One piece of advice I gave to a new student teacher in English...

Since the beginning of the year, I've been fortunate enough to be called in for a number of English teachers throughout the district that I met in one capacity or another while doing my practicum. One of these teachers has had me in 7 or 8 times, and I absolutely love going to her classes... the kids are great, her classes are interesting, and I get along well with the staff.

During my first few days of going in for her, I ran into a girl who was doing her practicum this year at that very school, and the woman I was subbing for happened to be one of her sponsor teachers. "S" and I had actually attended a few classes together at my old University on the coast, and hadn't seen each other in more than a year. So, I felt like I could give her a bit of advice about my experiences from being a student teacher, particularly since they were so recent (as most know, I just completed my year-long practicum in June). After going off about classroom management and organization, I revealed that she should realize one thing about effective teachers: that they are, in fact, big geeks. And, in order to get through to kids, she should be comfortable with the fact that she falls into that category (of geekdom) and she needs to embrace in an effort to become more comfortable in front of 30 fear-smelling teens.

Now think about this... she was expected to teach Shakespeare to a group of 30+ grade 11 students, most of whom couldn't care less about a guy that lived approximately 400 years ago. She's up there facing this mob, trying to get them to engage with a text that looks only remotely like modern English. And, seeing as there's no hip-hop soundtrack to go along with it, figure out a way for it to become meaningful to the students.

I told her to consider her career path and it's training. She had spent the previous four years getting a degree that forces a university student to continually write 10/15/20 page papers about dead guys who talked about love and hate and the cosmos and so on. She chose to take 2 whole classes just on Billy Shakespeare! And now, she was training to be a teacher so she could wake up every morning and talk about books and writing and poetry and Elizabethan drama! Now, if that doesn't designate someone to be a bookworm or nerd or English geek, I don't know what does! Less than 20% of the valley population attends post-secondary in one of it's various forms. Probably only about 15-20% of those pursue University and maybe something humanities related. So, realistically, she represents about 1% (or less) of the population in that she absolutely loves talking about Shakespeare and reading his dense plays. Admit the geekiness, I told her. Embrace it! Show the kids why you love it so much by being passionate about it! And prove it's worth by your passion.

Realistically, I was being a bit facetious. There are a number of qualities that make a teacher good... even great. And I definitely don't have all those qualities. But one day I might, and I think if I keep up with the zealous passion not only for literature but for the students themselves, that I'll do alright. Only about 29.8 years left before retirement, so I have a ways to go. But hopefully I helped her embrace her inner nerd, no matter what the outcome would be.

T

Oh, I just finished Fury by Salman Rushdie. It wasn't quite as good as Shalimar the Clown, but it was still pretty enjoyable. I think Kite Runner or All Quiet on the Western Front are the next ones on my list. What do you think? War novel by Remarque or modern novel about Afghanistan by Hosseini? Let me know...