Last night I had a dream that I was teaching my first AP Psychology lesson this fall when I noticed a student turn to share an instant message with the person behing him. Then, all of the sudden, I realized that every student in my AP class was in my Freshman U.S. History class last year and they were all very uninterested in my lesson! So, every one of them started talking, texting, and pulling out iPods.
I ran around the room yelling at them about how AP Psychology requires so much more discipline than U.S. History, and that they weren’t freshmen anymore, and every other thing that a teacher yells when he is losing control. I grabbed cell phones, iPods, and Trapper Keepers as I flew around the room. I even threw one cell phone at the wall, crushing it to bits.
Then I woke up. Anxious. Never more relieved that sophomores are not allowed to take AP classes.
The school year is too near. Far. Too. Near.
In true dork fashion, I will now blog about the manual labor I have ahead of me …
Gotta shovel? Good back? Man. It’s going to be a long, hot day.
Update: 1-ton of rocks has nothing on me.
As a suburban home owner, I must admit that I spend way too much time wondering why my neighbor doesn’t fix his sprinkler head that just poors water down his driveway, or buy a weed wacker (or at least borrow mine), or fertilizes so heavily in strips so that he burns lines into his lawn. You get the point. I’m a bit anal about my neighbors’ lawn maintenance.
Which is why … this story out of the Grand Rapids area caught my attention. Apparently it is a law in White Cloud, MI that every yard must have grass covering their lawn? And, despite this man’s attempts to grow grass, he has been unsuccessful. So, he could be going to jail!
Justice served!
Well, today’s the last day of exams. I have to show up tomorrow to clean up and organize my room, but at 2:30 this afternoon my teaching duties will be over until September. That’s a very good thing.
Jon, a graduate that I taught this year, stopped in for a chat yesterday and made me think about how much I (the teacher) have learned. I was telling him that even after formally studying Psychology in college for two years, 90% of what I now know about that subject was learned this year! That’s no exaggeration.
There’s a lesson in the above statement, I think. If you consider all the years that people spend in college, and divide that by the amount of time actually spent studying the content they so earnestly devoted themselves to learning, how much knowledge does one really end up with in the end? With the exception of the exceptional, not much, right?
Now, multiply that knowledge by the motivation to deliver that studied content to a group of seventeen-year-old students. Suddenly, you end up with a remarkable ability to recall information!
The more I teach, the more I realize that if I want my students to learn, I have to engage them in sharing what they know with others. Otherwise, what’s the point of remembering?
Happy summer.
Exams start tomorrow, and it is blistering hot in my classroom. I conducted my U.S. History class in the grass outside of school today. With the exception of a few minor distractions (soon-to-be-graduated seniors playing ultimate frisbee nearby), I think the class went much more smoothly than it would have had we stayed in the heat inside.
Six Days ’til summer!
