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I am a teacher May 22, 2008

Posted by bookncurls in Uncategorized.
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We all sat in a circle today. At least in one of my classes. It was Deaf Day. No one was talking. But these students can sign, well. We played a complex version of a charade like game. It was the laughter. Teenagers play fun when you play fun first, so I did. I have learned that it’s not playing with them, it’s playing and then standing aside and being the background while they take the stage. Teachers that are playing and the center of attention soon learn they are no longer invited.

I’ve noticed that the trick to teenagers, at least for me, is taking them seriously. They want to fly and still can at that age. Giving them the wings makes them the most happy. So, yes. They have fun but they would also be upset if you didn’t teach them anything. If you never asked them to sit still and listen or think deeply or challenge themselves, they wouldn’t be satisfied. So I find myself exerting all my creative energy to come up with fun but dense academic experiences. An experience that sells the subject. I guess in a way, I’m in sales. I feel success when a student tells me they checked out a book on the Middle East just for fun. Or, they say they are doing a project on Iraq for their Geography class and need the pictures from our class project in Arabic.

They’ve taught me a lot, too. High school can be a microcosm of society. A student seeing the world different than me challenges my status quo. I’m learning to sit back and let things happen. A student who fixes everything in the class. A student who smiles through everything. A student who reads at every possible moment. A student who works with people or with team spirit. A creative student. An obedient student. A student who challenges, who immitates, who questions, who peace makes.

They may be faces to someone else, but to me they live in my heart and have been my associates for a year. We’ve shared the same space and I will never be the same…after being a teacher.

Calculating April 17, 2008

Posted by bookncurls in Memoirs and Stories, Story starts.
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His leg was doing the butterfly flutter in the upper right corner of the room, his knee occasionally bumping the table. “We still have ten minutes. They’ll walk in,” he said looking around at the near empty rows.

“And all swarming,” another guy added.

Underneath his textbook a used piece of scratch paper he hadn’t thrown away yet, lay halfway covered. He began tracing his textbook on to the paper right through some calculations that had nothing to do with the test he took the day before.

A few more students entered. Finally a guy with dark rich brown hair, sunglasses stuck to his head, a striped polo and khaki shorts walked in, his perked eyebrows lowered, his footing slowed, he wagged half of a smile. He slipped in next to a girl with a rock necklace to match her black fitted shirt and khaki green trousers.

He looked her up and down, “Good chance our kids are going to be dark and hairy.” She smiled and his eyes danced.

Seats away a British-American political team looked over their homework for questions to ask the teacher. Her back recovering from a recent surgery kept her in a chair next to an overhead projector. Her left hand held a blank transparency steady; her right hand tapped the projector pen on the lit glass. Her eyebrows arched awaiting a response to her request for problems to solve.

“#19,” a British accent finally called.

“Can’t we just do all of them,” the guy with the sun glasses bellowed, then his dimples deepened and his lips pursed toward the teacher.

Several other students called out numbers. “Alright,” the teacher grabbed her textbook and wrote numbers on the overhead.

“We can find ex plus why to the sixth without doing a single bit of multiplying.”

“C how I showed you. It’s the other way around.”

The guy in the corner stopped tracing his book and continued calculating the calculations that didn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s test.

“For your four five cross out fifty six. …We just hacked it.”

“Huh?” a round and balding guy looking up mumbled.

A girl in the back row looked through the phone numbers in her cell just below the table. A Deaf man looked intently at a girl sitting in a chair in the front turning equations and explanations into visible language.

I’m looking forward to your trickeration, the guy in the back thought to himself. He just finished his calculations.

Pirate Retreat March 30, 2008

Posted by bookncurls in Reminicing.
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The Cabins we stayed inPHS PiratesI just took some of my high school students on a retreat to an Ogden cabin site with other high schools throughout the state. We had so much fun. I got home and fell immediately asleep.

Don’t Mess with Deaf People 12/7/07 March 22, 2008

Posted by bookncurls in Memoirs and Stories.
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So I teach high school sign language classes. Anyway, an unnamed student was doing an assignment for the class, teaching his friend how to sign. Apparently some other kid walked by and started making fun of deaf people. The student turned around and said, “Fool, you makin fun of deaf people, yo?!” …and then punched him in the face.

Moral of the story? Don’t mess with Deaf people. :)