Short, busy week.

Today is parent/teacher interview day!

I’ve successfully made it through my first week of full-time interning alive, but not without spending a number of hours outside of class prepping for what lies ahead.  This weekend will be more of the same.  But for now, I get to concentrate on speaking with a number of parents today about their children.  I’m not too sure what to expect as my parents never actually went to parent/teacher interviews.  I have spent most of the morning enjoying a quiet, empty classroom, listening to Radiohead and Thursday, and catching up on entering marks into the computer, hopefully it’ll be enough to keep my nerves calm once the parents come in around 2:00.  What I find particularly interesting is the fact that the meetings are no longer than 7 minutes.  Not that I have a plethora of things to say regarding everyone’s kid, but 7 minutes honestly seems like barely enough time to get the ball rolling should it come to that, in regards to conversation.

There is one parent I’m rather interested to meet.  Interested and slightly apprehensive, I should say.  The parent of a student, Z, who I gave a final failing grade in the class I taught him in.  I mean, I do have all my backing in order, all my peas in a pod in terms of why I gave Z the failing mark.  But one never knows how a parent could react, I guess.  Only time will tell.  Other than Z, every student whose parents’ signed up for teacher interviews are more or less at the top end of the class.  Peculiar, and might I say discouraging, how the students who actually need their parents involved in their education are the ones that don’t show up.

In other unrelated teaching news, we hosted another improv show at the school last night and packed the house.  The students from the improv group actually asked me to open the show with an original tune.  So I had my first official show in front of an all-ages crowd.  The real highlight though, as one can imagine, is the amount of talent that is shown during the two hours that this group of 12-14 students improvise their way out of just about anything.  I left with a sore face from laughing and a perma-grin.  This part of the internship is really what it has been all about.  I told one of the students who acts as somewhat of a leader to the rest of the group that “Every time I see you guys perform, I get the impression that there’s something greater in the works.”  These kids are truly inspiring.  I know I have said it before but I honestly feel refreshed, imaginative and in the mood to be worthwhile and helpful.  This sort of thing really acts as my fuel to keep me going through this whole internship process.

But more so, it calls to me to participate in whatever way I can, because I know that I love watching the act, so why would I not want to be a part of it?  I decided to volunteer my time as a co-coach to the improv team here at the school.  This will go well out of my internship and into my remaining university semester, but I couldn’t care less.  I honestly believe some of these students have a life waiting for them doing what they’re doing now.  It’s like watching someone’s life unfolding right before your eyes.

The Inevitable Approaches.

As my three-week-block is a mere week away, I’ve had some dilemmas to sort out in preparation for it. One of those dilemmas was what class I would pick up as my fourth and final class, so I would be essentially working as a full time teacher. As some may know, I am a music major in the arts ed. program, however I have not been teaching any sort of music class as of yet. Unfortunate, but I’ve been given wonderful opportunities with my co-op to get involved with equally exciting and engaging programs. Recently, I took it upon myself to join in on the festivities of coaching the “Improv team.” Would probably not have occurred if I wasn’t teaching drama. Everything works out in the end, I suppose.

But back to the point, I was hoping to get my hands a little dirty in the music program here at school. With the conflicts in scheduling with the fine arts in general at the school, however, I would have to drop teaching drama in order to start teaching a general music class. At this point, things are hectic enough that the whole scenario is pretty much a make-work project, in that I’d essentially be picking up TWO classes because I’d have to drop drama, pick up music, and then pick up something else because I had ridded myself of the drama class.

I know, it’s complicated. Call me if you want to hear me vent about it.

So instead of grabbing a music class, I have decided to teach media studies.  This should be fairly interesting, I thought to myself. It’s a class of grade 11′s who are currently studying the effects of advertising on our culture.  I will be bringing the education straight to them on music in our culture, as well as its contribution to social networking and the effects its had on the music business in general.  I’m rather stoked, now that I’m typing about it.

Regardless, as I said, the inevitable approaches. I have exactly a week before my 3 week block starts and stuff gets real. This is the moment of my university career that I’ve been dreading and/or dreaming of for the last four years.

Dear anybody.

It has been just over a month since I began my internship.  Time is flying by pretty quickly to say the least.  It feels as though each week is going by a little quicker than the next.  Within 3 weeks, I’ll be in the notorious 3-week block.  It is notorious among education students as it is the full-time portion of one’s internship where four classes are being taught in the day for three weeks straight.  When it comes down to it, three weeks is not particularly a big deal for any teacher as they teach four classes every work day for year after year, until they get sick/bored/tired/jaded/convicted, and then they quit/get fired.  For an intern, three weeks of being in constant go mode can be pretty stressful.  I could chalk this up to the amount of work being brought home, the lack of time to prepare for tomorrow’s class, having to teach a class that one is not comfortable with… There are a variety of reasons.

I am currently teaching two classes a day.  That will change tomorrow when I pick up an english language arts 20 class.  This will most likely be the class I feel most uncomfortable with.  I actually had a dream last night about getting into a fight with one of the students from this class.  It’s obviously pressing on my subconscious.  I think why this class will be the most difficult is because the kids are a little slower and uninterested than one would like, I’m not particularly resourceful when it comes to ELA, and I will be doing a novel study of a book that was published 50 years ago.

Seriously, I have no issue with looking back on our culture’s past to see where we’ve come from and learn how we’ve grown.  But grade 11s, as far as I know, have no regard for the 1960’s way of life.  At least not many of them.  I love how there is this worldwide sort of “movement” that is starting with regards to education and how it must be brought up to a 21^st century standard.  This is evident even in our school because the video I posted below is from the same speaker as was presented in a number of our staff meetings this year, Sir Ken Robinson.  I love this, and the fact that we’re trying to think progressively, or outside the box if you will, on how we can reform/revolutionize our education system.  I love that this is all supposedly happening in the midst of me preparing to teaching a 50 year old book to students who were born at the end of the 2^nd millennium.

So on that note, I will not be doing said book that was published 50 years ago.  Instead, I will do a novel study on teen love and pregnancy.  My only problem is that I cannot seem to find any resources on the web for it.  The book’s called “Dear Nobody.”  Got anything for me?