One thing I love about teaching: I get to temporarily suspend my everyday persona and "take the stage" in front of my classes as the star in my own production. I've always regretted not taking theater classes as an undergrad because I think it would have helped my nerves a lot. I still get butterflies right before a class starts. Knowing that I have to be "on" for, well four hours straight with my current teaching schedule (no breaks in between for me) is intimidating, especially for a daydreamer like me. As a student, I drift in and out of class. As a teacher, I have to be non-stop intriguing, aware of what's going on in the class, and prepared to answer any and all questions.
To do this effectively, it helps to play a role. My role is the teacher who's "so crazy and confident, she just doesn't care." This means I have to be okay with the knowledge that my students will probably make fun of me outside of class...and they might imitate me. I've accepted that (I think). I'm not trying to be best friends with my students, so why not? It's fun to just not care....it means I can be a complete goof with no repercussions.
After all, I have other teacher friends to commiserate with me. And they do crazier things than I do. I'm known to act out the vocabulary words I teach to my ESL students, but that's not as outlandish as the teacher I knew who would walk around on the classroom tables while doing her lectures to keep the students' attention. Then, there's the elementary teacher I know who's lowkey around her colleagues, but turns into a singing/dancing maniac in front of her kids.
You know, teaching may be just the thing for all those people who have given up on their dreams of being on the stage. Stand in front of a classroom, and you can be whomever you want to be. If you're talented and excellent at improv, you'll have the captive audience you've always wanted.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Disorientation
I started my new college teaching job yesterday!
Well...I didn't actually teach anything. It was orientation day for 80+ ESL students, and I got to stand around for a few hours pretending I knew what was happening. I apparently did an okay job standing out as an employee of the school (must have been my clipboard) because I got approached by a dozen or so students who thought I could answer their scheduling and registration questions. I fudged my way through answers as if it weren't my first day on the job.
Man, I'm glad I'm not an ESL student. These people have to go through so much. It doesn't matter that they may have been lawyers or chemists or whatever else in their home countries. They come here, and they're suddenly lucky if they get a nanny job. Then they have to take all these expensive English classes just to retain their F1 status.*
For anyone who's ever said about newcomers to this country, "if they live here, they should speak our language," I challenge you to go to a foreign country with a completely different language. Not Spanish-speaking or even French - some place with a whole different alphabet system. Then, see how easy it is to learn and speak this new language with fluency. See how comfortable you feel communicating with native speakers.
If this isn't an option, I suggest you volunteer to tutor an ESL student (or ELL - the terms are always changing). There are thousands of opportunities like this available, and I'm sure it sounds so easy. You know English. Therefore, you know how to teach English. Well, not necessarily. Try explaining why "could" and "wood" rhyme or why "bought" has a "g" or why the plural of "moose" is "moose." That's just the beginning. When you start getting into parts of speech, the thousands of rules and thousands of exceptions to rules, past preterite, subjunctive, etc., etc., you'll begin to wonder how you ever managed to learn such a non-sensical language.
Okay, scrambling off my soapbox now. Despite the chaos and confusion that resulted from sticking dozens of students from many different countries into one small classroom to listen to a PowerPoint presentation, I think I'm going to enjoy this job. I start officially teaching tomorrow, so stay tuned....
*F1 status is given to students who can demonstrate that they plan to engage in full-time study in the new country. International students have to take a certain number of class hours to retain this status and stay here.
Well...I didn't actually teach anything. It was orientation day for 80+ ESL students, and I got to stand around for a few hours pretending I knew what was happening. I apparently did an okay job standing out as an employee of the school (must have been my clipboard) because I got approached by a dozen or so students who thought I could answer their scheduling and registration questions. I fudged my way through answers as if it weren't my first day on the job.
Man, I'm glad I'm not an ESL student. These people have to go through so much. It doesn't matter that they may have been lawyers or chemists or whatever else in their home countries. They come here, and they're suddenly lucky if they get a nanny job. Then they have to take all these expensive English classes just to retain their F1 status.*
For anyone who's ever said about newcomers to this country, "if they live here, they should speak our language," I challenge you to go to a foreign country with a completely different language. Not Spanish-speaking or even French - some place with a whole different alphabet system. Then, see how easy it is to learn and speak this new language with fluency. See how comfortable you feel communicating with native speakers.
If this isn't an option, I suggest you volunteer to tutor an ESL student (or ELL - the terms are always changing). There are thousands of opportunities like this available, and I'm sure it sounds so easy. You know English. Therefore, you know how to teach English. Well, not necessarily. Try explaining why "could" and "wood" rhyme or why "bought" has a "g" or why the plural of "moose" is "moose." That's just the beginning. When you start getting into parts of speech, the thousands of rules and thousands of exceptions to rules, past preterite, subjunctive, etc., etc., you'll begin to wonder how you ever managed to learn such a non-sensical language.
Okay, scrambling off my soapbox now. Despite the chaos and confusion that resulted from sticking dozens of students from many different countries into one small classroom to listen to a PowerPoint presentation, I think I'm going to enjoy this job. I start officially teaching tomorrow, so stay tuned....
*F1 status is given to students who can demonstrate that they plan to engage in full-time study in the new country. International students have to take a certain number of class hours to retain this status and stay here.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Welcome Back, Class
Bet you thought I was never coming back. Well....I had a long interval of non-teaching over the summer and simply was not feeling inspired to write. I could have blogged about my seemingly endless job search for the perfect teaching job - okay, any teaching job - but I didn't want to depress you.
Let me tell you what I'm doing this fall.
Tomorrow, I start teaching adults. That's right....adults, college students, people who have chosen to take the classes that I'm teaching. What's better is that they're international students learning English. That presents a new set of challenges, but more than counteracts the sarcasm and indifference innate to high school students.
