The Real First Day

Phew! What a day! Today marked my first real day as a student teacher. This meant a great many things, including my first battle with the copy machine, getting into trouble for the first time and attending my first English department meeting.

To begin, there was a misunderstanding between myself, Mrs. C and Mrs. N yesterday. While the day was on a shortened schedule for students, I was not supposed to leave early and was to have a meeting with Mrs. N after the last block of the day. I hadn't realized this and skipped off without a thought in the world. I didn't think anything of it since Mrs. C (the teacher I intern with during the last block) had told me it was fine to head out. That is, I thought it was fine until I got home and discovered a stern e-mail waiting for me. I then felt absolutely awful about it, but I think we're doing just fine now.

In order to make all this really comprehensible, I will divide it up into the classes and portions of my day as they went.

Journalism: My first class of the day! I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this class, but I was pleasantly surprised by the relaxed atmosphere and enthusiasm everyone displayed. I'm sure it partially stems from being an elective, but the students really seemed to want to dig into journalism and learn more about it. The class was mainly spent getting to know everyone with a "Get to know you Scavenger Hunt." Everyone got pieces of paper which listed off certain qualities from the physical (wears glasses) to the personal (loves acting) to activities (has been bungee jumping) and skills (can operate a backhoe). It went really well, and the students seemed to enjoy getting up and moving about the room and talking to one another. I was a bit surprised that only one student spoke to me during the activity (to ask if I could juggle) but other than that I was fairly unnoticed.

I also got my first look at the Collins Writing System, the school's choice for English improvement. I can see the appeal in some ways - you choose certain areas to work on in each paper (up to three) and only assess based on those (called Focused Correction Areas). If started early, you can be sure the fundamentals are thoroughly developed by the time they reach high school. The system is being implemented only at the high school level however (as far as I'm aware) and so feels somewhat out of place. If a student needs to work on spelling or sentence structure, yet the paper is correcting only thesis statements and sentence variety, it feels a bit unfair to the student to not help with the earlier problems as well. Still, you work with what you have, and I think I can find ways to make this system work for me.

The only real bone of contention I have with the class is that I don't think news, any news, is objective. I think we cannot help but bring our own biases and perspectives into what we read, and even more so into what we write. I also think all journalism (and media) is persuasive writing. The author is trying to persuade you towards a certain point of view, even if it is only the view that the media is worth your time and attention, and so they will invest of themselves into the work and, perhaps consciously or unconsciously, inject bias. I suppose the key then is to eliminate obvious bias (which is more than we can say for many media outlets) yet that still leaves unintended bias in the work.

Something to maybe toss around in the class and see if anybody bites.

Advisory: This class was fairly short. Not so much a class as a group meeting, it served as a check-in with students - they received information, forms and got a chance to just say hi and have a moment's breather in the day before rushing off.

AP Literature and Composition: The big one! This is the class that I am most nervous about. As Mrs. N put it, the class is a "hybrid between a test-prep course and a great books course," and cannot skimp on either. It must also function as both a high school course (obviously) and also a collegiate course, with all the rigor and trappings of both. It is a bit intimidating to try and manage, and it is the class that I think will take the most out of me. It also has very dense reading, some of which I'm still struggling to finish. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is absolutely fascinating, but it never seems to end! I am not saying I want to rush to the end, but a time limit really cuts down how long I can spend with the text.

We began with another scavenger hunt activity. I was really surprised by the sheer number of musicians in the AP class. The majority of the class played an instrument, and almost all of them were saxophone players. I was also very surprised to hear how many students talked about the Harry Potter books when discussing favorite authors and books you grew up with. I came of age too late for Harry Potter (apparently) and actually didn't read the books until my Junior year of college. The first book came out in 1997, so I guess these current students were right in the thick of their publishing. I wonder if they will remain popular in years to come, or if they'll fade out of sight. Something to ponder.

Lunch: I have my third block open each day. Mrs. N and I will be using this time to discuss teaching, answering questions, etc. This is also lunch block, and so I sat down for my soon to be customary meal of ramen. Today however was something of a special day. Today marked the first day that gay Vermonters could get married. And at lunch, I got to participate in a (very) small wedding ceremony! I was so glad I could be a part, however small a part I was, and am so happy it went off went. The couple had a much larger civil union ceremony previously, but wanted to get married now that they could. I am not a big fan of weddings in general, and my thought is the bigger the ceremony, the less and less it actually is about the two people marrying one another and the more the ceremony itself takes center stage.

While not a fan of the institution of marriage itself, I am still deeply invested in people having the right to be married. So long as we have marriage intertwined in government, then it should be provided to everyone regardless of race, creed or orientation.

Freshmen English: Woo! Last class of the day! This one was definitely the most lively, and by lively I mean of course that they are freshmen, on their first day of full classes at the end of the day. Wired and loud would be ways of putting it mildly. Despite that, I really can't wait to work with them. One of my goals during the course of this internship is to develop improvisation skills.

Now let me explain how that relates to teaching and this class. All too often, lesson plans are constructed to take you from Point A to Point B. This of course never happens. Student interest is akin to holding onto a non-Newtonian fluid (look it up!) and once you lose it, it's gone. If a lesson plan bombs, as a teacher you need to find a way to save the class. This often means scrapping whatever you were planning and going from something that has caught student interest (or that you hope will) and going from there. You can't very well say "Well, that didn't work. Sorry guys. Do some quiet reading while I write up a new plan."

I find all too often I come up with a plan, not just in education but in my broader life, and follow it to the end. This sometimes entails banging my head against a wall until I eventually smash through it, but that just isn't productive. So with that in mind, I am going to try to be more fluid in my planning and find what works.

Now with a class full of freshmen, particularly some who are natural class-clowns and who are already trying to show off and make trouble. If I am going to help them learn and really feel like they're getting something from the class, then I have to find a way to hook them and keep their attention. This is a challenge, but it is one I am eager for. It helps that, as I mentioned, I'll be teaching The Odyssey and I think the book is absolutely fascinating. So I'm hoping my own enthusiasm will prove infectious. Can't hurt, at any rate.

Department Meeting: At the end of the day, we had a Department Meeting. I obviously won't be repeating the vast majority of things mentioned, but one thing that was brought up looked absolutely fascinating. There's going to be a conference held in Conchord, Massachusetts on learning and media influence on brain activity. I may try and tag along if anyone is going (and see if I can get the school's rate while I'm at it) if I can.

After School: This has little educational value, but I got my autumnal hair cut. I make a point of getting one hair cut per season. Having gotten my summer cut in May, it was starting to curl around my ears and on the back of my neck and so I felt the time was appropriate for a trim. I now have inch long hair again, and am happy for it to be so manageable.

I also think at this point I have enough of a log of back entries that it's time to begin sharing this blog with my co-workers, friends, family and other various and sundry people in my life who might like to read my thoughts on education.