7.26.2004
musings
So I'm back at the P. school, cleaning off my desk and trying to vacate this part of my life for good. It's tough when I've developed such good friendships here, just to leave like that. It would have been different if, like some of the other folks who have left, to go straight to administrating another school on July 1st. I'd be busy now, rather than patiently and calmly packing up my desk.
Had a nice conversation with R. today: one of my 8th graders this past year. She said, and I quote "our class was like a class from hell" and "i know we got disrespectful at times also, which was unfair to you, and i apologize for that." I wish that I had been able to tell all of my students that despite their being disrespectful at times (and I think we all were a little less than honorable at some point during the year despite our best attempts), I really truly did enjoy teaching. In fact, many of my most vivid and wonderful memories involve my most challenging classes, as they were also the most vibrant and colorful. It is very easy to be merely "satisfied" with a class in which the students all nod in unison and are quiet and responsive without being rude. But it really is the class that asks the impertinent question, the student that just won't shut up, and the lesson that, goodness help you WILL NOT be taught that provides the most challenge and thus the most exhileration when overcome. My favorite teaching moments don't involve the 3rd person plural or the pluperfect tense or the accusative case. They include that time that J. wouldn't stop shouting out the answers in period 4, and when G. in my period 6 class tried to hide under my desk, and A.'s incisive, edgy, and mature project on Roman Prostitution, not to mention the skits from my period 4 class in 2001-2002 when E. and L. and A. just could not stop laughing. It's an amazing thing to see students laughing their heads off in a Latin class, nowadays especially. It makes me really honored to have been a teacher.
I'm not telling my students to be rude or obnoxious for the sake of a laugh, but I am saying that variety is what keeps life fun: my students were vibrant, silly, exciting, and yes, at times, disrespectful. But it was never out of a sense of meanness or ill will, only out of the joy and angst of being a middle-schooler.
For the record, though, while I do enjoy a good laugh at my own expense on "Ratemyteachers.com", I am disappointed that many of the comments refered to you all hating me and wanting to see me gone or thinking that I hated all of you. That's patently untrue. I didn't hate any of my students and I don't hate any of them now that they're not my students. I think it's unfair that students equate doing poorly on a test with animosity shown by the teacher. I didn't give you a 78% because I thought that you were a bad person; I gave you a 78% because you got 39 points out of a 50 point test.
Anyway, that's my musing for today. Music ripped to my iPod today includes the following:
Angels in America Soundtrack
Russian Overtures: Russian National Orchestra, Mikhail Pletnev, cond.
The Raymond Scott Project
Marin Marais: Pieces de viole
The Canadian Brass in Berlin with members of the Berlin Philharmonic
Opera Overtures: New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond.
Fiedler Encores: Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, cond.
Great Baroque Arias
Sibelius: The Complete Symphonies: Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond.
Sibelius: Karelia Suite and others: London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond.
Schumann: Symphonies No. 3 & 4: London Classical Players, Roger Norrington, cond.
Schubert in Vienna: various performers and works
Had a nice conversation with R. today: one of my 8th graders this past year. She said, and I quote "our class was like a class from hell" and "i know we got disrespectful at times also, which was unfair to you, and i apologize for that." I wish that I had been able to tell all of my students that despite their being disrespectful at times (and I think we all were a little less than honorable at some point during the year despite our best attempts), I really truly did enjoy teaching. In fact, many of my most vivid and wonderful memories involve my most challenging classes, as they were also the most vibrant and colorful. It is very easy to be merely "satisfied" with a class in which the students all nod in unison and are quiet and responsive without being rude. But it really is the class that asks the impertinent question, the student that just won't shut up, and the lesson that, goodness help you WILL NOT be taught that provides the most challenge and thus the most exhileration when overcome. My favorite teaching moments don't involve the 3rd person plural or the pluperfect tense or the accusative case. They include that time that J. wouldn't stop shouting out the answers in period 4, and when G. in my period 6 class tried to hide under my desk, and A.'s incisive, edgy, and mature project on Roman Prostitution, not to mention the skits from my period 4 class in 2001-2002 when E. and L. and A. just could not stop laughing. It's an amazing thing to see students laughing their heads off in a Latin class, nowadays especially. It makes me really honored to have been a teacher.
I'm not telling my students to be rude or obnoxious for the sake of a laugh, but I am saying that variety is what keeps life fun: my students were vibrant, silly, exciting, and yes, at times, disrespectful. But it was never out of a sense of meanness or ill will, only out of the joy and angst of being a middle-schooler.
For the record, though, while I do enjoy a good laugh at my own expense on "Ratemyteachers.com", I am disappointed that many of the comments refered to you all hating me and wanting to see me gone or thinking that I hated all of you. That's patently untrue. I didn't hate any of my students and I don't hate any of them now that they're not my students. I think it's unfair that students equate doing poorly on a test with animosity shown by the teacher. I didn't give you a 78% because I thought that you were a bad person; I gave you a 78% because you got 39 points out of a 50 point test.
Anyway, that's my musing for today. Music ripped to my iPod today includes the following:
Angels in America Soundtrack
Russian Overtures: Russian National Orchestra, Mikhail Pletnev, cond.
The Raymond Scott Project
Marin Marais: Pieces de viole
The Canadian Brass in Berlin with members of the Berlin Philharmonic
Opera Overtures: New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond.
Fiedler Encores: Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, cond.
Great Baroque Arias
Sibelius: The Complete Symphonies: Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond.
Sibelius: Karelia Suite and others: London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond.
Schumann: Symphonies No. 3 & 4: London Classical Players, Roger Norrington, cond.
Schubert in Vienna: various performers and works
