Friday, September 14, 2012

Internship

How can I put this bluntly?

There are simply things you CANNOT learn in a classroom about teaching in a real public school class.

Here is a list of things you can't learn from a textbook: (These are all meant in good humor)

10) Schedule changes are not a possibility, they are the reality. PLAN ON IT.

9)   Middle School students can and WILL fixate on random things at any given moment; don't be surprised if a group of 7th grade girls spontaneously start making flatulent noises with their armpits in the middle of a lesson. -- It's not you. It's them. I promise.

8)   You will learn more about the students in the teachers' lounge than you will ever learn in the classroom.

7)   "Square One" that you're going to have to go back to: it starts WAAAAYYYYY farther back than what you thought. . . waayyy farther. . . nope, farther than that. . . . keep going. . . yeah, you're getting it.

6)   You need to keep some sort of drink handy if you plan to make it through a day of teaching. (What kind of drink you want may depend on what kind of students you have.)

5)   The teacher you see in the classroom is NOTHING like the teacher you see in an in-service meeting.

4)   A teacher's bladder fills in direct proportion to the time spent teaching, NOT to how much he or she has actually had to drink.

3)   That "sweet child" you have in first period mutates into a completely different species by seventh period.

2)   Writing directions on the board is for the people evaluating you; students apparently cannot see dry-erase ink unless you read it to them at least three times.

1)  A "mongoose" is a "weird kind of bird that swoops down and kills snakes." Several of these "birds" have apparently been seen by the more interesting students in schools today.

Heaven help us all. :P    LOL

BG

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Nearing the End: So close and Yet SOOOO Far . . .

For those who were wondering, I've been finishing up an English Education degree. I have completed all of the regular classes and am now interning in a 7th grade class.

I have also been writing fiction in the hopes of becoming a published writer. That hasn't left a lot of time for blogging, but maybe I'll be back to it soon. I think that I'll start a couple of new blogs--one for my thoughts on Education and one for my progress as a writer.

We'll see.

For now, talk to you all soon.

BG