Summerschool 101

This week in summer school, I learned:

that kids love pigeons,

that if someone knocks on the classroom door, you can't just say,"come in" - you have to say, "COME IN" really loudly,

that, even in 8th grade, the biggest kid in the class might still have the highest voice,

that it's harder to do your homework when there's a blackout in your building, but it's still no excuse,

that sometimes when you ask a kid to read aloud and they say, "No," you have to make them read anyway, and

that sometimes you just move on,

that even teachers punch in and out,

that the janitorial staff makes way more than I do,

and that it's far better to read the sports page than not to read at all.



I've been paired with a high school English teacher who's been stuck into a pre-high school prep program. Ideally, these four periods of kids will be in ninth grade next year. Each class is supposed to have about twenty kids, but attendance usually tops out at around ten or twelve. Sometimes people roll in with only a few minutes left in the class.

Some of the kids are here for enrichment - they already did well on the end of grade test and are getting a jump on high school - while some others are here for remedial instruction because of a bad test score or a failing grade.

Nobody has told us which kids are which.

Still, judging from the writing samples they turned in on day 1, they'll all benefit from a review of (or an introduction to) literary terms like "simile" and "metaphor" and a crash course in Greek mythology.

The teacher - actually, I guess I should say, the other teacher - is great. He keeps the kids busy and interested, which takes care of most discipline problems right off the bat, but he's not afraid to drag a young man's desk across the room - with him in it - if the kid says he doesn't feel like working in groups today.

So far, I've been sitting at the back, participating here and there - nudging some stragglers, reading aloud when called on, and doing the "teacher walk" around the room.

This is a real power trip. I don't have to sit and wonder what the girl next to me wrote her homework journal entry about; I can just walk over to her desk, pick it up, and read it.

I know what everybody got on the test.

On Monday, I'm hoping to start teaching the third period section. I'll sit through two periods of a lesson, and then repeat it. It'll be exciting - and good practice, of course - to be the one at the head of the class.