It has been quite a week (I feel like I say that a lot. Do I say that a lot? I should check...survey says that this is the third time I've said something like it in three weeks. So...
RESET
I has a fantabulous week (and suddenly all is sunshine, rainbows, lollipops, and...dogs in tutus. Well, I've been spending too much time in middle school). Got to see the OES play, get my kitchen all clean, have adventures with parents, but first...I started out finishing the story with my seventh graders, by having them come up with an ending. Those fantastic fiends friends thought enthusiastically, daringly--dare I say--creatively to come up with...
darkness, lights up, the music swells AS...
(knock knock knock) Megan Fox knocks on the door. They let her in. (cue romantic music) Megan Fox proposes to Jake from State Farm. He says yes. The two ride away on a unicorn to Chuck E Cheese, and they all lived happily ever after.
The End
WooooooOOOOooooow...so, blogger has precisely ZERO interesting fonts. Anyway...
So, that lesson could have gone better, because I didn't plan enough. See, that's the difference between this teaching and all of the other classroom teaching that I've ever done (AASK doesn't count, because the focus was purely on providing an experience): I'm planning everything. Over in Japan (aside from from a small time in the returnee class) everything that I taught was from a company-made lesson plan. Did I follow them exactly? No--in the case of the kid's classes--because a) their games really were not very fun for the most part, and b) they only had a small amount of time for the games. So, I guess that you could say I followed the lesson plan--with a few things jostled around--just not the lesson times.
As for OES...aside from a few math lessons that I got to teach, I was more of a helper for the students. So, my ability to plan was minimal.
But here I am, planning everything out for 50 minutes, and in this case I over estimated how long the main part of the lesson would take. I thought that it would take 20 minutes, when it only took about 8. So, 12 minutes of extra time? On the first day of a two day week? When the kids are already filled to the brim with excess energy, and any weakness or lack of fortitude is leapt upon and devoured like a pack of black holes zooming in on a baby gazelle.
Yeah...that could have gone better.
The next day, however, went swimmingly well. We acted out the story (overact is more like it, with hilarious results), and then took an assessment. In MY day (being of the ripe old age of 25.5#####) we would have called it a quiz. But NO, we must move with the times. So, now it's called an assessment. Watching them do said assessment was really interesting. They struggled with the first part (translate the English in to Spanish), did really well at the second and third...
You know what? No. This is the kind of stuff that I'm writing for my edTPA. It's boring and lifeless, and no one needs to read it. So, long story short, the assessment went great...
And then I surprised the kids. With doughnut-holes! The instant they came out, I had the attention of every single person in the class. And they all got one. Why? As a thank you. It seems to me that when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you, that you should thank them. These students, I would say, had gone out of their way to do something nice for me. These lessons were not perfect, and I'm clearly still learning how to do this teaching thing. The students could have made the experience a living heck. But, instead, they gave me honest feedback, and put up with times when the lessons didn't go as well. I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to constantly have a stream of student teachers going in and out of school, making connections and then breaking them off, and I guess that I just want to say, here and now, Thank you. To my current students in my classroom, thank you for trusting me enough to not only be honest with me, but to go with what I asked of you. I know that I've said it before--and that I will say it again--but thank you so much.
The next two days were conference days, or
Adventures in the Land of the Parents!!!
That means--for my teacher and me--12 hour days of back to back 10 minute conferences, with the only breaks being about one hour long for lunch and dinner.
Ugh.
So, what goes into a conference from a teachers side? Well, we need to explain the curriculum. We need to explain how the students are doing. We need to explain how they can improve. We also need to make it personal--not in the, "I hate your child for being too stupid to understand my genius," but of the, "so and so said this on Tuesday, and I thought that it was beautiful and really showed me that blah blah blah." Not only that, but I had to sit...
and sit....
and SIT!!!!
For the entire time! And here I am, used to spending the entire day on my feet, being forced to sit for three hours at a time.
It was like being trapped on a plane, only I've left my 3ds and books at home. Thankfully, there are people to talk to, but that's a small condolence when you're a) hungry, &/or b) can I please stop talking to you so my bladder will stop talking to me?
