warping tiny (and possibly not so tiny) little minds

I am loving the first grade. My research group (and I along with them) is learning where rubber comes from (Trees! how did I make it to 25 without knowing that?). We built an awesome (if I do say so myself) rubber tree in the classroom. I will post pictures when I find my camera (did I get jacked by a 5 year old?)

I have also learned that deadpan humor is at best lost on children and at worst might warp their mind. This was an exchange I had at the end of the day yesterday:

Cute-Little-Wided-Eyed-Girl-Who-Trusts-Her-Teacher-As-A-Source-of-Truth-And-As-Someone-Who-Would Never-Ever-Mislead-Her (not her real name): Who invented the backpack?

Me: John C. Backpack the Third.

CLWEGWTHTAASOTAASWWNEMH: * blink * *blink*

I had to explain that I was joking and she had a few followup questions including a bunch on why I chose the name John for which I had no answers and eventually I just told her she needed to find her line partner and get ready to go downstairs and then I ran away.

So I have stopped having panic attacks about going into school and genuinely enjoying the classroom I am in and the first grade in general just in time for it all to end at the end of the month. In November I am getting a new placement and it looks like it's going to be in the 5th grade.

5th grade!

They are giants and almost hormonal and nowhere near as adorably trusting as first graders. I have begun to talk in the overly enthusiastic cheesy way that first graders eat up with a spoon but I have a feeling won't fly with 5th graders. Plus the NYCBOE are much more up your ass about hitting standards for testing in upper grades so possibly no more building rubber trees :(

OK memory lane: 5th grade:

we got binders and assignment books and had to start keeping track of multiple subjects and writing essays.

On that essay writing note: I had a mental breakdown writing a science essay on magnets on my birthday and my dad and mom helped me write it and we STILL got a C. Which was the first time (but by FAR not the last) I heard my dad call a teacher a "petty tyrant."

I think girls began wearing bras ... I got boobs that year.

Periods? I think some of us got them.

I began wearing jeans instead of leggings

I had a HUGE crush on Harry

I think I became obsessed with Ace of Base

I secretly listened to LoveLine (A call in sex question show) at night. I understood about a quarter of what was said but thought most of it was hilarious.

Help me out...what do you all remember?

"Tuck" internal combustion.

The first grade classroom I am in uses the inquiry method of learning for social studies. The children choose a topic and spend the semester investigating it in smaller research groups. I was put in charge of a group interested in investigating "vehicles". Today was our first meeting where we had to narrow that topic down. For some reason I wanted to try to persuade my group to investigate sanitation vehicles (I am still not sure why... I became momentary fascinated with street sweepers).

They did not go for it.

Instead they want to know how engines work, something I know less than NOTHING about. So I am now frantically reading about spark plugs and pistons and trying to figure out how to translate that for 6 year olds. I am planning of buying myself some time and starting with bikes but it turns out I know nothing about them either. Though, thanks to a very nice bike shop on the upper east side, I have a bike chain and two sprockets which I shall attempt to base a lesson around.

Also, today a reminder of how 6 year olds minds may be in the toilet (poop is a huge theme) but they are not yet in the gutter:

Today while learning about the sounds certain letter combos make the teacher asked this question:

"Who can tell me another word that rhymes with 'duck' that your parents do when you go to bed"

Every child in the class immediately knew the answer is 'Tuck (you into bed)'.

you dirty pervs.

Back to school!

I did not update this blog this summer as much as I wanted.

My excuses are work, finding a new apartment and moving in with my boyfriend (!), and taking a two week vacation with my family where we drove from San Francisco to Vancouver (which was awesome) none of which had very much to do with museum education.

But now... I'm back in the thick of it. Today I have homework I should be doing and the sudden urge to procrastinate...er, I mean, be vigilant about my blog has struck me.

The biggest news is I started student teaching in the first grade this week.

For the first day I wanted to fit in and wore what I consider to be the universal uniform of the Progressive school elementary teacher:

Note the interesting vaguely indigenous/ hippie patterned shirt over black pants of irregular length and clunky black shoes. I felt the part. Now the task is acting like it.

Also, the first pearl of wisdom from one of the 5 year old boys in my classroom:

"Don't say 'stupid' because it's a bad word and if you say it no one will like you and no girl will want to marry you and you'll end up crying for the rest of your life...with your parents."

words to live by.

Are You There, GOB?

