Sunday Night...again

It's amazing how fast the weekend goes. I'll wake up on Saturday thinking I have so much time to play, then in a blink Sunday is here again. And yet again I'm not ready for school. Go figure.

I had an interesting conversation with another photojournalism teacher tonight. He teaches at the new middle school that was just built in our district. I've taught with him before at an elementary school a few years ago. He moved up from teaching first grade to 8th graders. What a switch. But he's a wealth of knowledge. He has a degree in education and journalism, so he kind of knows what he is talking about.

As we were talking today he was getting worried about the direction he was taking his photojournalism class. Apparently the computer teacher at his school is pushing his students to think outside the box, think of big issues, think of things beyond themselves. While this is great, it's wonderful to force students to think of more than they are....this has some drawbacks. Our students are only 11-13 years old. There is only so much "outside" thinking they can do. I think it's important to remember they are still kids. As grown up as they think they are, I still see little kid tendencies.

With my one journalism class, I'm trying to take it slow and build a strong foundation before we even begin writing anything. We just began writing our first article on Friday. The topics thrown out during our brainstorming meeting: school lunches still horrible, first day of school, 6th graders scared and lost, new students from one of the K-8 schools coming to our middle school, our principal still being long winded on the intercom system, sports tryouts happening, cross country starting, 115 degree heat at the end of august, our lovely librarian coming back to school (everyone missed her so much at the end of the year)....and the best of them all: the girl fight on Friday morning before school on the courts. Yes, my students wanted to write about the girl fight.

So there is a level of maturity, but it really doesn't extend all that far. I allowed them to begin writing about the fight, but there were guidelines they had to follow. These guidelines were more like "here is your barbed-wire lined path you must follow, do not dare try crossing these lines for fear of certain death". The lines were: 1. you must give the entire account from all sides. 2. You will NOT call names or say who "won" under any circumstance. 3. You must put the school policy on fighting into the article and state why fighting does not solve anything. 4. Discuss alternatives to fighting. Sooo yeah. We'll see how this article fleshes out. I figure that this is news to them. I am here to guide and direct, and to gently direct back to the acceptable range. Hehe, fun days.

But in talking with this other photojournalism teacher, I've realized how much I really do know. I've spent so many hours pouring over the material because I don't know what is going on. There are a few things that have sunk in. Yes! That's good. Now if I can just apply them. I'm good in the philosophical and ambiguous nature of education. I can think of ideas for lessons and how to get concepts across to students. But ask me to apply, and I fall apart. Though the farther our discussion went, the more I realized that what I was saying actually made a little bit of sense. Double yes! In the end, he felt more comfortable in the direction he was heading with his students. They are for all intents and purposes kids still. They are just a little bigger than normal. I'm not prepared to treat all my students as teenagers/young adults 2 weeks into school. They need to show me they can handle being treated like adults. For now, I'll stick with what I have. It's worked so far. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

As far as lesson planning, 7th grade is good to go. I'm still working on 8th grade. And I get to teach an additional class on Monday. Super. There goes my only break in the afternoon. I'll have to get someone to come in to watch my class so I can pee. Yup, I need pee break person. Nice.

Hazards of teaching middle school: germs and urinary tract infections. It's so glamorous!