As Alice Cooper reminds us every year about this time, "school's out for summer." Unless they die, however, school is not out for my freshman students "forever." For many of them, their freshman year isn't even really over since they get to retake several subjects again. I know roughly 100 who get to re-take freshman English. It seems not too many are going to go to summer school. Instead, they will be going to a colleague who has been selected, for the 2007/2008 school year, to take on this year's crop of failing freshman. This colleague was hired the same day I was and came on board after over a decade of teaching English Composition at UNLV.
I hate cliche but could not resist a silent "out of the frying pan . . ."
Interestingly, a rather large number of my failing students expressed an interest in having me as their Freshman English teacher next year for their second attempt. I asked them if they wouldn't rather have a less demanding teacher. They all replied that I was "cool" and made class "fun" even though I assigned "too much work." I told them I planned on making the course even more demanding next year but they didn't seem to mind. My favorite compliment was from a young Mexican-American male who told me he didn't mess around in my class because I gave him respect and therefore he respected me. In one essay, he wrote that I was "like a white Mexican."
Gracias.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Semester Exams
The second semester is almost over. All that remains are four days of semester exams: 105 minutes for each class. I won't say I'm feeling particularly sad but I do feel as if it all went too fast and I didn't get enough accomplished. I suppose I have to leave some work for the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English teachers.
I have had fewer supplicants at the end of this quarter than I did the last. Most seemed resigned to their fate, like death-row inmates staring at the execution chamber: in this case the door to six-week summer school course. Some say that summer school isn't as bad as it seems. True, they have to get up early and go to school, but they get to finish off a year's worth of material in much less time. I wonder how summer school teachers manage to cram it all in.
I suspect they don't. In fact, many of the students seem to know that less will be expected of them and they can generally expect at least a "D" even if they do very little work. This frustrates me and makes me come within a few miles of wanting to surprise them on their first day of summer school: "Good morning, I'm Mr. Rice, and I'll be your summer school English I teacher." But a few miles is as close as I care to get. I want a few weeks to unwind and build next year's curriculum map and lesson plans.
I have had fewer supplicants at the end of this quarter than I did the last. Most seemed resigned to their fate, like death-row inmates staring at the execution chamber: in this case the door to six-week summer school course. Some say that summer school isn't as bad as it seems. True, they have to get up early and go to school, but they get to finish off a year's worth of material in much less time. I wonder how summer school teachers manage to cram it all in.
I suspect they don't. In fact, many of the students seem to know that less will be expected of them and they can generally expect at least a "D" even if they do very little work. This frustrates me and makes me come within a few miles of wanting to surprise them on their first day of summer school: "Good morning, I'm Mr. Rice, and I'll be your summer school English I teacher." But a few miles is as close as I care to get. I want a few weeks to unwind and build next year's curriculum map and lesson plans.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)