On Thursday in all 3 of my classes I started off with Urban Acting. I had the students read a little pamphlet of what to do when dealing with the police. Then I had students get up and act things out. One was the cop and the other was just themself. Some of the results were pretty good and some were funny. But acting things out forces the kids to learn it cause they have to get up in front of people and do it. Plus it was just plain fun.
Then in my first period my native american co-worker, Bobby, came in and talked to the class about Christianity and loss of culture. This tied into "Things Fall Apart" and colonialism in North America. Interesting talk. He kinda veered off topic and started talking about Columbus but since it was recently Columbus Day that worked out.
In my 2nd period, we started to talk about Marxism and began to read the Communist Manifesto. This was a tie in to revolution cause we are starting a chapter on Revolution and Nationalism. Class ended on this but I realized that the Communist Manifesto was far too hard for them to understand. Shit it's hard for adults to understand.
In 3rd period we were supposed to have a speaker but they didn't show. So we kinda hung out and did Urban Acting and talking about due process and the law for the whole period. The speaker didn't show and didn't even call. Just a no show. That was pretty shitty.
On Friday, I wanted to talk to the students about inequality. I gave them a reading and some charts on inequality that I got from various sources. A lot of the stuff was about the median income levels for various levels of education and unemployment rates for various levels of education. While education is not a panacea... it's damn close. First period we didn't get to the data, but 2nd we did.
In 3rd period we had a speaker. A possibly soon to be daughter in law of one of my fellow teachers. She talked about her experience traveling through China. She gave a good talk but it was hilarious cause one of my students was totally trying to chat her up. Working his little game on her. I'd look at one of my male students and we would laugh in disbelieve. Now she was a white girl and I thought it was great cause everyone wants to go somewhere different from what they know. That's why I went to live in Denmark. Cause I've never lived somewhere that cold and white.
I'm fucking tired and stressed out. Credentialling courses along with teaching is wearing me out. I always have a stack of papers to grade. The paperwork is fucking nuts. The work and planning outside of school...and fuck I don't do enough of it. My coworker jeremy is totally stressing out and raging all the time. He's almost as green as it comes. He did a bit of teaching at the college level as a grad student but that isn't even close to being the same. So he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. I really feel for him though. Shit is hard at least I had some intro. Working with the elementary school kids was probably one of the best things I ever did. It really helped me with classroom management and all that stuff. Last year wasn't a good example cause I was coming in at the end of the semester at the last second. It was just ridiculous. This year is a lot better cause I get to plan things out better.
But I try to think of teaching like surfing. I want to be doing this for the rest of my life or at least for a large portion of it. I want to ride a longboard and just cruise on the wave. Short boards I could manuever better and tear things up more. The first year of teaching is the hardest. I don't want to burn too brightly in the beginning and burn out. I have to walk the line of working hard but also keeping my sanity. Watching Allison stress out over the kids made me not want to do that. But she's an internalizer. I don't internalize as much. I'm more of an externalizer. Shit... ain't me... it's you. Well to some extent cause I know that I have a waaaays to go with my pedagogy. Shit I can't even call it pedagogy at this point. Pedagogy implies art. I'm fingerpainting right now. But hey... I can only get better. If I go from 1% to 2% that is 100% better.
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