Time flies! No, but really...

The sophomores in my high school had standardized testing this morning, so I ended up with a solid hour and a half to get work done this morning before second period began and I had to teach (they kept the rest of the students in their first period classes until testing was over).  So I used the time to plan the rest of my week for my two classes, Spanish 1 and Spanish 3.  And as I was planning, I realized that March starts this week.  I couldn’t believe it, I actually checked twice to make sure I was on the correct page in my planner.  Where did February go??

So of course I had to go back and count how long I’ve been here so far, and I’m three days into my fifth week in Florida.  Fifth!  Everyone told me that this time would fly but let’s be serious here, we hear that about everything.  “Enjoy high school because the time flies!”  “It seems like a long time for this assignment, but before you know it the deadline will be here so start it now!”  “Student teaching goes by so fast, just keep your head up!”  So we all nod and agree and convince ourselves that we have plenty of time and count down what seem like the endless days or minutes.

But oh man, this time really is flying!  I think part of what’s making it pass by so quickly is that I’m constantly going.  Throughout the week all I do is go to school, write lesson plans, and sleep, and then on the weekends my friends and I pack our time with all the touristy adventures and trips we want to make sure we get to before they leave in a few weeks (some interns are only spending half the semester in Florida for student teaching).  So the constant moving makes the time seem to go by even faster.

In other news, we also watched part of Shrek during first period to use up some of the 2 hours after the students finished their work.  Overall, I definitely didn’t mind standardized testing today; it definitely worked in my favor!

Sunday's train of thought

This past weekend, my host family took the other student teacher staying here and me with them to visit their two college-aged kids on Sunday at the University of Florida.  While we there, we hung out at their son's apartment and went to a girls’ lacrosse game (the Gators crushed the other team, by the way).  It was a blast; the weather was nice enough for me to get a little sunburned, the game was great, I loved hanging out with the other kids in the family and every time the Gators scored they did a free tee shirt toss!  But looking around, seeing all the UF colors and the boys hanging on the rail with their orange and blue wigs and body paint (no joke) made my friend and I realize how weird it is not to be on a college campus.  I mean, it’s basically like we’ve already graduated, which is both cool and strange at the same time.

It didn’t hit me until I was actually on a university campus, but I do miss the college atmosphere a little bit.  Don’t get me wrong, I love where I am now and am still so glad I did this program.  It’s just so different living with a family and going to a high school every day as opposed to being around all my peers in an apartment or in campus buildings.  Friends aren’t a 3 minute walk across a parking lot or through the student center, and I can’t exactly go to campus events like sports games and CAB events.  It's a completely different environment.  I don't feel like I'm missing out by being here or wish I was there (honestly, all that university togetherness probably would have driven me nuts!), but I also didn't realize how bizarre it felt not being on a college campus, since that's where I spent the last 3 and a half years of my life.  It makes me wonder if it will feel this strange when I graduate?  It's an interesting thought that I don't really have an answer to.  

Of course, while I'm here, I can distract myself from musings about my future and what-ifs with sun, endless writing of lesson plans, and weekend adventures, and it's all good from there!

The Case of the Missing Table

Yesterday was one of those rough days where it’s totally acceptable to go home and pout for an hour to recover.  I mean, when the phrase “and the cockroach was the highlight,” comes out of your mouth, it's a pretty safe bet that you don't want to sit through the rest.  But (apparently) one of the biggest issues from yesterday was: the missing table.

First, you’ll need some background.  Last Thursday, before the long weekend (we had off Friday instead of President’s Day), we had a substitute teacher in for my mentor teacher.  So when we were ready to leave for the day a custodian came and locked the door for us since neither of us get keys, and everything was present and accounted for in the room.  This includes a long table in front of the white board that holds a (broken) stereo and some tape recorders.  I've never seen anyone actively use this table, save for the one time I put my computer on it during a lesson.  I'm pretty sure we all just forget it's there.

