Mostly AWESOME

It took 2 doctor's visits (TB test), 2 trips to the office of teacher education (a bad bad place) and a little jaunt to the real, live NYC Department of Education building, but I finally managed to sneak myself into a real live classroom. Woo!

Week three of student teaching starts tomorrow, which means I've spent many of my waking hours the past two weeks sitting in a room full of 8th grade boys. That's right - all boys. Two classes' worth of them, with 14 more being added (transfers from the formerly-coed class) some time in the next few weeks. A lot of farting happens, but, other than that, it's been surprisingly fun.

So far, I've been stuck in observation mode, only really interacting with the boys when they have individual work to do - floating around to help them out on essays and encourage them to actually read their books, etc. My cooperating teacher is incredible, but I think she may be just a little bit of a control freak. That's great for keeping the class in line, not so much for me getting to teach.

Of course, I'm sure she knows exactly what she's doing - she's had student teachers in her classroom every semester for at least 2 years running. And judging by the way the students ABSOLUTELY LOSE THEIR MINDS every time she steps out of the classroom, I probably need to spend a little more time watching her methods and gaining their respect before I'm truly left alone with them.

Right now, her foot crossing the classroom threshold is like an on/off switch. Even if she's still visible through the doorway, if she's outside the room it turns into crazy town in there. Kids talk right through me when I'm standing in front of them saying "look at me, hey hey HEY." There's dancing, singing, foul language, and, for whatever reason, a lot of head-slapping. That's their thing - always touching each others' heads.

There are some that listen to me. And I already have my favorites, which I know is wrong, but a couple of these kids are so adorable, I can't help having a little soft spot for them, trouble-makers or not.

I'm still learning names. The troublemakers are easy, because they're always getting yelled at, but the good ones, the ones I should know so I can thank them for not being insane, they're a little harder. I write their names (spelled phonetically because they don't seem to have an attendance sheet here? wha?) and some descriptions in my little notebook whenever I learn a new one, and am kind of living in fear that someone will pick up the notebook and read things like "[redacted] - manface, evil eyebrows." It would be like Harriet the Spy only SO MUCH WORSE.

We wrap up our current unit next week, then there's mid-winter break (school is awesome! break woo!), then we start Shakespeare, and, I hope, I start teaching. Wish me luck.