Friday, September 5, 2008

Regression


Teaching high school can often be a lesson in being a high schooler all-over again, and at the end of my longest, hardest days, I still find myself thinking back to the highlights of the past 6 hours, when i was laughing my hardest or blown away by a student's incredibly higher level thinking that came out of left field.

I survived my first two weeks at Berkeley High and I must say that I'm really enjoying the experience so far. I have two 11th grade classes which I absolutely adore - so far, at least, they are mature, as responsible as one can expect a 16 year old to be, funny, talented, and a pleasure to be around. My 9th grade classes are a bit more of a struggle. In one, I have 34 students, and thank goodness they are 34 relatively mellow students, or I would never make it through 5th period. 34 kids is too much to have in a classroom, especially when some of them are mainstreamed special-needs kids that require more attention, and when you are expected to delivery "differential learning" lessons so that all of them can achieve at the same level of "rigor". With 34 freshmen you're just trying to make it through the 55 minutes and hope that some of the knowledge you throw at them sticks somewhere inside their cranial cavity.

I must admit, my 6th period, freshmen class is a bit on the crazy side. So crazy in fact that the teacher across the hall from me pulls up a chair and sits outside his room during his 6th period prep just to watch my kids come in, for sheer entertainment value. One kid, in particular, comes in every day as if he's just done lines in the boy's bathroom, literally shaking and vibrating with excitement and energy. In the few spare minutes he has before the bell rings he runs laps up and down the hall, as if he's preparing for the 100 m Olympic dash, revving his adrenaline sky-high so he can "sit" for a little less than an hour in my classroom. Today, the teacher across they way observed him running out of my classroom only to embrace a concrete pillar in a full-body bear-hug, only to explain to the teacher that "everybody needs hugs sometimes" before running up and down the hall hugging the rest of the available inanimate objects. Yes, he sits in the front, and yes, I have called his parents, and yes, he still jumps around and jitters like a crack baby without his daily fix. I can't help but love even him, however, as he turned in his "Science as Art" visual art piece today, and it was an incredibly complex photo mosaic collage describing the buoyancy of a fishing boat - it must have taken him hours at home, and really displayed an amazing amount of artistic skill. Perhaps I should sit him in the back and have him cut pictures out of magazines every day.

These shenanigans ended the day which I started with two of my second period students extending the 30 second version of the funk song "Brick House" that was piped over the pathetic PA speakers system with an extended 3-minute remix, consisting of beats hammered out on their desk, a two part vocal harmony, and intricate accompanying dance routine while wearing aviator shades, spotless ball caps, and shaking their dreads. I really couldn't help but laugh, as their energy is so pure, and so uplifting, that one can't help but stop life and watch these kids dance and have a good time for just a minute or two while being cheered on and encouraged by their classmates.

Because really, if you can't laugh and take yourself less seriously in 11th Grade, then when can you do it?

-Mat

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