- It was almost a hundred degrees in NYC.
- It is the 12th Anniversary of 9/11.
- I thought I was having a sort of formal observation
- Some of the classes have been buck wild for the past couple of days.
With all of this in mind, I was told, like 40 minutes before the day started, that I'd be lead teaching two of the classes that I work with. This was a shock, because 1) I hadn't planned the lesson, so it was going with someone else's ideas, and 2) I haven't even like taught part of a lesson by myself up until this moment (at least here) and that was intense. So, I had those 40 minutes to prep the lesson for my style.
It was a lesson about developing real or imagined narratives. So, we were thinking of using pictures to help do that. I found 9 classic photographs (The Times Square War Kiss, Child Labor, The Peace Protesters putting flowers in the muzzles of guns, Civil Rights, etc). I used The War Kiss to model the activity, which was creating mind maps about the pictures, and then gave each group their own picture to make inferences to develop stories. Then, they would independently create those stories during the practice time.
My first class was the one that was being observed. I was wicked excited, because I had that cool idea, had everything done, and was ready to go. But, I was also nervous because of everything that was happening AND in the middle of class there was going to be a moment of silence. So, whatever they were doing, we'd have to stop dead and be silent, motionless, and reflective. That's a BIG challenge for seventh graders. I will admit, I was petrified. I had all sorts of alarms set to make sure the kids were ready to go and I was pacing myself.
About 15 minutes into class, one of my coaches walked in and it was *really* show time. They were EN FUEGO, seriously. It was beautiful. Granted, I told them that I was getting graded and that they had to be on their best behavior, but still. They were awesome. They participated actively in instruction, they were all raising their hands and desired to be called on. They wanted to be part of what we were doing, and when the group activity part started, it was magic. They were all making inferences like crazy. It was beautiful. They were writing, things were going great.
Then, noon happened. It was so hot today and the building got absolutely disgusting. The kids were so unhappy and everything was a mess. I mean, it wasn't terrible. It was just... loud and rowdy. I just can't hear the kids in the room because it's so echo-y and there are at least 30 kids in each class. It was just very long and I had been standing for three hours, so my feet were aching and I wanted to die.
The second half of the day is just... violent on my feet.
But, funny story from the playground, haha. My co-teacher was going to get coffee and he asked me if I wanted one (iced, obviously) - and he delivered it to me on the playground, which was actually the nicest thing in the world - but the kids were like "OOOOOH MISS! HE YOUR BOYFRIEND?! OOOOOH MISSSSSSSS!" It was awkward and funny. Mostly awkward.
Now, I'm just tired.
Alright, I can't be too thoughtful tonight, I just wanted to write something down.
No comments:
Post a Comment