Tying up loose ends.

Today I started my fourth last week of internship.  This is significant because I have cleared up my 3 week block, and have also finished working behind the scenes of The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood.  The play’s reception was pretty fantastic, all in all.  Enough to make my coop teacher shed a few tears as she gave the “go get ‘em” speech on the final performance night.  I believe we actually sold out the theatre on Friday as well.  Pretty crazy stuff.  A number of teachers have stopped me in the hall to say what a wonderful performance it was and such.  I’m not letting it get to my head too much as my contribution to the play was somewhat minor compared to others.  However, I was there for 2-3 hours solid almost every day of the week for two and a half months, so I guess that counts for something.  The kids even thanked me personally in front of the Friday night crowd with a card with a galaxy cinemas “night out” certificate, a couple chocolate bars, and a jumbo box of Vector cereal (there’s an inside joke to that one).  I was quite flattered, it was so thoughtful of everyone to do something like that.  Anyway, now I have all this time opening up.  What am I to do with it?

Grading.  Grading grading grading.

Seriously, it’s not that bad.  It’s actually quite humourous when a bottle of wine is in accompaniment.  I learned a valuable trick while I was in class though the last couple years: never assign anything you will not want to grade.  If it’s going to be boring as all hell to read or evaluate, don’t bother handing it out.  So that’s saved me a little.  I still have a fair amount of grading to do, but my grading involves reviewing improvised scenes between awkward grade nines.  Hilarious.

Speaking of, I did finally end up having a certain student who had previously requested a zero actually get up in front of the class and improvise.  SUCCESS!  Not to mention the fact that she performed spectacularly.  Blew me out of the water, really.  Now she’s off to visual art for six weeks.  Best of luck!

For all those interested, I’ve had a little bit of down time and wrote a review on a music site for an album called Still by Dionaea.  You can check out the review by clicking here.

Late penalties.

So I might have gotten carried away with my last post.  I still more or less concur with everything I wrote.  However, I think while I was writing, I somehow thought that I was already done my internship.  Today proved that is NOT the case.

I’ve had this running issue with students.  There is a significant problem with them handing assignments in at the school.  Moreover, the school has a “school-wide” policy regarding late assignments stating that kids lose 20% for being late 1 day, another 10% for the second day, and a final 10% on the third.  So if a student hands in an assignment 3 days late, they’re instantly losing 40%.  Which will almost instantly fail any assignment that isn’t near perfection.  After 3 days, students get a 0.

I have one student who is purposely skipping class so she doesn’t have to perform a final project for the improv unit we’ve been doing.  This is quite literally the equivalent of skipping class so one doesn’t have to write a final unit exam.  I can understand the notion of stage fright, because some of us are not as keen on public speaking as others. This particular student has already had me call her parents and talk to student services in an attempt to avoid the task of public speaking. To me, it seems like the all the effort she’s expending towards avoidance is far greater than the 90 seconds of effort that would be required to finish the assignment. If her energy could somehow be re-directed towards breaking through her fears, what progress she’d make!  It’s beyond frustrating when a student straight up asks me: “Can you just give me a zero?”

She’s not the only one I’ve seen skip class because of something that isn’t finished.  The worst part of it is the amount of class time that I give to students to complete these assignments.  It is extremely rare that I assign anything without giving the kids at least some class time, if not close to the entire week to work on it.  So when I have half the work not come in on the due date, I’m literally at a loss for what I can do.  My co-op says I shouldn’t take it personally, and I don’t.  However, I really don’t feel like I’m doing my job when I have students just pissing away the time I’m giving them, and on top of that, not getting the assignments in on time.

Apparently, this is all part of the territory.  This is something that I have to learn to deal with, either by confronting it or rolling with it.

Quality time soon to return.

I have to say that this whole experience has passed me by just as quickly as I thought it would.  Weeks start and before I know it, I’m making plans for the weekend.  Mondays haven’t felt like Mondays in some time.

I have been working on a dramatic play with my coop teacher and about 40-some students.  It’s called The Somewhat true tale of Robin Hood.  I’ve mentioned it at the beginning of the semester I’m sure, and now we’re entering the week of performances.  On Monday and Tuesday, sister schools in the community will bring some of their kids to come see the play.  Wednesday through Friday sees the evening performances of the play.  I have invited numerous friends to come see the satirical version of the old folk tale.  My family will also be coming to the city for the first time in months to come check out the final product.  My significant other and her family & relatives have expressed interest in coming as well.

I just had to step back this week and observe the amount of support I have coming from every direction.  I have spent so much time thinking about the lives that I’ve uncontrollably been impacting, and really haven’t taken the time to see who I am impacted by.  It’s a great feeling to know that I have so many support systems on this journey.

