Archive for the 'On Teaching' Category
(Warning: This post pertains to Speech. If you don’t care about it, which I’m sure most of you don’t, then you’ll probably want to skip this.)
The past two Saturdays, I have been judging for Speech team. Back when I was at university, this was a fairly easy way to make a little cash whilst home from breaks and the like. Now that I find myself unemployed and only mildly motivated to find a job in the States, I have turned to this tried method once again.
The first tournament was hosted at Wheaton North High School. At the time this tournament was presented to me, the hosting school meant little. It wasn’t until I walked around the halls for a moment that it finally occurred to me just what tournament Wheaton North was: the Technicolor Tournament. I know this means absolutely nothing to most of you, but for my former teammates like Chris O and Al, they understand. This was one of the more competitive tournaments of the season; I remember it being the first real Varsity meet.
I started to feel a little uncomfortable. Not only was I judging for a school I had little connection to, I was also judging for the first time in three (or is it four) years. Wheaton North is a tough tournament and many of the school who were competing were the likes of state champions. I also remembered what it was like for me to be a competitor at the tournament; the judges were serious and the coaches were worse. Critiques were not to be trifled with.
Amazingly, I managed to do the job without squirreling anybody; at least, I haven’t heard anything, and bad judging does get back to coaches. Whew!
I thought with Wheaton North behind me, I wouldn’t have any issues with Palatine’s tournament. Again, as I walked around the cafeteria, I started to remember competing in this tournament as well. The Turkey Tournament.
The part that unnerved me this time around was seeing three people I went to university with, and not really acknowledging each other. Admittedly, they were people I knew from ISU Theatre and therefore only interacted with a little…but I still remembered them. It only served to remind me how I managed to lose touch with these people. Also unfortunately for me, I started to think perhaps I made a mistake teaching abroad. I didn’t think I could really fit in to this anymore. A thought that is most likely attributed to my incurable crazy. Especially since I know how important Japan and England were to me. I just hope the experiences really will help me professionally. Everybody assures me that they will, but it still makes me nervous.
Not only did I judge three rounds, but I ended up judging finals. I hate judging finals. At least I got to judge an event that didn’t blame me for cancer. (I hate it when I get blamed for cancer.) For some reason, I found myself far more stressed about it than the kids, but it all turned out. Mike e-mailed me about the results and said my ballot pretty much matched the other two judges so I should stop freaking out. He also said that this meant he would use me again for finals.
Something that also came to mind at these tournaments was a little bit of reverse culture shock. England didn’t have extra-curricular activities like this, at least, not where I taught. Athletics and activities were half the reason I enjoyed school so much, and I learned invaluable skills from them. I know not everyone’s experiences are the same when it comes to high school, but I think I got a lot out of it by participating in all the things that I did.
So yeah. I got me something of a temporary job. It’s not much, but it’s something I can do (apparently). And, it’s related to high school teaching. Go Cougars! I mean Mustangs!
Seeing things at one step at a time seems to have come back to bite me in the ass.
As many of you know, my teaching in England has come to an end…at least thatś what I thought. Now I´m not so sure. I was filling out an application to Kane County last night and realised how very screwed I am. Half the documents I need are at home in the States and I didn´t really intend on going home unless I had an interview lined up. At least in London, I know I can get supply through the agency. Yes, I´m well aware that people have strongly advised I get this stuff sorted sooner rather than later, but you also have to remember that much like certain other things in my life, I´m not completely sure of what I want. If it were easy for me, believe you me, I´d have something sorted by now. Hey, let us not forget the parts where I knew I wanted Japan and went out and got it, then I knew I wanted England and got that too. Sorry, I just felt the need to justify my actions to the “I told you so” people that exist only in my incurable crazy head.
Anyway, the point is: I´m well screwed for my career. My mates here are all telling me itś a sign. I should stay in England at least till Christmas. Some part of me is strongly considering it. If I do supply, I might actually have time to do the things I´ve wanted to do. I could attend my sword fighting classes more regularly and maybe even join the London Fencing Club. I could travel.
The part that´s keeping me from doing these things is the teacher-focused part thatś telling me supplying is a step back rather than a step forward. At least if I returned home, I would be more likely to put my career together.
Oh the joys of indecision. On the bright side, I knew what I didn´t want. That´s gotta count for something, right?
The school had an amazing event this past Thursday and Friday night entitled “Elements of Motion”. It was a dance show that also featured the samba band. I’d attended the first performance the drum and dance group had back in November, but this time was an all out show complete with a house, spotlight, and everything.
They needed volunteers for the show so I signed up to help out. I wasn’t needed until Friday night so I got to watch the show on opening night.
I couldn’t help but smile. It was so cool to see what the students were able to accomplish and what my colleagues were able to organize. It was definitely an all around success, especially on Friday night when we had to hold house for fifteen minutes ‘cuz front of house had to add chairs to capacity.
It was a great success and I think everyone involved got to walk away last night feeling pretty good about themselves.
Man, reading Al’s comment totally hit on something for me, but that’s only ‘cuz I’m a Browncoat. I still feel a bit like Serenity after she went through the ion cloud and crash landed on Mr. Universe’s planet…but some how I feel like I might be able to keep flyin’.
Friday was unfortunately no better than Thursday, but for different reasons. Had a bit of a shock involving an upset student and a chair, but it’s been sorted.
