed in the right direction and can in the future expect some of those bigger rewards that every teacher talks about but you just don't think about on a day to day basis.
Rock on, party people.
posted by David Jones | 08:21
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