But it was all worth it, for Friday was off. So, what do I do on my day off? Sit around, doing nothing? Go out, explore the world until I'm sick and tired of people? Work ahead?
Ha, no. I go back to school. My school: Oregon Episcopal School.
I meant to spend about half an hour there. Just a quick, "hello, good morning, Happy Friday, everything's going well-bye!" Sort of thing. But that didn't happen. Instead, I talked for a long time with many people (not everyone that I wanted to see, but oh well), had lunch, talked some more, enjoyed the campus...
It's interesting coming back to the place I grew up in after I leave, because I always see it differently than when I left. I remember coming back after college, and seeing my old friends...then watching them graduate, until there was no one left that I could say I'd gone to High School with...but still, I made friends with the students, and still had strong connections. Then I went away to Japan, and when I came back it all seemed...so quaint, with this awesome lack of stress. At the same time, I'd been working at a school in a different culture, and I began to see missed opportunities, and cares that I didn't really care about any more, and a way of looking at the world that was no longer...me. And now I've come back again...OES is there. It will always be there, and I know that, in one way or another I will always be able to come back. But, after seeing public school, I'm beginning to realize just how lucky everyone who is there is. The food is fantastic, the people are all kind, and there's a disconnect from the outside world. There's also a calmness there that I don't find in Robert Gray and...I'm not sure what I think about it. It really is amazing how separate private and public schools are, where the norms of the former (yeah, at OES my students all called me Mr. Austin) can be as shocking to the public schoolers as the other way around ('my teacher directly calls out students' 'why doesn't she take them off to the side?' 'Because, with over 30 students, there is no way she'd have enough time while keeping the rest on track.') I am glad that I am having these experiences, and not just because they're helping me to grow. Once again, I feel like there are a set of missed opportunities, where no one wants to reach out and bridge a divide to really find how different life is like on the other side.
Still, the week ended on a high note (I'm ignoring Tuesday night and Saturday. The former, because I'm still processing and watching how things roll out; the latter, because 8 hours of class really isn't blog worthy. Oooh, the professor ended the class by reading a list of possible project topics from the paper he'd posted on the class website. It went on for four pages? Edge of the seat material, right there.) On Friday night, I got to see...
Journey to the West (fun cultural fact: in many Asian countries, the color red is associated with good fortune.)
It's a Chinese Epic poem that the OES theater department had turned into a two hour play, and they did a fantastic job. The costumes were excellent (I really wanted to try them on), it was really funny, and overall I was impressed. The students made this OES theater alum proud. I was especially happy after the show, because I got to see some people that I'd been looking for earlier and missed (only one of them shook my hand. Personally, I would have preferred a hug--oh-murderer-of-the-historian--and a longer chat, but such is life. That's another interesting difference I've notice between public and private school. At OES, everyone is very hugy. At Robert Gray, not so much. Hmmm...I might have to check the handbook on that...), and I made sure to bring a pen to get lots of autographs (once again, really pleased with the first one that I got, and all of the rest of them as well. Especially a certain someone who climbed over a boulder to get to me, as well as someone who was looking for me during the show[front and center, I was!], and the one who yelled at me, and the one back stage, and the one with the fantastic headdress...all of them, really). Why did I want autographs? The most magical show that I did, I played Templeton the Rat, and one of the things that I remember the most was the kids lining up to get autographs. If you have worked hard at something, then it deserves to be special. I just hope that I helped make the experience special for them by asking for autographs. And, hey, in a few weeks, Robert Gray has a play too. Now, won't that be fun?
This has been another exciting (and surprisingly positive) adventure in the austentatious! If you liked it, tell your friends; if you hated it, tell you enemies; and if you didn't care either way, then tell everyone! Good night. (next week, I promise, there will be pictures)
Alright, just one note on the election: I live in Portland. We went so overwhelmingly for Hilary Clinton that the only word I can use to describe it is landslide. So, on Wednesday morning, after Trump was declared the winner, the whole city felt like it was in mourning. The cars were slow, the sky was overcast, and even the sounds were sad. It was a very odd experience that I'm still trying to grapple with, but one that I want to write down to help start that process.
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