here's the thing about getting a master's: the coursework doesn't leave one a whole lot of time for leisure activities, for example keeping up with a blog on a weekly basis. lots of projects and things in the past few weeks, which is why i haven't been doing this. but i am now. so let's talk about days two through four.
[ day two: spirit week. ]
my second day at carrboro high fell right in the middle of spirit week. the day's theme was "take it back," which apparently meant the chs community (teachers included) could dress either in the style of their favorite decade or as toddlers. as i didn't have any pacifiers lying around the house, and as i rarely pass up an opportunity to dress like marty mcfly, i borrowed a down vest from jesse (wooten, lead singer and guitarist for local chapel hill indie-rock phenom harmute) and went to school like it was 1985. the 80s seemed to be a popular decade, perhaps because it counts as retro to these children since they weren't born until the early 1990s. weird.
the day itself wasn't much to talk about. none of my classes offered me too much of an opportunity to interact with students--not much group work going on that i could eavesdrop on/help out with, for example. first period honors english i discussed how scout's moral development in to kill a mockingbird aligned with lawrence kohlberg's theory. i did get a couple good quotes out of jeff (carpenter) during the class, though:
something i thought was a neat classroom management method, said while students chattered after morning announcements
[while waving an arm over the students at their desks] "a wave of silence crashed over the class..."
and my personal favorite, said while explaining the word "waffling" to the students:
"it [waffling] doesn't mean you're eating waffles. i'd love to be waffling in that sense."
me too, mr c. me too.
second period (english iii with mr donaldson) we did some vocab review and watched the end of dead poets society. good teacher movie, if a bit cliched.
third period (english i for limited english proficient students) was kind of fun; the students had read a story last week and had to re-tell it to me to work on their comprehension and present-tense verb skills. after they were done, i got quizzed by mr carpenter on key points of the story. i can't say i could answer all of them, but i got the gist of it. something about this young japanese boy and his uncle planting six rows of flowers, but only one bunch made it because the little boy, tatsuo, wasn't great at taking care of them, and so he only made like 5 cents at the flower market, and oh by the way he spent it on baseball and movies. everybody was pretty happy at the end though.
i also sat in on mr donaldson's fourth period ap literature class for the first time. they had just finished reading cormac mccarthy's all the pretty horses and were getting ready to write papers on it. again, not much for me to do but sit back and watch it happen. reminded me of my own high school ap experience a bit.
period five was honors english i again; period six was english iii; then i was off to class. another day in the bag.
[ day three: into the fire. ]
at the end of my second day, mr carpenter asked me if i wanted to teach a small lesson the following week. i said that'd be great, so he told me i could take on teaching the students about how to use quotations in essays. basically the point of the lesson was to get them to stay away from "floating" quotes--quotations used in the body of a paper that aren't connected in any way to the author's own writing, for example:
at the end of 1984, winston smith has become another drone of the european state. "2 + 2 = 5." blah blah blah dystopia etc.
so the quote is pretty valid, but the reader can't tell exactly why because the writer doesn't connect the quote to any of his own words. to illustrate the concept of "floating quotes" visually, i showed the students a clip from the end of titanic where leonardo dicaprio's character is floating in the water and dies as a result. moral of the story: if you float quotes, they can't do anything. they die. don't kill leo; don't float your quotes.
i think the lesson went over pretty well with both periods one and five. the morning kids were a bit more quiet than the afternoon guys, but that's always the case. luckily, most of them were still old enough to have seen titanic, understand the reference, and think it funny when i called leo a beautiful man. the best part, though, was how mr c introduced me for my lesson:
"and now, mr smith is going to get his teach on."
that i did. that i am.
the other highlight of the day was in the lep english class (third period), where we were discussing our responsibilities as further practice with present tense verbs. one left out word led to a humorous discussion of the subtle differences between throwing the trash and throwing it out.
mr donaldson was out that day and had a sub, so not much to report there.
[ day four: starting to fit in. ]
probably the best part of my day this past week took place outside of class entirely. several separate times in the hallways, students gave me a wave and said "hey, mr smith." it's nice to be noticed by these guys; gives me the sense that maybe i'm making an impression on them already, or that at least i'll be able to next semester.
i did a vocabularly lesson in mr donaldson's classes that went pretty well. i had the students pick words off the week's vocabularly list and use them in a story. i let the first class decide the topic on their own, and it ended up being about how bad one of their classmates was at football. for the second go-around, i greased the wheels of learning with my own prompt: "yesterday, mr smith had a very bad day." i think they talked about how i was smelly and dressed weird and got picked on, then made getting revenge my new bailiwick (look it up). mr d said he thought it went well, and i'm going to do it again next week.
so overall, the observations have been pretty fruitful thus far. next week we're starting romeo and juliet.
look out.
