The Last Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been pretty interesting. Last week, the week March 15th thru March 18th was supposed to be Fairleigh’s spring break. And well, nothing was planned, too much time trying to save money, but I get an e-mail asking me if I would like to start my student teaching the next week (I have two weeks that I have to accomplish, this was a free week, why the hell not). So I agree.

The person that I was observing was a former Fairleigh student, her twin sister was my RA and we at one point in time were both RA’s…but for different areas of the dorms, Kathy (and that’s as far as I’m going with names here people) was extremely happy to lend a hand to furthering my education in….education.

Was I nervous about it? Not really. I am a substitute teacher, and I have in fact subbed for this class before and new some of the kids.

The first day I was mostly observing and it started to get really irritating because as a substitute teacher (as well as someone who hates sitting in one place for a long time) I needed to get up, so after a few periods I asked Kathy if I could help with different parts of the lesson and she, to my surprise, had no problem with it whatsoever.

The only real reason why I was surprised by it was because in the education program we’ve been conditioned to think that teachers are very stingy and do not want to help new teachers out in anyway. Kathy was the complete opposite.

So as the week progressed (and the kids started to know my name and ask me questions about class assignment and other things) I was completely at ease. I woke up at the ass crack of dawn and repeatedly got ready and got there on time. I was so proud of myself.

Spring break week was the hardest week to get through with Melissa, I mean we called each other and spoke all the time. But she wasn’t there to greet me when I got back from school and hear about my day first hand. It was just sad.

Now, I’m just going to rewind a few months and say that for my birthday my parents bought me a massage gift certificate from a place in my town because they knew how stressed I was probably going to be and thought I could use one. I bought Melissa a similar gift certificate from the same place (I am not a re-gifter! So stop thinking that, I bought another one for her) so that we could go on the same day and enjoy ourselves. That was supposed to be Thursday. Then on Friday we were going to go into the city and see a play. Both things, never happened, which sucks, but at least we can treat ourselves later on to it. But that also made the week very melancholy when Thursday came around.

The second week I knew was going to be a very long and drawn out week. Not only did I have to wake up so early, but I had to go to class almost every night. But it worked out, I did fine. I actually didn’t mind waking up so early. I mean, as a student on a campus, it was always a difficult thing to go to sleep before midnight and get up early. But I pulled it off this past week. I am really proud of myself for that alone. Not once did I get to school late. In fact I was always early and on time.

Wednesday I was observed teaching a lesson and I received rave reviews for it, not only from the person observing me but from Kathy. Kathy went as far as saying that for someone who has never really had any experience in the classroom I did great.

As a whole, the entire two weeks was an amazing experience, one that I learned far more than I actually thought I would going in.

The next day I returned to the car dealership to work, half going because the two weeks off was two week without pay and I needed to start making money and half just to see if I still had a job. As far as I know, I still have the job, they put me right to work. But the best compliment outside of any teacher came from one of the managers when I told him how I did in the observation. He first asked, “what grade was it?” I told him sixth grade. He laughed and said, “good for you, those kids are the hardest kids to get to listen, and if you did well, then good for you. I remember when I was that age, there wasn’t anything anyone was going to tell me that I was going to fucking want to hear. But if you got them to listen than good.” And just knowing that this guy who knows me just as an employee was legitimately proud of what I had accomplished, than dammit, I did a good job.

Besides, I didn’t need to be told by him I did a good job. I knew I did.

–Socram

PS Next BLOG I’ll try to spice things up.