Internship is really like that “make or break” process where you finally figure out whether or not you can live up to the task of being an educator.  I’ve gotten to the point in my internship now where I’d have to go out of my way not to make it.  I know there’s still a significant amount of time before graduation occurs and I get my bachelor’s degree, teaching certificate, etc., but what I’m trying to say is there is now light at the end of the tunnel.  Everything is looking pretty damn good from here.

Once Robin Hood is finished, I will no longer have the 10 to 12 hour days I’ve been having at the school.  I’ve also reached the end of my 3-week-block, and I will start dropping the classes I’ve picked up, beginning tomorrow.  ELA is the first to go, and with that, media studies 20.  Once I’ve cleared both classes, I can get to the massive pile of papers + assignments on my desk that need to be graded.  Once that’s done, well, I think I’ll more or less be done.

I have to say I am really excited for the end, but not because I want everything to finish.  I’ve made some great relationships with the students and fellow interns & teachers.  I’ve learned some incredible lessons regarding teaching that I don’t think I would have ever clued into if not for the help of my coop and the kids.  Those lessons I can get into later.  Regardless, I’m excited for things to end because it means new beginnings.  I get to start co-coaching the improv team in a matter of weeks.  I get to go back to uni, lined up with possibly one of the best semesters yet.  There are great things on the horizon.  Most of all, I can’t wait to spend quality time with those that I have not been able to over the course of the last few months.

On Friday, I had a First Nations Storyteller come to my drama 9 class.  I could not have felt more proud of my class and I have come to realize how that feels.  To be proud of a group of kids.  Proud of a classroom community.  After Hazel was finished, she kindly mentioned (more than once) that my grade 9 class was the most well behaved class she has ever had the pleasure of speaking in front of.  Now I don’t know if she says that to all the classes she speaks to, but it sure made me feel good.  Regardless, she was right in some way.  My grade 9 class listened as attentively as they would have listened to me, or one of their fellow peers.  I can guide a class!  I can do it!  Wow.  That realization was almost as surreal as how the first day of internship had been.

Students have also been bugging me about something rather hilarious.  I told a couple of them a few days ago that they could no longer speak about the video game Skyrim in front of me, because I have been too busy to get the game, let alone play it.  Not to mention too broke to buy it.  Now I have half the student body that knows me specifically going out of their way to talk about Skyrim in front of me.  Absolute torture.

When silence signals something good.

I am currently sitting in my desk, watching my ELA 20 class work on an assignment for our novel study.  The students have been given the task of writing a letter to themselves as parents, providing insight as to how they should raise their own kids.  I didn’t tell them to work quietly, but they all are, for the most part.  Does this mean they actually don’t mind the activity I’ve given them?  Or perhaps they are even enjoying themselves?

(In)consistency.

I have come to the halfway point of my internship and am overcoming challenges I was not even aware I’d face.  The surreal feeling I had when I first came into the school has drifted, and now it actually starts to feel l belong there.  That is, until, you really start to wonder if what you’ve been doing is actually making a difference.  Funny enough these doubts come to me during the busiest part of my internship.  I’m thinking that it could not be a more inconvenient time, but at the same time, perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to work out.  I’m stressing on a daily basis for what I will be teaching the very next day, that I start to lose sight of the big picture.

By big picture I don’t mean the final outcome or product that my students learn at the end of the unit, or the final exam they need to write when everything’s said and done.  I mean big picture in a sense that there’s more to teaching than just standing up in front of a classroom and spewing out some shit I typed out on a word processor mere hours ago.

I’ve found myself doubting my purpose simply because I have begun teaching those lessons I don’t really care to teach.  The ones where I feel like I’m just pushing stuff in and out of kids’ ears to fill a curriculum guideline and/or protocol.  I’ve expended so much energy on the formal aspects of teaching these past few weeks that I’ve lost sight of my somewhat creative nature.  For the first time I saw reasons for why educator-burnout occurs.  It was frightening.  I felt this bleak sensation of jadedness.

I’ve spent the last two days picking myself up again, albeit slowly.  I’ve been taking small steps in my class and have been trying to push on sending out my true intentions and expectations of students.  I think this is a smart step because it will get me back on track with the kind of person I want to be, not only as an educator but as a human being.  I want to be able to show my personality however I feel I may have shown a little too much within the recent weeks.  And in showing too much I feel like I was behaving like someone that I am not.

Someone once told me as a piece of advice that I need to display consistency in my character.  I’ve been thinking about it for some time now and I feel like I’m closer to understanding why that is important.

A dilemma of sorts.

This post will be uploaded once my internship is finished.