So imagine my confusion when I walk yesterday morning and the first thing my mentor teacher says to me is, “Hi, where is my table?”

It was a Monday morning, I was tired from not sleeping well the night before, and hadn’t had an ounce of caffeine yet, so not only had I walked past that section of the room without even noticing the table was gone, but it took me a good thirty seconds to realize she was accusing me of taking her table out of the room.

You might be thinking hey, accuse is a little harsh, it sounds like she was just asking!  But then she asked me twice more, even after I explained to her several times that everything had been in the room when I left on Thursday and I had no idea where her table was.  She told me that she wanted to yell at me when she first came in, and was waiting and waiting for me to walk in so she could jump on me about it.

We then proceeded to wonder and lament about the missing table.  All.  Day.  After school, she hunted down the custodian and left almost an hour later than she had planned because she was trying to track it down.

My question was, what’s the big deal?  Yeah, it’s weird that it’s gone and rude that someone would just take it.  But was it really that pressing?  It’s not like it had much of a purpose, I’ve never seen her actually use it.  We had students yelling over each other, kids not doing projects or turning in homework, and no functioning Internet, but by George we were going to find that table!

And in case you’re wondering (because let’s be honest, I know you’re all just dying of curiosity), it is now Tuesday and there’s still no table.

Some more perks!

Living in Florida definitely has a lot of benefits: sun, no snow, nice people, and the close proximity to really awesome places like Disney and Universal!

I went to Universal yesterday (for the low low price of practically nothing, everyone here seems to have connections...) for the first time.  We went to the Islands of Adventure half (there are 2 parks for Universal, who knew?), where the Harry Potter park is!  I was like a kid in a candy store there, the vast majority of the pictures I took were of this section of the park.  I drank butterbeer, watched a little boy choose his wand (or, in true Harry Potter fashion, watched the wand choose him) at Ollivanders, and travelled through the movies on a ride through the castle.  Seriously.  So.  Cool.

The rest was fun too, there were sections for Dr. Seuss, Marvel superheroes, Jurassic Park, classic cartoons like Blondie and Popeye, and Atlantis.  We ended the day at Margaritaville at City Walk, and overall it was definitely a fantastic day off (schools here had Friday off).

Last week was also the first full week of my taking over Spanish 1.  It went pretty well, although my students seem to have a real issue with the whole, "you need to do the homework" aspect of being in school.  I had to threaten them with extra homework and a quiz, and half of them still didn't do it...

All in all it was a pretty good start, though.  I'm having fun, getting to know all my classes (even the ones I'm not teaching yet) and on multiple occasions I've been asked where I'm from after speaking Spanish.  According to them I sound like I wasn't born in the US, which is always a confidence booster!

How do I respond?

Do you remember that show, Kids say the darndest things?  Well they probably could have added a high school edition.  Over the last few days I’ve overheard some really interesting comments, or been asked things that seemed to come out of left field. 

For instance, my Spanish 1 kids are obsessed with knowing how old I am.  Every day there’s another question trying to get me to tell them my age (quite frankly I don’t care all that much if they know how old I am, but my mentor teacher is big on them knowing and respecting those questions you just don’t ask people older than you).  Two of them decided that I must be either eighteen years old and therefore way too young to be here, or thirty and trying to hide my age.  The latter comment was quickly followed by, “well, you can’t be thirty because you just look way too young, so you must be twenty or something.”  I finally told them I was a senior in college, and they didn’t believe me!  They are determined to get me to finally admit that I’m still a teenager regardless of how many times I’ve told them I’m older than that.  I’m pretty sure I’d have to show them my license for them to finally get it (although knowing them, they’d probably accuse me of having a fake ID).

