My lessons are going incredibly well. My 7th graders will be wowed tomorrow when I woo them with my summary of the story we read today. I always get their attention with my performance. It involves hand puppets and jumping around…pretty much looking silly for them. Again, teenagers like me to look goofy. Of course, teaching is a lot like performing. I have compared it to being a comedian before. Some days I have been booed figuratively, but so far I have had good reviews. My 8th graders are extremely attentive for 8th graders. Our difficult path will begin tomorrow when I make them actually write an essay about themselves. I am going to let them challenge me to write an essay about anything. I hope I can do it successfully.
Returning to my previous entry, I am still learning about my students. My first class in the morning is slow at everything. They are not stupid. They just take too much time opening their books and getting out their belongings. I have found myself asking them multiple times to do simple tasks.
The students that don’t do their homework are surfacing. In the first week, everyone has high hopes for their grades. I believe even previously failing students believe they can do the work in the first week. In many cases, this is totally true. They simply get bored or discouraged so quickly. I am sure I will have some parent phone calls to make next week.
In my study hall, I found that one distracted student that prefers to stare into space…sadly staring right in my direction every time distracted. I teased the student about it a bit. In middle school, students are still learning how to “fake work.” It takes a talented student to appear to be reading a book without actually reading. How someone could be this lazy is beyond me, but lucky for me, in middle school, students that are off task look off task.
Teaching and learning about the students is the best part of my job. The rest of my job really isn’t all that much fun. The more comfortable I get as a teacher, the more frustrated I get with the other parts of my job. I practiced my shopping skills today buying donuts, milk, and such for a meeting in the morning. Obviously I had to prepare to lead the meeting too. Carrying in all the food was the best part of the experience. I have attempted to nail down an interview for a PR project I thought of for my committee work. I am hoping that I will get my three tiny questions answered tomorrow. I met with the union to discuss “an undiscussable matter.” They pretended to fix the issues for the moment…hoping we will forget about them soon enough. Good thing we are too busy to put up much of a fight. It can’t be won with just us; all we really have is to believe them. Back to School Night came and went. Shook a million hands and actually met a few babies. As I continue to hunt down my principal to make plans for a field trip, I trudged on through the week. Faced with more paperwork as I sort through possible goals for the year. The goals are not so hard; it is finding the right category to claim each of them.
Still the best weeks are when the kids are motivated and learning. I plan to take full advantage of it. Next week they could hate the lesson. For now, I am the star of the room…just not in the halls when I am working on a million tasks at once.
Mishaps Today 