11 October 2008
27 September 2008
always something there to remind me.
so i realize i said this blog was going to be all about my teaching experience, but the ridiculousness of today's events at lowes foods reached such a caliber that i cannot allow it to go undocumented. actually, the two are somewhat related; after dealing with this particular woman this evening, i re-discovered a large reason why i'm trying to enter a salaried profession. allow me to explain.
for the first four hours or so, work tonight was largely uneventful. pretty busy, but plenty of help for once. after i returned from lunch (footlong prime rib with lettuce, tomato, banana peppers, mayo, oil, vinegar, and oregano), however, things changed. i returned to find my front-end floor manager, angela, speaking with a customer who apparently wanted to return an item. this item was fruit salad--sort of. it had been fruit salad once. now it was an empty fruit salad container. apparently the fruit salad that once occupied this container had gone bad. this was an unsurprising occurance, considering the fruit salad in question had been purchased on august 27. as in, almost a month ago. naturally, this customer felt she had been grossly wronged by this heinous set of circumstances and wanted her money back.
trying to conceal my disbelief, i asked, "ma'am, do you have your reciept?"
"no," she replied. "i don't save my grocery reciepts." as if she couldn't be bothered. neiman marcus reciepts, certainly; even the occasional gap reciept. but lowes foods reciepts? are you kidding?
"well, ma'am, without a reciept, the best i can do for your is an even exchange." a pretty sweet deal in my opinion, considering she didn't even have the original product.
this was when things started to get really ugly. with no intermediate period of escalation, this lady (who, i'd like to add at this point, sported glasses that lent her an uncanny resemblance to elliot gould) immediately went to defcon 1. "that's the kind of comment that will send me permanently to harris teeter," she snapped.
a quick side note about the "i'm not going to shop here anymore" argument: it doesn't work. i don't get paid on commission, nor does your patronage keep our store afloat. quite simply, if you go somewhere else, i still get a paycheck. no one cares. in fact, we'd all probably be a lot happier if you were miserable to and around someone else.
of course, i couldn't elucidate the finer points of my retail ennui to ms. gould. instead she took the classic "i'd like to speak to your manager" tactic. technically she asked for the store manager, but our grocery department manager was the only one on duty. i called him up and he told her exactly what i did. not surprisingly, the situation was made no better by her hearing a second time that no one was going to fall for her crap. what mike (the grocery manager) did tell her was that if she had other shopping to do, we'd be happy to take the amount of the (alleged) fruit salad off of her order.
"i believe i've made it quite clear i don't want to shop here," she replied.
mike then made the mistake of asking ms. gould what she wanted. naturally, her reply: "i believe i've made it quite clear i want my money back." "i believe i've made it quite clear" seemed to be a favorite refrain of hers. mike looked to me--whether for guidance or simply out of sheer disbelief, i'm still not sure--and i told her, once again, that without a reciept there was no way she was getting any cash out of me. in so many words. at this point, the option of store credit came up. customers think store credit is some kind of golden ticket i can bestow upon them when i deem fit. in reality, there's no way for me to transfer store credit in the abstract sense to a customer. when i told ms. gould this, she suggested i could give her the credit in question by "opening the cash register and giving her the money."
at this point, hypertension was starting to set in.
finally, gouldie decided she'd deign to get some cheese from the deli. fantastic. she brought it up along with some flowers, which i rang up and then deducted the amount of the fruit salad (container) from the order. in the course of doing so, the woman managed not only to make yet another crack about how she wouldn't be coming back (me: "do you have your lowes card, ma'am?" gouldie: "yeah, not that i'll be needing it much anymore."), but to also complain about the 2% sales tax on non-food items (namely her flowers). why this was a surprise to her i'll never know, nor why she thought i had something to do with it. believe me, i wish i had a switch under the desk that turned on the "total jerk customer" tax; alas, such a device remains my fantasy.
finally she left, but not before getting my name and my manager's so she could report us to corporate for our gross incompetence and "stupid" (her actual word) company policies. i was literally hopping mad; as soon as she walked out the door, i proceeded to jump up and down and punch the air in an effort to release the furious energy i had bottled up over the past 30 minutes. i had to leave the front end to cool down. my cashiers were terrified; they had never seen me mad, they said.
anyway it was pretty awful and i was pretty pissed. i had a hard time focusing the rest of the night. and really, when i think about it now, i realize that as a teacher i probably won't escape this kind of treatment--i'll still be making less than the people i'm beholden to, namely parents, and some of them will still treat me like crap for that reason. even so, i guess it'll be nice to argue over something like mixed-media pedagogy or banned books rather than fruit salad that the lady probably just ate and then tried to scam us for.
