Today I have positive energy. Spirit has moved me, so I’m writing again.
Students are back at the middle school. I’m not there, but I just talked to the guidance counselor who I work closely with. Polite as he is, I gathered in our two minutes and eight seconds of conversation that he and the guidance staff were overwhelmed. ”Kids are showing up just now to register; we have kids coming in from the ALC (alternative learning center); the front office is swamped.” I kind of felt bad for him, but I also enjoyed the thought of the energy of school (and I’ll be there tomorrow). I’ve written lesson plans for the next couple of weeks–getting students to reconsider the purpose of advisory, to evaluate their own groups, and also getting them to reflect on Martin Luther King, Jr. (the holiday is coming up soon) and doing collective writing projects in poetry based on MLK’s vision and their own visions for the future.
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All this good energy may come from meeting the Korean teachers yesterday (ok, and maybe also the days off I took). It was so exciting to see them facing such an interesting experience. I enjoyed meeting with several of them over lunch. Conversations ranged from American standards of beauty (primarily whiteness) to politics in the U.S. to comparing education systems. We also shared personal stories about marriage, social expectations regarding marriage and children, and our experiences as teachers. Today is the first day I actually teach them. I’m so looking forward to the feedback loop of teaching (daunting as it is). Maybe I’ve really missed the teaching aspect of my life.
Most of the books I ordered have arrived for my spring classes. I’m looking forward to reading them and intend to get started now (though I can’t seem to put down the novel I’m reading in my free time–Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz). I need to read a lot more Pierre Bourdieu–especially for a paper I’m working on… and there he is, author of “Outline of a Theory of Practice,” among the books waiting for me.
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January 11th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Naguib Mahfouz = the awesomest. If you can carve the time, I encourage you to read the whole trilogy to get the multi-generational story as Cairo, and her denizens, evolve.
In addition to just reading this blog, I also just read the next one, where you captured a few of the questions posed by your Korean students. I’m intrigued about their questions, particularly about unions, how U.S. teachers are paid, and homeschooling. I read this generation of questions as areas of significant difference between U.S. and Korean systems… or maybe, more accurately, just areas of novelty and unknown-ness for this group. Fascinating questions, no matter their motivation.
It really sounds like your work with this group of educators is fascinating and rewarding– as is your work with your middle school students and your kind and thoughtful colleagues there. The urgency in the counselors is palpable; even in the most stable of situations, middle school is a busy and sometimes volatile place. I’m eager to hear how your MLK poetry is going to work out, with their visions for a future. What does it look like, to be a young adolescent, to see Obama about to take office? How will this shape their views of the world and their views of themselves? A new day is dawning…