Week two, day one – that most anticipated of days. The first day in the classroom.
I’ll refrain from editorializing for now – my feelings and perceptions are all over the place, and I’ll put up a genuine update in a few days once I’ve had a chance to sit and collect my thoughts. I will, however, list a few quick facts about my first day as a teacher.
* The class was, at its fullest, made up of 42 students. I think we leveled off at 38. It seemed to be mostly composed of freshmen, but we had a few upperclassmen too. The difference, as best I could tell, is that freshmen are dour, uncooperative and defiant, while upperclassmen just seem tired. We spent a good portion of the lesson shuttling extra chairs and desks to our room and a number of our students came in later than halfway through the lesson (which was a diagnostic pre-assessment).
* About half of the students live in Queens, and the other half live in Brooklyn. I had them compare and contrast the two, and we arrived at three definitive conclusions.
1: Queens has more trees than Brooklyn.
2: Brooklyn has more subway routes than Queens.
3: Brooklyn has more crack cocaine than Queens.
This latter detail was volunteered as “Brooklyn has more rocks,” to which I eagerly responded, “There! That’s great. That’s a concrete detail – there are fewer rocks in Queens.” Roughly fourteen seconds later I realized that the student was not, in fact, referring to pebbles, cobblestones or boulders.
* The students’ abilities vary widely, but the students who presented behavior problems today largely performed at better-than-average levels on the pre-assessment. Hm.
As a concluding point, I noticed one such student – clearly very bright, very independent and very bored – sitting with the pre-assessment on his desk, not making an effort to complete any questions. I tried to prompt him as best I could, explaining my motivations, recommending the short story included in the pre-assessment, trying to make the prospect of having a go at the test sound more appealing than just sitting, and suddenly the kid, previously silent, turns to me and says, “just give up, okay?”
Oh no no, my man. I don’t think that’s gonna be happening.
I really enjoy reading these, Josh. I’m proud of you.