???

Some questions for the general public -

Why, when you already are carrying a backpack, is it necessary to carry a purse around the high school?

Is it really necessary that I see your butt crack when you sit down?

Why can't you make a copy of a sheet of paper if it has been 3-hole punched? 'Cause I am pretty sure you can.

Since when is teleconferencing a "highly unorthodox" practice? I thought it was a simple alternative to driving two hours to attend a 45 minute meeting.

Does it seem wrong to anyone else that high school students don't know which country Castro is the president of? Or that when asked how much the human head weighs, they guess 41lbs?

Black fog of negativity and Doom!

That would be my fellow student teacher Kay.

Today I drove down to Oshkosh to have the once a week meeting with my University Supervisor and the one other Student Teacher that he supervises. I have never put 100 miles on my car for a less worthy reason.

The minute we sat down, the first words out of her mouth were "I hate student teaching, it is a total waste of time, I am completely bored and I am ready to be done". Well. Alright then you crazy bucket full of negativity. She then proceeds to rant and complain for 35 minutes of our 45 minute long meeting just bitching and whining about all the horrible things that are going on in her school and "do we have to go to the teacher inservices? It was totally useless and so not relevant to me and I felt totally out of place and all the other student teachers got to go home, but I had to stay and next time can I skip it because I didn't learn anything.....blabbity blah blah blah!" And it just went on and on and on, whining about her Cooperating teacher, about the students, about the schedule, about her policies, about the drive, and anything else you could think of. I actually asked her at one point if she really even wants to be a teacher... she's not sure. Go figure.

Well anyway, it took me about the whole car ride home to Green Bay to shake off her dirty, tainted black fog of pessimism and get back to my world where teaching is fun, my cooperating teachers are spectacular and my kids are funny and play along with me very nicely! It's good to be back in my world :)

Hilarious things that Tess says and does...

All of these fantabulous quotes from one of my Cooperating Teachers, picture an adorable and motherly looking 50ish woman who most often refers to her students as "bebes" or "bunnies"

(sung boldly and unabashedly)
"I am Woman hear me Roar!"

"Open up your juiciferous textbooks"

"Snooties!"

(speaking about an old ugly sock puppet that she found and now keeps in her classroom)
"Oddly enough it does look a lot like Michael Jackson... especially since its nose fell off"

(speaking about a student who broke her $35 pencil sharpener by jamming a crayon into it)
"If I find that freshman, I'll crush his larynx"

"Crazy teenage werewolves"

"Try those in your juicy little notebook of Spanish love"

"Move away from me vermin"

First Week!!

So my first week of student teaching is over and if I haven't learned anything else, I have at least learned the Spanish words for humpback whale (ballena jornada) and spider monkey (monoaraña).
For this nine-week period I am teaching at a high school and I have four Spanish classes with my cooperating teacher Tess and one class of Spanish for Spanish speakers with my other cooperating teacher Sam.
The biggest thing I have realized this week is that high school students truly are a completely different species.