I titled this entry as such because the language that we use to communicate here can be quite ridiculous. It's entertaining, almost, especially when you start using it in non-teaching contexts just by force of habit. It's actually kind of scary...it will be one of the things I don't miss about Institute.
That being said, I haven't had much of a chance to reflect on my time here at Institute. If I had to sum it up, I would probably say that I like it a lot (I'm one of those people). Not a very creative descriptor, but accurate. We are living in a dorm at Temple University - the 160+ members of the Philadelphia corps plus about 500 other corps members from the Metro D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, New Jersey, and Connecticut regions. Monday through Friday we wake up at 5:30 a.m. and trek the 10 minute walk to the dining hall where our boxed lunches await, clad in our professional attire and carrying obscenely bulky/heavy bags of classroom stuff. We grab breakfast - which is to say a $1.16 fountain diet Coke from the 24-hour 7-Eleven for me, because I can't deal with the dining hall at 6 a.m. - then break off into our groups of about 90 teachers (from all different regions) and depart on school buses, off to our summer school placements.
My summer placement is at Martin Luther King High School in Northwest Philadelphia, which is also my placement school for the fall (I am one of only two people who was lucky enough to have it work out like that). We work at the school until 4:20 every day, teaching for 1 or 2 hours in the morning and spending the rest of the day in "sessions" which are basically classes, learning how to plan and execute lessons and manage behavior and incoporate literacy instruction and all that good stuff. It's challenging to stay awake and the temperature in our classrooms is comparable to that of a meat-freezer, but sessions are not bad at all. We are given some amount of time each day while at work to start the preparations, plans and other documents that are due the following day - and it's up to the individual to maximize the efficiency of this time, or relax or call home or meet with collaborative partners as needed.
We school bus back to the dorm by 5 p.m., and have the evenings to complete all of our preparations for the next day. About 2-3 times a week there is some kind of workshop or learning team in the evening that is helpful and/or mandatory for us to go to, but barring those, our evenings are surprisingly within our own control.
Within that schedule, I work hard during the day (meaning that I lug my 13-lb laptop to school with me every day) and I work hard as soon as I get back to Temple in the evenings. From 5-7, I maximize productivity with a diet coke and my laptop and I pump out whatever lesson plans or calendars are due for the next day. Having missed dinner by this point, I usually waste cash on dinner or buy some snack from the vending machine keeping in mind that I'm too tired to feel hungry and bedtime is in like 3 hours. Then from 7:30-10:30, I prepare for my lesson the following day. I meet with partners, make homework sheets and graphic organizers for my students, I write out whatever practice problems and posters that we need to go through as a class, and I make 25 photocopies of everything for the students.
At 10:30, I brush my teeth and go to bed. Repeat the next day.
The fact of the matter is that I like it because I always have something productive to be working on, and there really isn't time to procrastinate and feel bad about it. Being productive is like a natural high. And as long as I'm in bed by 11 p.m. at the latest, I can handle the exhaustion and long hours.
Of course, I've put things in place to keep my sanity. My iPod on the bus in the morning, from 6:30-7:00 a.m. is ESSENTIAL. It is my favorite half hour of the day, and I use it to think about everything in my life that is not related to teaching - particularly the people and places that I love and miss hopelessly. It might seem odd that I start my day off on that note, but it just started happening that way and it works. At 7 a.m. we get to school, and when I turn off my iPod to get off the bus, I let go of all of those debilitating feelings and focus all of my energy on the work and on my students.
My students. Our students. There is no better distraction. When I am in there with them, or when I am anywhere preparing a lesson for them or looking at their work, they are the absolute single most important thing in the world. Having students doesn't make the rest of life any easier - when I think about certain people and places, it's still just as hard - but as long as I have to think about our students for 8 hours a day, that's 8 hours a day during which all of my heart and energy is occupied.
Of course, since we are working 18-hour days here at Institute, there are still at least 10 hours a day during which I am forced to focus on myself and my development as a teacher and my collaboration with other teachers and everything else. That's the really draining time, but I think that if you surround yourself with the right people and set up your schedule well, there is more than enough energy around to get through it.