I had been planning to post an update on how my month of summer classes were going at the halfway point (which came and went a few days ago).  However, I am so so so so so burnt out and the little coherence I still possess is going in to papers and other classwork.  

SO instead: a link to a video of Will Arnett reading a key passage from the Judy Blume coming of age novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. 

Click for awesome.

So, it has come to this.

I am now wearing a backpack.

I seem to be incapable of not carrying my entire world with me in a bag at all times.  Up until a few months ago I carried giant messenger bags filled to capacity with me everywhere I went. 

Then in November I had sudden shooting pains in my chest and arm and went to the ER convinced I was having a heart attack.  Turns out I had probably pinched a nerve in my shoulder and pulled a muscle near my ribcage from lugging around a giant bag since I was 13.  The prescription: no more one-shoulder bags.  

Since then I have been wearing a "lumbar pack" (glorified fanny pack) which was working for a while but it has been steadily accumulating weight (I plead total ignorance on this one,  I have no idea how all my bags end up so heavy. Bag Gremlins?).  Yesterday I noticed a slight bruising on my waist and began to worry for all the important internal organs in my abdomen.  Plus I was starting to carry a shoulder bag for all my school books and that was also getting pretty heavy.

So ... backpack.  My reluctance to wear a backpack stems the fact that it will make me look even more like a 12-year old than I do already but I feel like I'm out of alternatives.  

This morning I dug out an old black Easpack ("The leader of the pack" says the Double-Dare announcer in my head) from middle school.  It has miraculously emerged from that time unscathed by purple marker drawings of peace signs, ying-yangs, or flowers.  To offset the 12-year-old factor I decided to pair it with a granny cardigan today.   My roommate assures me that the sweater and the backpack average out to make me look my age.  

After my fist backpack commute in over 10 years I will say this: padded shoulder straps are pretty sweet.

Also if anyone knows of a cool (and inexpensive) backpack-type-concept let me know.  I am looking to upgrade the Eastpack.  

Oh, NYC, why don't you want me to get a graduate degree?

After my first class yesterday I realized I might make it through this summer term if I managed to get up early, stay up late and get some major reading done on the subway during my commute.  This morning I set off reading packet in hand.  I had an early success in getting a seat right when I got on.  I opened my packet to begin learning about Erikson's 8 stages of development when suddenly:

The Crazy happened. 

A woman I hadn't noticed before sitting in the corner of the car began talking back to the train announcements.  It is the N so there is the female and male automated voices.  She thought they were talking shit about her and that they shouldn't be the ones talking because she knew a lot of shit about them...and it was REALLY juicy.

Apparently the automated bland female conductor voice is actually a Trinidadian woman who was "married at 16 divorced by 19 to a black man who was forced to marry her" AND she "fooled around with her mother's boyfriend" which got her kicked out of the house.  AND (prepare yourself) is actually a "he/she, who answers to the name mrs. and mr."

The automated bland male voice seems to be two distinct people.  One is a "MTA Jew" who is watching everyone all the time on cameras he has planted around the subway.  He judges them but he should really judge himself because he is responsible for EVERY crime: "rape, murder, arson, IDENTITY THEFT!"  Also "He needs something in his ass to get rid of all the shit."

The other male is a retarded Panamanian ("I have never seen anyone so retarded") who likes to brag about his exploits "with sodomy."  I am sure he has a richer background story but the 14th st. stop came too soon to find out.

I feel vaguely guilty about finding these rants so fascinating in their conviction and details.  I hope that woman finds the help she obviously needs.  Or a job writing for All My Children.

I still know nothing about the 8 stages of man but I know who to blame next time there is ANY crime.  I'm looking at you MTA Jew...what ARE you doing with those cameras?

To my friends...

To my friends:

Tomorrow I will disappear for a while.  For the month of July I will be working from 8:30-4 and then be in classes from 5:30-9.  I am taking two classes (Child Development and the aforementioned extraneously-long-titled Children's Literature in a Balanced Reading Program -Focus on Grades 3-8).  So that about covers July.  I love you all and will see you on the other side.*

 

To my laundry:

Could you somehow get yourself clean? That would be really helpful. Thanks.  Also, could you be the sweetest little cupcake and tell the fridge to fill itself.

 

To the non-school related books I have started and will definitely not finish:

Sorry.

 

And lastly to my unwatched Netflix:

I think I will miss you most of all.

 

* I say this now while my resolve and work ethic is strong.  I can already foresee the need to blow off some steam at some point.