Saturday, February 9, 2008


One week down, twelve to go--and they will go happily, judging by the first week, which was quite a good little lotta bit of fun. My anxiety has been ousted, as expected. I wasn't teaching per se last week; that will begin next Tuesday. I was basically just getting comfortable with the class (better, the class was getting comfortable with me) and helping out and assisting, etc. Good news: the kids like me. And why shouldn't they? I am "mellow" (this said by a 13-year-old with ADHD, true story). The main thing I've been doing is trying to make connections with the kids, buidling relationships and all that. This is good, because that's really what I like the most about teaching. I've memorized the names of all the kids in Socials 9 and English 8, but I'm still missing some in English 10, because the seating/taking of attendance is a bit less organized. Did I mention I have keys and a security code? Jay and Jenn and I are thinking of going to play dodgeball at night sometime. Why? Because we can (maybe).

I like all 3 classes, but English 8 is my favourite, somewhat to my surprise. This is so because my sponsor teacher in that class is really quite ingenious at building a good class dynamic. Mostly he does this through humour, and I've helped by being his straight man this week ("Everybody looks at Mr. Henderson's beard, now look at the overhead"). I was also fortunate that they gave me/us the English 8 class with most of the "good" kids in it. I was talking to the other English 8 teacher and he said he has about 10 of the "bad" boys in his class. To this I replied: "I am sorry and happy to hear that." And this was a sensible thought, he agreed. So, yeah, the practicum has started well and I think it will all be manageable, if not perfect, and the growth will continue, like that of a hippo and his surrogate mother-father tortoise.

P.S. I am much the happy that Lost is back on!
P.P.S. The Canucks have begun the comeback streak that will have them finish with a 2nd consecutive Northwest Division championship (To Kryce and other Leaf fans, a Division championship is the thing given to the team that finishes first in its division).
P.P.P.S. Jay and I are only about 80 (out of 1050) headshots away from getting the golden AK-47 in COD4. Yes, it's true. This is a weird and somewhat disturbing quest, but I'm OK with that.

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