in conclusion, and for a musical version of the sentiments found in this post, i leave you with this link.
as always, thanks for shopping at lowes foods.
for the first four hours or so, work tonight was largely uneventful. pretty busy, but plenty of help for once. after i returned from lunch (footlong prime rib with lettuce, tomato, banana peppers, mayo, oil, vinegar, and oregano), however, things changed. i returned to find my front-end floor manager, angela, speaking with a customer who apparently wanted to return an item. this item was fruit salad--sort of. it had been fruit salad once. now it was an empty fruit salad container. apparently the fruit salad that once occupied this container had gone bad. this was an unsurprising occurance, considering the fruit salad in question had been purchased on august 27. as in, almost a month ago. naturally, this customer felt she had been grossly wronged by this heinous set of circumstances and wanted her money back.
trying to conceal my disbelief, i asked, "ma'am, do you have your reciept?"
"no," she replied. "i don't save my grocery reciepts." as if she couldn't be bothered. neiman marcus reciepts, certainly; even the occasional gap reciept. but lowes foods reciepts? are you kidding?
"well, ma'am, without a reciept, the best i can do for your is an even exchange." a pretty sweet deal in my opinion, considering she didn't even have the original product.
this was when things started to get really ugly. with no intermediate period of escalation, this lady (who, i'd like to add at this point, sported glasses that lent her an uncanny resemblance to elliot gould) immediately went to defcon 1. "that's the kind of comment that will send me permanently to harris teeter," she snapped.
a quick side note about the "i'm not going to shop here anymore" argument: it doesn't work. i don't get paid on commission, nor does your patronage keep our store afloat. quite simply, if you go somewhere else, i still get a paycheck. no one cares. in fact, we'd all probably be a lot happier if you were miserable to and around someone else.
of course, i couldn't elucidate the finer points of my retail ennui to ms. gould. instead she took the classic "i'd like to speak to your manager" tactic. technically she asked for the store manager, but our grocery department manager was the only one on duty. i called him up and he told her exactly what i did. not surprisingly, the situation was made no better by her hearing a second time that no one was going to fall for her crap. what mike (the grocery manager) did tell her was that if she had other shopping to do, we'd be happy to take the amount of the (alleged) fruit salad off of her order.
"i believe i've made it quite clear i don't want to shop here," she replied.
mike then made the mistake of asking ms. gould what she wanted. naturally, her reply: "i believe i've made it quite clear i want my money back." "i believe i've made it quite clear" seemed to be a favorite refrain of hers. mike looked to me--whether for guidance or simply out of sheer disbelief, i'm still not sure--and i told her, once again, that without a reciept there was no way she was getting any cash out of me. in so many words. at this point, the option of store credit came up. customers think store credit is some kind of golden ticket i can bestow upon them when i deem fit. in reality, there's no way for me to transfer store credit in the abstract sense to a customer. when i told ms. gould this, she suggested i could give her the credit in question by "opening the cash register and giving her the money."
at this point, hypertension was starting to set in.
finally, gouldie decided she'd deign to get some cheese from the deli. fantastic. she brought it up along with some flowers, which i rang up and then deducted the amount of the fruit salad (container) from the order. in the course of doing so, the woman managed not only to make yet another crack about how she wouldn't be coming back (me: "do you have your lowes card, ma'am?" gouldie: "yeah, not that i'll be needing it much anymore."), but to also complain about the 2% sales tax on non-food items (namely her flowers). why this was a surprise to her i'll never know, nor why she thought i had something to do with it. believe me, i wish i had a switch under the desk that turned on the "total jerk customer" tax; alas, such a device remains my fantasy.
finally she left, but not before getting my name and my manager's so she could report us to corporate for our gross incompetence and "stupid" (her actual word) company policies. i was literally hopping mad; as soon as she walked out the door, i proceeded to jump up and down and punch the air in an effort to release the furious energy i had bottled up over the past 30 minutes. i had to leave the front end to cool down. my cashiers were terrified; they had never seen me mad, they said.
anyway it was pretty awful and i was pretty pissed. i had a hard time focusing the rest of the night. and really, when i think about it now, i realize that as a teacher i probably won't escape this kind of treatment--i'll still be making less than the people i'm beholden to, namely parents, and some of them will still treat me like crap for that reason. even so, i guess it'll be nice to argue over something like mixed-media pedagogy or banned books rather than fruit salad that the lady probably just ate and then tried to scam us for.
in conclusion, and for a musical version of the sentiments found in this post, i leave you with this link.
as always, thanks for shopping at lowes foods.
