Stress

I have learned a few things in the first weeks of class. I have learned I need to be more organized than my advisor. I have learned that getting up early is easy once you have to do it a few days in a row. I have learned I still do not like getting up early, however, I have noticed I feel much better all day when I do. Since getting up has become a habit, I have tried to restart the habit of working out. It is way easier to work out when you get up before noon. Still have not turned this blogging thing into a habit though. I am working on it. Clearly I have picked up Data's habit of never using a conjunction. I do like the way writing works without all those apostrophes floating all over my pages. Anyway, back to class. I had to do a little mini lesson in front of my peers. I chose to do mine on concussions and the importance of the King-Devick test as a baseline for all athletes. I have had my bell rung a few times in my life, in sports and real life. I just fail to understand why doctors, other than my wife, and coaches do not see the importance of establishing a baseline for athletes to ensure they are not put back on the field after suffering a concussion. I held my fingers up and he got the right answers so I put him back in. Forget that a blind man could pass this test because every coach holds up three fingers every time. But hey, I guess getting the star linebacker back in the game before the other teams scores is way more important than worrying about brain damage. Maybe this is because the coaches took one too many hits themselves. Rub some dirt on it. Take a salt pill. Shake it off. I know I heard every one of those hundreds of times throughout the years. Considering how litigious society has become, I am surprised schools do not require better handling of traumatic head injuries. If I as a teacher treated students the same way coaches treat them I would be fired, sued, and plastered all over Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and every moron comedian that thinks they are a good source for news because they can make a lame joke at someone else's expense. Sorry for the rant on what passes for broadcast news these days. Anyway, back to school. I am finding myself frustrated by the lack of attention I feel my advisor is giving to the field class. I have picked up a few little tricks I plan to use but more importantly I have learned to see things through the eyes of students. I forgot how annoying it can be when the teacher expects more from you than they expect from themselves. I'm done. Time to get a drink and maybe a cigar. I know it is only 11am right now. Since I was getting up at noon and I have been getting up before eight at the latest now I figure I can add at least four hours to my clock. So that makes it at least 3pm. That is not too early for a drink, right?

Day 2 (ish)

I have not really decided whether or not I will write everyday or just class. I really want to go the everyday route but I will have to get myself in the habit of doing so. Anyway, another day of class that begin much like the one the week before. the real difference was that instead of me staying up all night, I woke up at 2am and could not sleep. This led to another session of killing radioactive beasties in the distance future in the remnants of Las Vegas. Still not good for getting you in the mood for sleep in case you were wondering. So another anxiety filled night leads to a very tired student engaging in the thirty mile jaunt to school. Luckily for me, the weather is nice and I got to make the drive topless. My Mustang not me personally. Otherwise that would be really weird. So I get to class along with my fellow classmates, all four of them, (small schools are great for those of us with poor name recall skills)  and the teacher has decided that we were not going to have class that day. Strange considering she was there, we were there, it was class time, and we had nothing else to do because we had all assumed we would be having class that day. The good news is the rain was holding off and I got to cruise home topless listening to Buffett and various other beach music singers. The bad news is that my anxieties over teacher will have to exist for a little while longer until I am back in front of students. On a topic unrelated to myself as a student teacher, but related to the skill set I will need, my niece had an incident with her coach that made me realize that I probably already have more skills than many people that are already working with kids. The coach had all of the players in front of the parents last night and split them up according to skill level. This in itself is no great crime but the way he did it was ridiculous. He actually said, these are the good players to one group, these are the mediocre players to another, and the players are lousy to the final group. Pretty lousy thing to do in front of all of the players and their parents. That is not the way to deal with middle school kids. I am not saying that you need to tell every kid that they are as good as Messi, but come on dude. You need to have a little respect for the players and their fragile egos. I have seen this guy coach and I really thing he is a tool. One of those morons that always coaches their kid and thinks the kid is Pele but the kid plays more like Pele's grandma. Not withstanding my personal feeling towards his coaching style and abilities, you cannot call out kids in front of each other and onlookers. If I was in class and told them I was spilling them into groups of smart, average, and stupid, I would be canned and sued before the period was over. Oh yah, then this coach said, okay lets go out and see how well the really good players can do. @$$#*(3.  Seriously. No coach I have ever worked with would have put down kids like that in front of their peers. Not even the college coaches do that kind of stuff. So I guess I have learned a little even without class this week.

Day 1

Not a great start to student teaching. Full of self-doubt, I spent the entire night not sleeping. Of coarse, I also did not do anything productive with my time. I put about five hours in Fallout New Vegas. Killing creatures mutated by nuclear fallout is surprisingly useless in helping you sleep. I have teachers and fellow students tell me all the time that I will be a great teacher. I am really not bragging here. I am just pointing out that I never listen to other people's good opinions of me. I do manage to love the negative feedback however. Anyway, first day of field class and I have been up since 3am. Yikes. Class was pretty interesting though. I hope it will make me more prepared to take on my own classroom next year. It seems like we will actually be learning some good management skills and types of teaching angles. I have had high hopes for these classes before and thus far, I have been underwhelmed by what I am being taught. I really do not feel like I am ready to take students futures into my hands. I am hoping this next year of classroom time will give me the tools and confidence I need. No homework for class yet. Of coarse in keeping with what I have come to expect from this school, the Blackboard for the course is not yet set up. Very typical of the disorganization I have been dealing with since I started here. Hopefully they get on the ball before next week's class. I will not hold my breathe though.