bloge
apres le travaille
crunch berries, hefeweizen
black cloud cruces breeze
week one of teacherness, the state of being an "educator" as new mexico likes to call them (us). classroom management will not be the biggest issue as I had feared. Certainly I have a few... challenging students. But their consequences are clear in front of them (fail the class, go to ISS), and they are not clever or bold enough to lead a revolt. The other students are either too intimidated or annoyed by the 5 bad ones--who are a very tight clique--to pay much attention.
The bigger problem it seems will be art related. Number one difficulty will be teaching these beginners the fundamentals of clay, which I'm remembering is a very difficult medium. I'm emphasizing quantity over quality, strange perhaps but it's something I think is important (especially with wheel throwing). Number two will be getting them out of their (dis)comfort zone. I don't want my class to turn into some kind of gift shop. I want things that are too big to fit into the kiln, or perhaps they can make so much stuff that we run out of clay. This kind of 'dive in' mentality is complicated by their awkward age and by the admissions process of the school. Kids are admitted on a lottery instead of a juried panel. This might be because the school is only in its 3rd year, and they need anyone they can get, including the kids that got kicked out of the other 3 high schools in town. So I get things like, "Is this done/big enough?" and "I don't know any artists." Which is fine, but that's the general flavor around school.
Other than my class, I've been doing a lot of new-job administrative tasks and meeting the other teachers and AmeriCorps members. We are supposed to co-teach one other class of our choosing. I've helped out this week in a 9th grader "Inter Arts" general class. That was a fun class. I made a screaming death bike with a plastic tricerytops skull chained on the handlebars and skull poster tied to the front. My student partner came riding in while I drummed on the desk and sang welcome to the jungle. Fun 20 seconds.
The other class I helped out in was AP English for 11th and 12th graders. The teacher for that class is presenting some very challenging material (for anyone, not just HSers). So she found out I was a philosophy major (partially) and invited me to co-teach Nichomachean ethics from Aristotle. I did a pretty good job and we had some great discussion. I think I formed a good early trust with that group. However, at one point I looked up from what I was saying about Plato and I realized that not a single person in the room was following what I was saying because I was talking like a jerk butt. But that's fine because it's free for them and I'm only getting paid 10K!
Pretty exhausting week overall. I was actually sleeping hard by 10:15 last night... I'm very happy that Molly has been off this week, thus able to play wifey around the domecile. She hates it when I say wifey and domecile. But she was taking care of business around here. I cleaned the kitchen once. Things will get easier as I get more comfortable with my class and we really start rolling with the projects. I'm still in 'set the tone' mode with the students.
This weekend I think we'll check out the sole Indian restaurant in town. I want to see the new Ferrell movie, but my date is putting her foot down. We'll do Bed Bath and Beyond and head over to Home Depot if there's time left. We got a good day planned. Seriously I think we're getting out of town somewhere. In this state, at this point, it kind of feels like put up the map and throw a dart--we'll probably hit something pretty cool.
crunch berries, hefeweizen
black cloud cruces breeze
week one of teacherness, the state of being an "educator" as new mexico likes to call them (us). classroom management will not be the biggest issue as I had feared. Certainly I have a few... challenging students. But their consequences are clear in front of them (fail the class, go to ISS), and they are not clever or bold enough to lead a revolt. The other students are either too intimidated or annoyed by the 5 bad ones--who are a very tight clique--to pay much attention.
The bigger problem it seems will be art related. Number one difficulty will be teaching these beginners the fundamentals of clay, which I'm remembering is a very difficult medium. I'm emphasizing quantity over quality, strange perhaps but it's something I think is important (especially with wheel throwing). Number two will be getting them out of their (dis)comfort zone. I don't want my class to turn into some kind of gift shop. I want things that are too big to fit into the kiln, or perhaps they can make so much stuff that we run out of clay. This kind of 'dive in' mentality is complicated by their awkward age and by the admissions process of the school. Kids are admitted on a lottery instead of a juried panel. This might be because the school is only in its 3rd year, and they need anyone they can get, including the kids that got kicked out of the other 3 high schools in town. So I get things like, "Is this done/big enough?" and "I don't know any artists." Which is fine, but that's the general flavor around school.
Other than my class, I've been doing a lot of new-job administrative tasks and meeting the other teachers and AmeriCorps members. We are supposed to co-teach one other class of our choosing. I've helped out this week in a 9th grader "Inter Arts" general class. That was a fun class. I made a screaming death bike with a plastic tricerytops skull chained on the handlebars and skull poster tied to the front. My student partner came riding in while I drummed on the desk and sang welcome to the jungle. Fun 20 seconds.
The other class I helped out in was AP English for 11th and 12th graders. The teacher for that class is presenting some very challenging material (for anyone, not just HSers). So she found out I was a philosophy major (partially) and invited me to co-teach Nichomachean ethics from Aristotle. I did a pretty good job and we had some great discussion. I think I formed a good early trust with that group. However, at one point I looked up from what I was saying about Plato and I realized that not a single person in the room was following what I was saying because I was talking like a jerk butt. But that's fine because it's free for them and I'm only getting paid 10K!
Pretty exhausting week overall. I was actually sleeping hard by 10:15 last night... I'm very happy that Molly has been off this week, thus able to play wifey around the domecile. She hates it when I say wifey and domecile. But she was taking care of business around here. I cleaned the kitchen once. Things will get easier as I get more comfortable with my class and we really start rolling with the projects. I'm still in 'set the tone' mode with the students.
This weekend I think we'll check out the sole Indian restaurant in town. I want to see the new Ferrell movie, but my date is putting her foot down. We'll do Bed Bath and Beyond and head over to Home Depot if there's time left. We got a good day planned. Seriously I think we're getting out of town somewhere. In this state, at this point, it kind of feels like put up the map and throw a dart--we'll probably hit something pretty cool.
posted by j0eb0t-xj9 at 3:58 PM
1 Comments:
Jerk butt - nice usage.
Post a Comment
<< Home