18 September 2008
day one.
i've resolved to keep a blog for the duration of my observations and student teaching. this whole getting-a-master's-degree-and-starting-a-career thing seems like a pretty important stage in my life, and i thought it deserved some kind of documentation. here goes.
so today was the first day. well, it was the second first day. sort of. i went to carrboro high on monday to meet with my mentor teachers (al donaldson and jeff carpenter) and talk about expectations for the 8 months ahead as well as logistical concerns like badges, keys, and parking permits. just walking in the place was kind of a shock--it felt like the first day of school all over again, with all these youngsters changing classes and me not knowing where to go. still, after talking with al and jeff and seeing the school, it seemed like a great place to be.
today was the first day i actually observed their classes. my schedule was as follows:
period 1 -- honors english i
period 2 -- english iii
period 3 -- lep (limited english proficient) english i
period 4 -- prep
period 5 -- honors english i
period 6 -- english iii
also there's a period 7, but i had to bounce so i could go to class. i'm sitting in on a peppering of classes from both al and jeff. the honors and lep english classes are jeff's, while the english iii classes are al's. jeff also teaches one section of english iv, and al has two sections of ap literature, but i don't know how much involvement i'll have in those. i'll at least spend some time sitting in on them, but i think i'll have far fewer (if any) teaching responsibilities in those classes come fall.
speaking of the road ahead, i'm reminded that many of you reading may be unfamiliar with the exact process for what i'm doing right now. the way things work at the unc mat (master of arts in teaching) program is as follows: at the beginning of the spring semester, pre-service teachers are given assignments at local high schools that will last through the fall. during the spring, these teachers spend time sitting in on their mentor teacher's (or teachers', in my case) classes, primarily observing the teacher's techniques of instruction, classroom management, and the like. come fall, however, it's batter up; the mentor teacher takes the backseat (perhaps quite literally) while the young, naive, idealistic, inexperienced pre-service teacher (or in-service teacher at this point, i guess--namely me, however you slice it) takes the wheel and does his level best to shape young minds and inspire a love of writing and literature. or, failing that, said new teacher at least tries to establish a white-knuckle grip on said wheel and frantically tries not to run the class over the cliffs of educational oblivion.
...it's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. much in keeping with the extended reckless-driving metaphor, actually.
so anyway today was good. jeff gave me binders full of surveys his kids filled out in the beginning of the year so i could get to know them better. after a cursory perusal, my summary conclusion: these guys rule. if musical tastes alone are any indication, some of these kids are advanced way beyond their age. highlights include:
- coldplay (x2)
- jimmy eat world
- red hot chili peppers
- rem
- the who (x3)
- pink floyd
- credence clearwater revival
- fleetwood mac
- boston
- and at least three references to--get this--bruce springsteen and the e street band.
seriously? fleetwood mac, the who, and none other than the boss himself? are you kidding me? are these kids even real? if their musical tastes are any indication of their academic prowess, this whole teaching business is going to be a cakewalk.
after stalking my students on paper, jeff gave me a couple minutes to introduce myself. he emailed me ahead of time about this, giving me a chance to prepare some kind of funny/engaging/slightly self-compromising routine. i decided to pack several key items in a (plastic lowes foods grocery) bag to illuminate important aspects of myself. items were as follows (apologies for another list and another parenthetical comment):
- one postcard from the maize at stoughton farm, my high school place of employment in my boyhood home
- one pair of drumsticks
- weezer's eponymous debut, commonly known as the blue album
- coldplay's latest album, viva la vida, or death and all his friends
- one plastic oscar-style trophy awarded by the ti-ahwaga players to the best supporting actor of the 2003-2004 season (i.e. me, as milky white in into the woods)
- one scale model of the modified delorean time machine from back to the future.
slight disappointments related to the above items included that about three people said they listened to weezer (despite otherwise eclectic and impressive tastes) and that just about no one seemed to realize how awesome, influential, and culturally relevant back to the future is. these, among others, are the reasons why i must teach them. the glories of early alternative rock and 80s time-travel sci-fi are the cross i must bear.
so apart from introductions, i spent most of the time in my classes just taking notes on the agenda and students' comments, as well as milling about among groups and keeping them on task. overall, it seemed like the students weren't entirely horrified or apalled by my presence, so i guess i can count day one as a success.
hopefully i actually keep up with this blog; i'm hoping it might make its way into my portfolio next semester. i guess the creation of a record for posterity's sake is a worthy cause, too. let's wait until i'm prepping for 4 classes next semester and see how quickly my devotion wanes.
