First Parent Conference

Wow.

Not even a month passes where I am running the show and I already have my first parent conference. A-mazing.

The little red-headed girl. AY! She talks, talks, and talks. And in between talking she's offering gum, putting on make up, staring into the depths of the ceiling wall dots.

The talking and disruption was sufficient for me to send her out of the room and call her father in front of the entire class to arrange a meeting. A challenge, if you will, to the remainder of the uncontrollable talkers of the class room. Try me. Please.

So the father comes in and I explain my situation and her need to earn herself the title of Mayor of Excuses City. But he was 100% supportive of me. Gave me the joy of experiencing true, from-the-heart parenting. He's a widower raising two daughters. So my respect is there completely.

We made a deal. He says to his daughter: If you know that there are say, 20 students who are talking, let's make it only 19. She agrees.

I think it sunk through to her.

She was a complete angel today.

Thank you, Lord.

We'll see how next week goes....

I cried today.

Today was weird. I had to present a lesson on Shakespearian sonnets and, while I am not a literature major, I always get a little flustered at the thought of teaching someone material on what I don't feel I have mastery of. I like to write. That's my thing. I know grammar rules are weird and are consistently broken and whatnot but I like to write and I want to teach students how to do that. But it's English for Pete's sake, I have to teach them about the final products of investing in WRITING!

So Shakespeare it was.

I studied, I paraphrased ("Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" and felt SUPEr confident of what I was going to teach.

Lo and behold, it worked. I TAUGHT THEM SHAKESPEARE!!! They got to the third quatrain and were like "You mean, she's going to live forever in his POETRY!? That's SO COOL!!"

I was feeling confident and had them working in pairs on these questions they had to respond to. Then I realized I had to teach another poem. FUCK~ It's about the rhythm of poetry and learning to identify how the sound plays a big part of the "message" of the poem.

Well, I completely forgot to go over the literary terms for that piece of poetry. OMG! I get to the end of the poem and I realize I FORGOT a HUGE step. I stare at the book and realize that it's going to be a total disaster to try to teach them something in literally like 5 minutes. Fuck.

I pause, I stutter step and close my book and say "you know what? We'll just go over this Thursday. Let me explain your homework.

Mother fucker.

Then the kids just started talking and getting ready to leave and, damn. They are talking LOUDLY.

So I, ahem, speak-at the top of my lungs-"DO! NOT! ASK! ME! TO! CLARIFY! YOUR HOMEWORKBECAUSEIAMTRYINGTODOTHATAND YOU! ARE! TALKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY DO YOU HAVE YOUR BACKPACKS ON?????!!!!!!"

UGH.

I just had to sit down at my desk and let them "marinate in their silence" as I described it earlier.

So for two minutes, they sat. in their own silence.

And when they left, I cried.

I was so pissed off at them, at myself, at just the whole transition.

They say that it gets better.

I hope so. I don't feel like paying back $50k in lost hope. Not at all.

Already makin' kids cry!

So the past week or so has been really hectic. I have been struggling to multi-task several things. First is the interacting with the students. Since I have worked in a different capacity with high schoolers, it has been with a different "voice". I have been trying to combine that "teacher voice" with the organization and time management that is necessary for a successful teaching experience.

Having said that, on Friday I had my first "Substituting" day. I officially substituted in the classroom all by myself !

One thing that was not good was the obvious "teacher's not here so let's not act right"-ness. So I had to check them. One particular period had two girls all Disobeying the LAW (aka ME). UGH so I had to get all West-of-the-805 on those little girls. I was NOT having it.

One thing that I am very fortunate about (well, one of many, many things) is that the classes that I teach are part of a magnet program at our school that is tied into the CV POlice Department. Holla at some support!

So I mentioned to the coordinator of the program that these two little girls were acting up so he walks next door where they were practicing mock trials and starts CHECKING the crap out of this little girl. He goes on with her being disrespectful to me. So the girl starts crying.

I felt a little bad and when I left I thought about the big picture. These kids do need to have those boundaries and the understanding that I am not to be fucked with. Not in a mean sense, but in that sense of respect.

So today one of the girls who I had an issue with came up to me and apologized for being disrespectful. I told her thank you for the apology and we could start fresh today. So we did.


I feel much better and the confidence knob goes up a notch. One day: full blast!

But today, sleep! This is the most exhausting job I have ever had!