They also want to know my first name.  Now that I’m okay with them not knowing that, because that’s just part of that really important line between the teacher and the students.  But one student has made it his mission to find out my first name.  I didn’t point out that my visitor’s sticker (which I don’t wear anymore so I supposed it doesn’t matter) had my full name on it, nor did he seem to notice.  I finally told him that once they all manage to remember and call me by my last name, maybe I’ll tell them my first.  Maybe being the operative word.

I’ve also been asked:

“How much are they paying you to do this?” 

“Are you a dancer for Disney?  You look like one.”

“How do you know Spanish if you’re not Hispanic?”

(to other teachers) “Does she speak English?”
                                    “Does she speak Spanish?”

“Wait, so why are you here again?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Do you speak English?  Say something!  I want to hear you speak in English!!”

“Why would you learn Spanish if you already know English?”

“Are you married?”

“Will you bring me food every day?  I won’t do anything if you don’t bring me food every day.”

“Are you going to be boring?”

“So…are you going to be here every day?”

I have a feeling the questions are going to get better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) as time goes by and the students get more comfortable with my being here.  At least I know they’re going to keep me on my toes.

In other news, a girl accidentally stabbed herself in the thumb with a staple today.  A staple, might I add, that had originally been attached to her quiz.  Funny, I thought that kind of stuff stopped after middle school…

Just a normal, every day Saturday

This was my first full weekend in Celebration, and so we (a couple other interns and I) decided that we needed to totally take advantage of our location and that meant we were going to Disney!  We spent all day yesterday at the parks.  We left the house around 10:15, and didn't leave the last park until after 11, which led to getting to the car by almost midnight.

But let me tell you, it was awesome!  We hit 3 parks (EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom) and as many major attractions as we could which I thought was pretty impressive.  We pulled that off by power walking everywhere, and I'm pretty sure the only time we sat down was to eat lunch in the car.  Of course by the end of the day I wanted to trade in my feet for new ones, but it was totally worth it.

Throughout the day I:

                                             saw a Mariachi band in Mexico...

                                                       saw some more Mexico...

                                       checked out a phone booth in the United Kingdom...

                                                          saw Beauty and the Beast...

                                                                  visited Mater...

and about a million other things.  Obviously this isn't 12 hours worth of pictures, but it's a start!

Clouds: The new form of classroom management

I know I haven't written a post about my school yet, and it's coming, I promise!  But I want to get past the "I'm a visitor" stage so I can really let you know what the school is like from the teacher's perspective!

I will tell you that my mentor teacher has been really nice so far, and I can tell I'm going to be extremely busy.  I'm going to (eventually) be teaching four different levels of Spanish: Spanish 1, 3, Spanish Speakers 2, and AP Spanish for 6 straight periods except for a lunch break, since my planning period is the last one of the day.  Out of the 6 classes I will be teaching, 3 of them are made up entirely of native Spanish speakers.  I haven't quite decided if this is one of those situations that will start intimidating and get easier, or stay intimidating but be one of those experiences that's beneficial in the long run.  I guess we'll have to wait and see!

But that has nothing to do with what I wanted to share about today, so here goes...

Obviously, the weather has been great in Florida so far.  Yesterday was cloudy, but other than that it's been sunny, clear, hot, the whole enchilada.  So my classroom, even though it only has 2 fairly small windows, gets a lot of natural light.  So much that we ended up partially closing the blinds today because students were complaining about the sun in their eyes.

So later this morning we were in the middle of Spanish 1, and my mentor teacher had to keep shushing the students, bringing their attention back in, etc because they were talking over each other, getting distracted, not listening, basically doing everything they shouldn't have.  But then, a huge cloud must have rolled in because suddenly it was as if we had closed blackout shades over the windows; the room went from bright to almost completely dark, save for the one classroom light we still had on, in an instant.  Every single voice stopped and their heads turned toward the windows so in sync that you'd have thought we choreographed it.

I couldn't help but laugh to myself, since apparently Mother Nature knows how to silence a class better than the rest of us.  But of course, even Mother Nature only managed to keep them quiet for a few moments...