I was really happy to talk to Chris O on Saturday. I know that a lot of this stuff is very first year teacher sort of stuff, but when I’m surrounded by so many people who seem to be coping with it so much better than me, it makes me…well, let’s just say it doesn’t help my incurable crazy. Chris has been where I’ve been, and maybe it’s ‘cuz we came from the same program and same area and stuff, but it cheered me up some, ya know? (Thanks again Chris!)
This week is supposed to be my really rough barely-have-time-to-eat week — I hope I survive it! Oh! And a Parent’s Evening on Thursday night! Won’t that be fun. (Dope her.)
I didn’t get a new camera or get shot, although the latter is along the lines of how I’m feeling. I knew posting about my good teaching days would jinx the rest of the week!
Rats.
There are really just days where I wish I was teaching at home. At least then when I had a really rubbish day, I could at least be around you guys.
I had another observation today. I’d worked on the lesson plan all week. I had meetings with my line manager every day as well going over the lesson. I was trying to be as prepared as possible for it.
But I still amount to being okay. I can accept that judgment ‘cuz deep down I know it means I can only get better and that this is a learning experience. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t completely dull the disappointment. I think the part that gets me the most is where I know I’m like the weak link in the English Department. I feel like I really let everyone else down, especially my line manager.
I haven’t been very good at keeping it together. I don’t know what the hell my problem is, but I never used to cry this easily when stuff like this happened. Five colleagues saw me in tears. I’m not too terribly embarrassed ‘cuz they were mostly the ones I socialize with outside of school as well, but still.
It sucks.
I feel like all I’ve done since three o’clock is cry. I’m trying to remember that if I can survive this, I just might make it at any other school. (Well…except for the ones that have lock down procedure.)
I’m glad the week’s over. Tomorrow night I’ll go up to London and swing a sword around for an hour and a half, and then Saturday I’ll get to be me for a day.
I’ve only been back for about two weeks and I’ve already been reduced to tears. Brilliant.
Not ‘cuz I took a bunch of drugs. ( “I’m not a vampire!”)
It’s not often that I get to the end of the teaching day in a more or less good mood. But today was pretty groovy. One of my more troublesome Year 9 students made a New Year’s Resolution to do better in school and it started to show today. My Year 10 class didn’t go brilliantly, but I got some work out of ‘em. And while my Year 8 class was, well, my Year 8 class, I think it could have gone worse. Like they could have let off another stink bomb.
I got sprung with a new class. I don’t mind teaching it, it’s just entertaining to me that they didn’t tell me until this afternoon that I would be teaching the class tomorrow and also because it seems I’m just supposed to teach them random English skills. I mean, not “random”, more in the sense that I would only see them every other week and there would be no scheme of work for me to use as a guide. I appreciate the fact that Sally didn’t think it was fair of them to give me that class. The reason they’d given it to me in the first place was because they thought I had a light timetable. I kinda laugh about that ‘cuz in my head, I’ve got quite a full timetable. But I suppose compared to other teachers I don’t. I just think it’s unfortunate for me because I’m still learning the ropes and I don’t seem to have any time for…well, anything outside of school. I know that’s how it’s gonna be for a first year teacher and all, I just think it’d be nice to have time to eat lunch or something of that nature. I think the only reason I was gonna start crying when they told me I would suddenly have this class was because I was so looking forward to my free period tomorrow. It would have given me a chance to take the break and to fix my classroom displays.
Oh well. At least I have a lesson plan for it.
So last time we left off in the misadventures in teaching (maybe I should rename this category to such), I was incredibly anxious about my Year 9 Poetry class. It was going to be the last day of class before the half term holiday and really, I can never be sure what kind of class it will be with that group. It’s rarely ever a completely brilliant class (brilliant in the British sense as in “awesome” ).
I got a lot of different advice about what to do with the class. Also, in general, Sally said that all the classes would be hard to manage ‘cuz everyone from the teachers to the students have their minds on the fact that we have a week off coming up. She advised fun activities in all classes, and so for Year 9 I planned a poetry quiz game and I also decided to use my Eminem lesson since it would be more interesting poetry than the other stuff we’ve been studying lately. Another useful managing tool was given to me by the drama teacher; he has a set of power point slides that give the students an idea of their noise level and once it gets to red, that means they have to stay after class.
I pretty much spent my whole free period getting everything prepared for that class.
And I’m happy to report that it really paid off. I mean, I’ve always been prepared for all my lessons…but this time around, the students were actually able to relate to what the text was — it was a song a lot of them knew and the follow up activity was definitely something they could understand since thy were supposed to write a poem about their lives. Even one of my most apathetic students wrote something, and maybe it’s just because I’m biased, but I was pretty impressed by her poem. Seriously. I didn’t know she had it in her given her general attitude in class.
The game went pretty well, too. Admittedly, they weren’t really able to get a lot of the questions right, but the fact that they were excited about it and actually trying meant something. Heck, Tom came into the class ‘cuz he thought something was going wrong and for once I was able to report back to him that in fact the noise level was enthusiasm and not poor behavior.
I was feelin’ pretty damn good after that class. I’m hoping that next half of term will have more days like that.
So the students at my school have their assessments and the like coming up. One of them submitted his essay super early. I was just grading it and within the first four words I knew it was plagiarized. I even found the site he ripped it from.
Some part of me is laughing if anything because I can’t believe he thought I would catch it.
The other part of me is wickedly disappointed. When this student submitted his paper to me a whole two weeks early, I had hope that he had his head in the right place.
Unbelievable. And yet, I’m cynically amused. Seriously. Hamlet had nothing to do with the essay. He didn’t even try to make it look like he’d done it himself. There weren’t even paragraphs!!
Ah the joys of teaching.