i conclude this entry with a quote from the modern-day poet and religious scholar stanley kirk burrell:
"ring the bell. school's in, sucka."
so today was the first day. well, it was the second first day. sort of. i went to carrboro high on monday to meet with my mentor teachers (al donaldson and jeff carpenter) and talk about expectations for the 8 months ahead as well as logistical concerns like badges, keys, and parking permits. just walking in the place was kind of a shock--it felt like the first day of school all over again, with all these youngsters changing classes and me not knowing where to go. still, after talking with al and jeff and seeing the school, it seemed like a great place to be.
today was the first day i actually observed their classes. my schedule was as follows:
period 1 -- honors english i
period 2 -- english iii
period 3 -- lep (limited english proficient) english i
period 4 -- prep
period 5 -- honors english i
period 6 -- english iii
also there's a period 7, but i had to bounce so i could go to class. i'm sitting in on a peppering of classes from both al and jeff. the honors and lep english classes are jeff's, while the english iii classes are al's. jeff also teaches one section of english iv, and al has two sections of ap literature, but i don't know how much involvement i'll have in those. i'll at least spend some time sitting in on them, but i think i'll have far fewer (if any) teaching responsibilities in those classes come fall.
speaking of the road ahead, i'm reminded that many of you reading may be unfamiliar with the exact process for what i'm doing right now. the way things work at the unc mat (master of arts in teaching) program is as follows: at the beginning of the spring semester, pre-service teachers are given assignments at local high schools that will last through the fall. during the spring, these teachers spend time sitting in on their mentor teacher's (or teachers', in my case) classes, primarily observing the teacher's techniques of instruction, classroom management, and the like. come fall, however, it's batter up; the mentor teacher takes the backseat (perhaps quite literally) while the young, naive, idealistic, inexperienced pre-service teacher (or in-service teacher at this point, i guess--namely me, however you slice it) takes the wheel and does his level best to shape young minds and inspire a love of writing and literature. or, failing that, said new teacher at least tries to establish a white-knuckle grip on said wheel and frantically tries not to run the class over the cliffs of educational oblivion.
...it's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. much in keeping with the extended reckless-driving metaphor, actually.
so anyway today was good. jeff gave me binders full of surveys his kids filled out in the beginning of the year so i could get to know them better. after a cursory perusal, my summary conclusion: these guys rule. if musical tastes alone are any indication, some of these kids are advanced way beyond their age. highlights include:
- coldplay (x2)
- jimmy eat world
- red hot chili peppers
- rem
- the who (x3)
- pink floyd
- credence clearwater revival
- fleetwood mac
- boston
- and at least three references to--get this--bruce springsteen and the e street band.
seriously? fleetwood mac, the who, and none other than the boss himself? are you kidding me? are these kids even real? if their musical tastes are any indication of their academic prowess, this whole teaching business is going to be a cakewalk.
after stalking my students on paper, jeff gave me a couple minutes to introduce myself. he emailed me ahead of time about this, giving me a chance to prepare some kind of funny/engaging/slightly self-compromising routine. i decided to pack several key items in a (plastic lowes foods grocery) bag to illuminate important aspects of myself. items were as follows (apologies for another list and another parenthetical comment):
- one postcard from the maize at stoughton farm, my high school place of employment in my boyhood home
- one pair of drumsticks
- weezer's eponymous debut, commonly known as the blue album
- coldplay's latest album, viva la vida, or death and all his friends
- one plastic oscar-style trophy awarded by the ti-ahwaga players to the best supporting actor of the 2003-2004 season (i.e. me, as milky white in into the woods)
- one scale model of the modified delorean time machine from back to the future.
slight disappointments related to the above items included that about three people said they listened to weezer (despite otherwise eclectic and impressive tastes) and that just about no one seemed to realize how awesome, influential, and culturally relevant back to the future is. these, among others, are the reasons why i must teach them. the glories of early alternative rock and 80s time-travel sci-fi are the cross i must bear.
so apart from introductions, i spent most of the time in my classes just taking notes on the agenda and students' comments, as well as milling about among groups and keeping them on task. overall, it seemed like the students weren't entirely horrified or apalled by my presence, so i guess i can count day one as a success.
hopefully i actually keep up with this blog; i'm hoping it might make its way into my portfolio next semester. i guess the creation of a record for posterity's sake is a worthy cause, too. let's wait until i'm prepping for 4 classes next semester and see how quickly my devotion wanes.
i conclude this entry with a quote from the modern-day poet and religious scholar stanley kirk burrell:
"ring the bell. school's in, sucka."
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