Don't worry though. I haven't escaped teenagers altogether. Until they decide to hire me full-time at this small college or until I go completely loco, I will supplement my income by substitute teaching in Chicago's lovely public school system. Ah yes...let me tell you about how exciting that is.
Substitute teaching in CPS is obviously such a privilege that only the most die-hard self-torturers can get through the application process. Let me just give you a brief rundown of what I had to do to become an official CPS sub. You'd think, already being certified as a type 09 teacher and having a master's degree and having already student taught in CPS, that all I'd have to do is fill out a little extra paperwork. You'd think wrong.
Instead, after realizing that they'd never answer their phone or e-mail, I finally physically went down to the CPS downtown headquarters to get my questions answered. Once there, they gave me an application packet despite the fact that I already had two of them, made a copy of my driver's license, made me something called a "sub letter," and then told me to go out to the meat-packing district to get my fingerprints done? Huh? They can't do fingerprints at this location?
Nope. CPS Human Resources has its own building hidden among factories and butchers and auto repair places in the far west loop, nowhere remotely close to the main CPS building. That would just be too easy - CPS prides itself on its chaos. After wandering around for, oh, 30 minutes or so after getting off the train, I finally found the building. Once inside, I got to stand in line for another 30 minutes while the guy behind the desk kept yelling at everyone not to park in the parking lot. Apparently, that lot outside the building is not actually for CPS but for some other mysterious business nearby. That figures. It's street-parking for CPS employees.
So the finger-printing process was a nightmare that I won't horrify you with, but the next step was to return to HR a week later with my application pack, copy of my birth certificate, a physical and TB test, transcripts, and teaching certificate. After scrambling to get these items together over the course of a week, I presented my finished packet, which they looked over (not so easily - it took over an hour of waiting) and sent me off to the main CPS offices again to finish the process. Oh, did I mention they gave me a free "welcome to CPS" tote bag - that makes up for it all!!
At the main offices, I filled out more paperwork (what's the meaning of it all?!!) and then went downstairs across from Subway (?) to get my photo ID. Naturally, the photo ID people don't currently have any of the official IDs available so I have to get a temporary ID and wait six weeks for the real one to arrive in the mail.
I'm a sub now. I've gone through the process, and now I get the joy of waking up at 5:30 every morning that I'm available to wait for a call that may or may not come from sub services, asking me to baby-sit a bunch of teenagers. The good news - as a certified teacher, I get a buttload of money for this 6.25 hour gig, and during prep periods, I can do the lesson planning for my college classes. Woo!
Now I just have to await the crazy adventures that are sure to befall me this year, so I can continue to make you all crazy jealous in this blog. I'm excited, and I'm scared.
Let me tell you what I'm doing this fall.
Tomorrow, I start teaching adults. That's right....adults, college students, people who have chosen to take the classes that I'm teaching. What's better is that they're international students learning English. That presents a new set of challenges, but more than counteracts the sarcasm and indifference innate to high school students.
Don't worry though. I haven't escaped teenagers altogether. Until they decide to hire me full-time at this small college or until I go completely loco, I will supplement my income by substitute teaching in Chicago's lovely public school system. Ah yes...let me tell you about how exciting that is.
Substitute teaching in CPS is obviously such a privilege that only the most die-hard self-torturers can get through the application process. Let me just give you a brief rundown of what I had to do to become an official CPS sub. You'd think, already being certified as a type 09 teacher and having a master's degree and having already student taught in CPS, that all I'd have to do is fill out a little extra paperwork. You'd think wrong.
Instead, after realizing that they'd never answer their phone or e-mail, I finally physically went down to the CPS downtown headquarters to get my questions answered. Once there, they gave me an application packet despite the fact that I already had two of them, made a copy of my driver's license, made me something called a "sub letter," and then told me to go out to the meat-packing district to get my fingerprints done? Huh? They can't do fingerprints at this location?
Nope. CPS Human Resources has its own building hidden among factories and butchers and auto repair places in the far west loop, nowhere remotely close to the main CPS building. That would just be too easy - CPS prides itself on its chaos. After wandering around for, oh, 30 minutes or so after getting off the train, I finally found the building. Once inside, I got to stand in line for another 30 minutes while the guy behind the desk kept yelling at everyone not to park in the parking lot. Apparently, that lot outside the building is not actually for CPS but for some other mysterious business nearby. That figures. It's street-parking for CPS employees.
So the finger-printing process was a nightmare that I won't horrify you with, but the next step was to return to HR a week later with my application pack, copy of my birth certificate, a physical and TB test, transcripts, and teaching certificate. After scrambling to get these items together over the course of a week, I presented my finished packet, which they looked over (not so easily - it took over an hour of waiting) and sent me off to the main CPS offices again to finish the process. Oh, did I mention they gave me a free "welcome to CPS" tote bag - that makes up for it all!!
At the main offices, I filled out more paperwork (what's the meaning of it all?!!) and then went downstairs across from Subway (?) to get my photo ID. Naturally, the photo ID people don't currently have any of the official IDs available so I have to get a temporary ID and wait six weeks for the real one to arrive in the mail.
I'm a sub now. I've gone through the process, and now I get the joy of waking up at 5:30 every morning that I'm available to wait for a call that may or may not come from sub services, asking me to baby-sit a bunch of teenagers. The good news - as a certified teacher, I get a buttload of money for this 6.25 hour gig, and during prep periods, I can do the lesson planning for my college classes. Woo!
Now I just have to await the crazy adventures that are sure to befall me this year, so I can continue to make you all crazy jealous in this blog. I'm excited, and I'm scared.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)