I will write more about teaching and MLK in the next entry, since this one is really supposed to be about Institute. I guess to wrap up this vague entry, I will say that I still don't know what my intended audience is for this thing, so I'm going to avoid using names and too many specifics until I do decide. But suffice it to say that I have met many many people in the last four weeks and have encountered many many new ideas and personalities and (if you know me, you won't be surprised) I certainly have opinions about most of them. But something about the fact that we're all here trying to do the same thing warrants a lot of respect. Even I am less inclined to be judgemental. :-)
That being said, I haven't had much of a chance to reflect on my time here at Institute. If I had to sum it up, I would probably say that I like it a lot (I'm one of those people). Not a very creative descriptor, but accurate. We are living in a dorm at Temple University - the 160+ members of the Philadelphia corps plus about 500 other corps members from the Metro D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, New Jersey, and Connecticut regions. Monday through Friday we wake up at 5:30 a.m. and trek the 10 minute walk to the dining hall where our boxed lunches await, clad in our professional attire and carrying obscenely bulky/heavy bags of classroom stuff. We grab breakfast - which is to say a $1.16 fountain diet Coke from the 24-hour 7-Eleven for me, because I can't deal with the dining hall at 6 a.m. - then break off into our groups of about 90 teachers (from all different regions) and depart on school buses, off to our summer school placements.
My summer placement is at Martin Luther King High School in Northwest Philadelphia, which is also my placement school for the fall (I am one of only two people who was lucky enough to have it work out like that). We work at the school until 4:20 every day, teaching for 1 or 2 hours in the morning and spending the rest of the day in "sessions" which are basically classes, learning how to plan and execute lessons and manage behavior and incoporate literacy instruction and all that good stuff. It's challenging to stay awake and the temperature in our classrooms is comparable to that of a meat-freezer, but sessions are not bad at all. We are given some amount of time each day while at work to start the preparations, plans and other documents that are due the following day - and it's up to the individual to maximize the efficiency of this time, or relax or call home or meet with collaborative partners as needed.
We school bus back to the dorm by 5 p.m., and have the evenings to complete all of our preparations for the next day. About 2-3 times a week there is some kind of workshop or learning team in the evening that is helpful and/or mandatory for us to go to, but barring those, our evenings are surprisingly within our own control.
Within that schedule, I work hard during the day (meaning that I lug my 13-lb laptop to school with me every day) and I work hard as soon as I get back to Temple in the evenings. From 5-7, I maximize productivity with a diet coke and my laptop and I pump out whatever lesson plans or calendars are due for the next day. Having missed dinner by this point, I usually waste cash on dinner or buy some snack from the vending machine keeping in mind that I'm too tired to feel hungry and bedtime is in like 3 hours. Then from 7:30-10:30, I prepare for my lesson the following day. I meet with partners, make homework sheets and graphic organizers for my students, I write out whatever practice problems and posters that we need to go through as a class, and I make 25 photocopies of everything for the students.
At 10:30, I brush my teeth and go to bed. Repeat the next day.
The fact of the matter is that I like it because I always have something productive to be working on, and there really isn't time to procrastinate and feel bad about it. Being productive is like a natural high. And as long as I'm in bed by 11 p.m. at the latest, I can handle the exhaustion and long hours.
Of course, I've put things in place to keep my sanity. My iPod on the bus in the morning, from 6:30-7:00 a.m. is ESSENTIAL. It is my favorite half hour of the day, and I use it to think about everything in my life that is not related to teaching - particularly the people and places that I love and miss hopelessly. It might seem odd that I start my day off on that note, but it just started happening that way and it works. At 7 a.m. we get to school, and when I turn off my iPod to get off the bus, I let go of all of those debilitating feelings and focus all of my energy on the work and on my students.
My students. Our students. There is no better distraction. When I am in there with them, or when I am anywhere preparing a lesson for them or looking at their work, they are the absolute single most important thing in the world. Having students doesn't make the rest of life any easier - when I think about certain people and places, it's still just as hard - but as long as I have to think about our students for 8 hours a day, that's 8 hours a day during which all of my heart and energy is occupied.
Of course, since we are working 18-hour days here at Institute, there are still at least 10 hours a day during which I am forced to focus on myself and my development as a teacher and my collaboration with other teachers and everything else. That's the really draining time, but I think that if you surround yourself with the right people and set up your schedule well, there is more than enough energy around to get through it.
I will write more about teaching and MLK in the next entry, since this one is really supposed to be about Institute. I guess to wrap up this vague entry, I will say that I still don't know what my intended audience is for this thing, so I'm going to avoid using names and too many specifics until I do decide. But suffice it to say that I have met many many people in the last four weeks and have encountered many many new ideas and personalities and (if you know me, you won't be surprised) I certainly have opinions about most of them. But something about the fact that we're all here trying to do the same thing warrants a lot of respect. Even I am less inclined to be judgemental. :-)
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