teacher placement day reflection.

Well, I really enjoyed teacher placement day. At first it was rather frightening, walking in and not knowing where to go, who to talk to...but then I started off by talking to the Cedar Rapids Schools people and that helped make me more comfortable. I talked to probably about 10 different districts, and most of them were pretty nice and helpful. The only people that were somewhat rude were Shawnee Mission, Park Hill, and, ironically enough, Warrensburg. My favorite people I talked to were probably the guys from Liberty and Blue Springs, just because they actually asked me real interview questions and seemed genuinely interested and impressed with what I had to say. But who knows, I've applied to Lee's Summit and Liberty now, so we'll see what comes of that. This experience definitely helped me increase my confidence though, one of the Career Services guys even came up and told me that he overheard people talking about me (saying good things of course) so that MUST be a good sign.

Oh, and on a really weird side note, I had one superintendent approach me and seem really interested in hiring me for about 10 seconds, then he said, "I'm sorry, our district doesn't even teach French, but I don't pass up chances to talk to attractive women." WHOA. Pretty sure they don't prepare you for comments like that in the mock interviews. Oh, and I also got interviewed by KMOS for their University Magazine, so I'll be making another television appearance...we'll see if I managed to sound intelligent on this one :).

i love the freshies.

Today was my first day teaching without my district supervisor around...which I was honestly looking forward to because it meant it would actually feel like my own classroom...but I found out how much kids will try to take advantage of someone who appears to be kind and understanding. I had everyone from the shyest freshmen to the big burly football player seniors lying to me today, and I seriously wondered if I looked that dumb, seriously, like I'm going to say, "Sure, you can use your notes and your books during your test....you can leave class ten minutes early to go smoke pot in the parking lot...of course you can sit by the kid that you've been separated from all year long because all you do is talk about getting drunk on the weekends..." PLEASE!

But really, it was a pretty good day, I had lots of students come up to me at the end of my classes and tell me how much they're enjoying my lessons...even when I give them bad grades they like me, so I must be doing something right. Tomorrow is my first visit from my university supervisor, and I'm so ready for it. He decided to come for my best class, where all the kids actually pay attention and participate, so I'm hoping for a great class period!

hmm.

I've officially taken over all the French classes at WHS for the next two months! It's kind of crazy, the kids seem genuinely happy (so far, haha) and I actually had the surprise of my life today when I announced in one of my French one classes that I was going to be speaking uniquely in French (crap, that's French syntax right there...but I'm not changing it) and I had one girl say, "Yes! This will be great! I'm going to learn so much!" and a boy say, "Sweet! It will be fun to see if you can do it." Oh boy oh boy, can I do it :). It was nice to get a class that didn't meet that announcement with looks of sheer horrors and sighs of disgust...which I'm sure is what I'll get tomorrow when I announce to all those French II slackers what I expect of them.

But so far the teaching has gone well, I spend hours every night brainstorming ways to make things interesting for these kids, and they seem to appreciate the effort...mostly because that extra effort usually results in me thinking up elaborate games for them to play...EDUCATIONAL games, but they forget about that part of it.

But this brings me to sort of a crossroads...I love teaching, I really really do...so maybe I should just jump into the real world and get a job? I definitely could do it, and do it well, I've had lots of diverse teaching experiences to learn from, and the teacher whose classes I'm taking over has even mentioned that if I want to stay in the area she would help me put together an argument for why the district should hire a second French teacher...I could start a French program at the middle school and teach a section of French I and French II, which are the levels I enjoy the most anyway because they're so high-energy. Bah, who knows, I'm just rambling now...but it is something to think about. I started an application with the Clark County SD in Las Vegas since I saw on the USREAP.NET site that they are looking for a French teacher. So now I guess it's just time for me to be patient and see where God leads me.