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.