Mid-term exam

With a little luck and a lot of grace, I have some how made it through half a semester fairly unscathed. If they gave a mid-term exam for teachers, I think I could pass — only if it were an essay test. You can kind of ramble through those and still do fairly well, in my experience at least.

Here are a few things I've learned:

1. Plan your lessons in pencil. One would assume that week one of any class is pretty easy and routine. Between day one (name/state/major student introductions, begin syllabus overview) and day three (continued syllabus discussion), there's not a lot of variance, right? False. I changed, reworked, fiddled with week one at least a dozen times, especially when I learned I'd have eight students instead of the presumed 20-plus. I haven't seen that many little eraser shavings since I had to take a standardized test. If that much was changed in the first week, I knew that I would need to plan for lots more re-planning.

2. "Fun" is a relative term. I've had a few instances where, when swept up in the thrill of discussing comma splices or figurative language, I've labeled an upcoming exercise as "fun." You would've thought that the class was watching a fly circling overhead as quickly as their eyes began to roll. Another great way to send eyebrows arching and mumbles of "yeah, right" a-soundin' is to say they're really going to think something is funny. Whoa, now. Did you not know that you are a teacher, and therefore anything that comes out of your mouth is inherently unfunny? Well, now you do; the students know that. I have, on a few occasion, proven that my definition of funny is the same as theirs and gotten a few surprising choruses of "Hey, Mrs. Hannigan, that was funny." Yeah, I'm hip like that. (Except when I say that I'm "hip." That's not what hip people say.)

3. There are days when you don't want to go to class. Remember when you were a student, and there was that one day where it was too rainy/sunny/warm/cold/early/late to go to class, and you cashed in one of your three unexcused absences? Well, you don't get that same luxury when you're teaching, although it would be very welcomed. Those are the days where I dig into my creativity box (a.k.a. Google) and find some really thrilling group work. Be sure you're thoroughly familiar with point number two, though, and don't get your feelings hurt when they don't think it's "fun."

4. What is planned to take 50 minutes very seldom does; what should only take a couple of minutes lasts the entire class period. Remember syllabus day? I'd planned for that to maybe span two class periods. It was quite a hefty syllabus I'd put together, which needed a lot of delving into, right? False. (This is why I really hope my teaching mid-term isn't true/false.) Twenty minutes later we were done, and I was stuck with eight pairs of eyes staring back at me like, "What now, lady?" I panicked and let them out early, hoping doing so would cement my "best teacher ever" status. On the other hand, explaining the Writers Workshop set up (the peer-critiquing process in class), which I knew would only take 10 minutes or so, turned into a much more time consuming process. I've learned not to fret too much about time specifics and more about how much time the students need to really understand.

5. You're going to fall head-over-heels for your first class and will never want to let them go. I know this from first hand experience. I only have eight, which is extremely rare, and I have gotten to know each one of them very well. They're great, great kids young adults, and the more I enjoy having them in class, the more I fear the next group. But I'm sure they'll surprise me just like this group did, because I was terrified of these guys before I met them.