new year, new surprises

For instance, thinking you're going to be continuing on to the next level of ESL with your passing students, only to find out, on the last day before your weeklong break, that you will instead be returning to re-teach the same levels, with entirely new students, except possibly for a few who failed your class not two weeks earlier.

As you can imagine, I was pretty pissed off about this, especially since Rachel (my co-worker/fellow Programmer/partner-in-crime) just happened to notice it on my change of room form (NB: I am supposed to change rooms every four months, and have been in this one for just two), as I was never officially notified. Had she not chanced to double-check, I would have shown up to work on the 2nd expecting my familiar students and ESL 2B and 4. I was so pissed off, I just sat on my desk and knit all day instead of updating the ESL portfolios.

In retrospect I was probably already predisposed to avoid working, as I do not generally bring my knitting to work.

Anyway, last semester, as you may recall, I had the Devil Class sprung from hell, who lit things on fire and had farting contests and refused to act like human beings, ever, and also the Angel Class, who asked why we could not read more books or work faster, and when finished, read to each other, in English and Spanish, from Cien Sonetos de Amor. This semester I have two classes of fully functional, sometimes lazy, always hilarious human beings. It is a revelation.

Rachel inherited The Spawn, but mixed with her mellow kids and faced with her newness and warm, nurturing teaching style, they are actually doing better. We have pretty much established that she is a Mothering Teacher, whereas I am a Hip Teacher, and different kids respond to us differently. Rockers and tough guys, especially, seem to like me, as well as girls in general, though not the ones with attitude problems; younger kids like Rachel a lot, especially the "young for their age" ones, and also girls in general. I think it is pretty funny that I grew up to be a Hip Teacher, as they're more or less the ones that got me through school relatively undamaged.

In case you were wondering, I did not give up my room.

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This semester, I must say, is off to the right kind of start. I've already given one assessment per ESL class, in addition to one spoken assessment apiece - equivalent to 50% of the speaking assessments I managed all last semester. I realized that my "pacing problems" were, by and large, behavioral problems which dragged us ever-further behind schedule. I am running a much tighter ship this time around, in terms of curriculum, preparation, grading, attendance, homework (I am actually giving it!) and behavior, from talking out of turn to gum-chewing, and it had just better not get any more serious than that. I am smiling a lot more too, and praising more. This whole thing is very disorienting for my seniors (11, down from a class of 13), for whom it must seem like I've been body-snatched or something. They got shamed something fierce today, for begging and begging and begging for me to extend the deadline on a project they've had three solid weeks for, two even without counting vacation, and then using the half-hour of classtime I gave them to work to drink soda and chew gum and talk shit about other people right in front of me, none of which is even remotely allowed in my classroom. It was actually kind of liberating to get pissed off at them, as I've been letting a lot of things slide that I shouldn't. We are moving to a seating chart, and they will be pissed.

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Exchanges:

Student: Miss, was that your fiance [helping you carry in boxes] this morning?
Ms. L: It certainly was.
Student: Oh. He looked like a nerd.
Ms. L: (amused) A nerd?
Student: Oh, I mean a schoolboy.

Student: Miss, how you gonna make us work on the first day back?
Ms. L: Like this. Now get to work.
Student: Oh, you got jokes this year.

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You might be a teacher if...

• You asked for a printer for Christmas (both me and Rachel)
• Upon receiving a $200 gift card to Staples in order to buy said printer, you immediately spent the entire amount on supplies (Rachel)
• Upon receiving your paycheck, you headed immediately for Staples (me)
• Upon purchase of printer, you made excited "birth announcement"-style phone calls to discuss your new printing situation (both me and Rachel)