July to October

Since returning to Louisville from Colorado, life has been a whirlwind.

Truth be told, the only reason I'm writing right now is that I am procrastinating. I need to plan the rest of my week with my students, I'm woefully behind in my coursework at U of L and Charlotte needs to be packed up for her journey tomorrow to Virginia.

Funny, too, how so much has changed and evolved and been grappled with in that time. Why is it so hard to write when stuff is actually HAPPENING?

It's taken me a while to adjust emotionally to my new internet habits, which means me+teaching=no internet all day long. Not even personal email. Which is a huge change from being involved full-time in website creation and surfing all day every day. Weird.

So, how's the teaching? Well... what was the general mood of the 120 12 year olds that walked through my classroom with their raging hormones and simultaneous desires to rebel and please? The answer to that question holds the quality of my day in its hot little hands. I take it class by class with varying degrees of success. I'm an okay teacher. Not great. And, I'm horrifically bad at all the tracking and analyzing. But, I have a feeling I'll get better at it.

Here are the things I love about teaching:
- The days when things just chink along and the kids understand what the heck you're talking about and they participate and you reach a couple of kids you haven't been able to... like today, this one student unlocked the key to coming up with things to freewrite about - and he's so proud of himself. You can just SEE it in his eyes and his demeanor. I'm proud of him.

- The way they want to tell you about all the minutae of their lives and really believe that it's probably the most interesting thing you've heard all day. I find their innocent self-centeredness just so sweet. It's not the same brand as 16 or 18 year old self-regard, it's this mixture of approval seeking and trying out their identities that is just phenomenal to watch and nurture.

- There are some of them that get so excited about things they write or think that they burst out of their chairs to get your attention. I have to get them to sit back down so everybody doesn't bum rush me, but I'm always happy to see it happening. Same with "blurting" when kids don't raise their hands. I have to make sure that I keep it to a reasonable level, but I love it when they have a thought and they just have to share it.


There are things that drive me insane, but I'm not going to blog about those. At least, not today.

And, there are a lot of things that have changed in the way the pirate tribe functions that I'd like to address, but not today. For now, let me say that this is the most changeable job I've ever had. The kids are like a moving target. And, I struggle to keep up. But, I think I might love it.

....yeah. I might.