The second day at school was, as Natalie promised, a lot easier to handle than the first day. The ordinary schedule counts for a longer teaching day than Wednesdays, but things were a lot less crazy. The classes that we taught today included more finals. We also started working on Julius Caesar in the Freshman English class. I've started speaking with Natalie about what classes I'd like to teach. Two of the classes - a Drama Class and and a Shakespeare class that she's piloting next semester, I think would be best left to her as the primary teacher, although I'm extremely excited to help. I think I've narrowed down my primary unit to teaching To Kill A Mockingbird in Freshman English, or possibly Romeo and Juliet.
I think things will be a lot better in the classroom once we get to the new semester. It's increasingly clear to me that the semester classes Natalie is teaching have got into a rhythm - while I'm certainly welcome, it's definitely a bit late for the students for a new face to effectively join the class. It'll be easier when I'm there from day one. I'm probably going to occupy a mainly observant role in these classes until the new semester starts.
I'm also being exposed to some degree of negativity among some of the faculty. Maybe I'm just here at a stressful time of the year. Natalie has told me that she doesn't want that negativity to spread - she always focuses on something positive when that kind of conversation comes up. I'm glad to be in a classroom with someone who truly enjoys teaching and children.
No comments:
Post a Comment