Into the groove…

So I fell a little behind…

The weekend before I started my units (units plural…there are 2.5 units) my parents came to visit…and Alex’s parents came to visit and I started working on my lesson plans for Wednesday on Sunday at 2…  I worked until 9:30 when the nausea hit.  Then I got sick…yada yada…PD day…yada yada.

I fell behind.  Those of you who know me know that I do not work so well with “behind”.  So I didn’t really enjoy my first week, I never saw Alex and I felt like there was no way I could do this.  This was just a 3 day week and already I was feeling overwhelmed.

But deep breath Tegan…you survived Elizabeth Haigh (twice) and Peter March.  So I spent the next weekend lesson planning and powerpointing and now I’m ahead.

Now I’m caught up and I love teaching.  My classes are fantastic and I’m constantly surprised by how much they can learn and contribute.   I am learning to be explicit, “Take out looseleaf and a pen…if you don’t have a pen borrow a pen…”  but once you get past the details my grade 8s rise to the occasion and they seem to really like learning.

This is especially true, im learning, if you throw in information that they don’t need to know.  The other day a lesson on Acadians digressed into a lesson on dialect, a discussion on etymology.  It’s a great feeling to be able to share information, I’m educated god damnit!

Even the rough day’s aren’t so rough.  Two of my homeroom girls hugged me last Wednesday.  I’ve had discussions about Warcraft, struggled through student-drawn mazes, and learned the merits of vampire-boyfriends.  I love it.

This weekend (it’s Sunday) I’m so caught up that I baked yesterday and painted and all I have to do today is write an “events page” so I can show my classes.

C’est fantastique!

Getting hip to what the kids are doing…

Teaching the eighth-grade is daunting.

I’m not sure that I was ever the forbearer of youth-culture-cool, with my too-short jeans, wal*mart shoes, i-dont-understand-hair haircut, and an awkward…hyper…anxiety. I certainly would not have been the inspiration for any teen drama’s in Middle School…or high school for that matter.

So now, entirely accepting that I am completely out of a loop that I was (arguably) never in I find myself pondering how to relate to the un-relatable. Its like trying too hard to get into an exclusive club. Today I considered buying a J14 so I might learn what is cool to my new demographic. Let it be known that I have never even opened a J14, even when I was 14.

So now I contemplate what it was about those “cool” teachers that made them cool. I’m pretty sure it was not their acute awareness of the words to every Spice Girls song, and the ability to name all of the Backstreet boys. Thankfully. [Nick Jonas....uh...Adam Jonas?]

While I can’t succeed at out pop-culturing them, I am finding benefits.

My mind is a creativity monster right now. Lesson plans race through my dreams and are punctuated by digital stories, thoughtful poetry, music, and media! oh-my.
I have been goggling lesson plans, and hunting for “resources”. I’ve even looked up the instructions to making a dreamcatcher for the unit on Culture that I will soon be teaching.

Suddenly everything is a class project. What can we do with origami lanterns?!

Its pushing me to dust off a creative-me that has been shackled down with Times-New-Roman essays, and Chicago footnotes for the past 4 years.

It’s fun. But beyond that its going to keep me sane. If I have to stare at a binder full of lesson plans and student assignments for the next 8 weeks then it might as well be nice!

I’m feeling nervous, anxious, excited, and stressed. But mostly in my element.