blah blah blah and stuff

Posted by beth on September 1, 2010

I’m tired, y’all. I’d forgotten what teaching for four hours straight does to you. It’s not like doing any other job for four hours straight. It’s not physical exhaustion, and for me it’s not even really mental. It’s social. I have the same students for 20 hours a week. That’s a lot of face time, and if we don’t get along, that’s a lot of our waking time that’s unhappy.

Now, I usually don’t have problems getting along with my students, but what I do get is the pressure to make the class good according to 15 different people’s ideas of what makes a class good. It has to be challenging for those who read at a 7th grade level, but doable for those at a 5th grade level; fun while serious work gets done; interesting and appropriate for my class (which has rather specific guidelines for teaching). I can definitely give them serious work to do, but it’s the third day, and already I’m feeling the pressure to make it more fun. We worked with “A Boy Named Sue” today, and that was pretty fun. Now I just need more things like that. I can use TV shows, movies, songs, news stories, anything really. I just have to figure out how to incorporate it in the class and come up with appropriate activities to accompany it. I can’t just show a movie. There has to be a point to it.

I also need to think of ways to get them writing, doing research, giving presentations, etc. So I guess I’m a little mentally fatigued too. I need a brainstorming session. Anybody wanna come over this weekend and brainstorm with me?