The State of the Classes

Today, as my colleagues and I were lunching with our guest speaker, someone asked me how my classes were going.  I immediately began gushing about my "Teaching High School" class.  I absolutely love them!  I have 14 students, all of them gems, and about 12 of them have wanted to teach since they were 4.  There are varying degrees of ability, for sure, but they all look at me with adoring eyes and type furiously on their laptops as I speak.  There's an ego trip for you!  They ask fantastic questions, too, and I'm so glad that my successes and failures in my high school teaching years can (hopefully) help them to be better teachers.  


Not only do I love the students, I also really love how I structured the class to tie in with the assignments...it's working out so beautifully.  I started off by teaching several lessons on academics:  curriculum and timeline development, writing a syllabus, lesson planning, teaching sensitive subjects, planning assignments, writing tests, addressing special needs students, and more.  In a couple of weeks they have to submit a unit which includes all of these components.  (Just this week they submitted their syllabus.  I made them include policies even though we haven't discussed those yet, and I howled with laughter as I saw them include every doomed first-year teacher policy I've ever heard.  They'll be retracting those sooner or later!)  When we finish academics, we'll spend a good bit of time on classroom management.  Their second unit has to include revisions to their policies that reflect our classroom management discussions.  Then we'll discuss student, parent, and faculty relations.  Finally, we'll wrap up with some "surviving the first year" tips.  It has been so much fun to plan these lessons and watch the students engage with the material.  It confirms, once again, my love for teaching!


After I gushed for a few minutes about this class, my colleague observed that I hadn't mentioned the other two classes I'm teaching.  Astute observation!  I'm struggling a bit with them, which is really good for my humility, and good for keeping me on my toes.  I took both of the classes in grad school, and I've been doing what the classes teach for the last 13 years, but doing it and teaching the principles behind it are two different things.  I enjoy wrestling with this material...I've always loved being a student, and no one is more a student than a teacher...but I don't feel as confident in those classes as in the high school class.  Nevertheless, all of my students are very dear, very fun, and very eager to learn.  They thank me at the end of class.  Can you believe???


One last thing to share.  You may know that I have sort of a hobby of noting the differences between men & women.  It springs from my study of Theology of the Body, and when I taught TOB I always enjoyed the conversations and observations that this topic sparked.  This week one of my guy students wore a t-shirt titled "Being a Guy Rocks," and I found it so funny that I wanted to share it with you.   

• We can be showered and ready in 10 minutes.
• We get better looking with age.
• We don't stop to think about which way to turn a bolt.
• Wedding dress: $5,000.  Tux: $100.
• Our shoes don't mangle, blister, or cut our feet.
• We play with toys all our life.
• We can wear shorts no matter what our legs look like.
• Phone calls are 30 seconds flat.
• A trip requires only one suitcase.
• We can open all of our own jars.
• We get credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
• If someone lets us down, we can still be their friend.
• Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
• We don't get whistled at by construction workers.
• We can "do" our nails with a pocket knife.
• One mood, all the time.

Can anyone come up with a good counterpart to this for the girls?