Days 8, 9, & 10: Triple Whammy!

     











          Umm.....yeah. I've been busy. Like, too busy to snap photos and upload them to my blog with a short little description. But here are my outfits for the last three days!

         So, for the last three days I've been subbing in an 8th grade math and science class. It's been awesome! I love it! I got to play with my super cool toy, do a science demonstration, and teach some kids how to multiply and divide monomials. I've always had this fear of 8th graders. I've been afraid that they're just "too cool for school", if I may. When I was a high school AVID tutor, back when I was 18 and barely out of high school myself, I was tutoring a class of freshmen. This one kid, let's call him "Jack", had a pretty big attitude. On a good day, he was a great kid; someone I would have wanted to be friends with a few years earlier. But on his bad days, he was every parent's teenage nightmare. He was angsty and moody. And he was tall. Compared to me, he was a giant. So, this one day I'm in the classroom and he's having one of his days. He was not participating in tutorial at all. My very green inner teacher told me to push him just a little bit more. "Jack, have you come up with a question, yet? I told you we would be coming back to hear from you," was about the gist of my pushing. Jack didn't take it very well. I don't remember the exact words that I said, but he jumped out of his chair, stood what felt like a million feet tall, and screamed at me to leave him alone. I mean, he really screamed. I was terrified. He stomped out of the room and I didn't even turn to see where he was going. Then the teacher asked if I was ok. After the initial shock of feeling like a total screw up at my first quasi-teaching gig, I began to sink into a slow humiliation as I realized that every kid was looking at me and expecting me to cry or go home. Jack scared me, there was no denying that. The question I faced was: How are you going to react? I wanted to go home. I wanted to crawl in a hole and cry for a little while. I wanted a hug. I wanted to apologize to Jack for upsetting him -- because I don't like to upset people. But the kids would walk all over me for the rest of my career if I did any of those things. So, I swallowed my pride, slapped on a smile, and told the teacher that I was fine and would watch the class while she chased down Jack and notified administration. Freshmen aren't that far away from 8th graders. I've always been afraid that another adolescent is going to blow up at me like that. That they're going to figure out that they're actually taller than I am. A lot taller. That if they really wanted to, they could throw their weight around and do me some serious damage.
          However, no such thing occurred to me this week. Instead, I had a lot of fun talking and working with this class. In fact, the students were very well behaved and most of the students were able to both socialize and work at the same time. I love it when I see a kid accomplish this. It means they've finally figured out that they can live in harmony with school. Lesson learned? If I was offered a position to teach 8th grader, I would take it and take it without hesitation. :)
          Which is why I've been behind on my blog. When I'm having fun at work, I throw myself into it. I stay waaaay late after the bell, planning and preparing for the next lesson and activity. I read up on the material so I can continue my facade of knowing everything a kid could ever ask me. I build projects and gadgets and round up materials for fun and messy interactive activities. I'm in work mode from the time I get up to the time I go to bed and, if I'm really in bad shape, I dream about work. And that's been me for the last three days. Tomorrow I have a new class that I've had scheduled for a while now. I won't be as enthusiastic because I don't know them yet and don't know what I'll be teaching them, but I'll do my best to have fun with them while sneaking in their lessons.