journal: February 2004 Archives

Today was a little more organized than yesterday, although morning ceremony is killing our first class. We had less than 30 minutes for our first class again today and they are getting so far behind (and its only the second “real day” of school).

It’s interesting, but I feel like Tom has an automatic command of the class that I can’t attain because he is male, he is very tall, and he has facial hair. I really think that does it for him. He can be much more soft-spoken than me and maintain discipline and order, but I feel like I have to project more and be more strict to maintain the same level of discipline. So, I applaud all those aspiring male teachers. I know male teachers can have the reputation of being push-overs too, but I think it’s easier for a male to attain respect simply by their appearance.

Already I’ve had one student tell me an assignment was unfair (“all the other teachers said we could have the entire week to number our notebooks and you just gave us one day”). On the other end of things, I’ve also had a student invite us over for dinner this weekend (which we refused because our weekend is full of visiting already).

We gave our first grade today: a graded notebook check. About 4/5ths the students had it done and received a 2/2, and no one received lower than a 1. So, hopefully people will see that we are serious now about grading homework and quizzes.

Today is what you might call the first “real” day of classes. The schedule was created and we had all five of our classes back to back, starting at 7:30 and ending at 11:25. 6th period is our “free” period and since there is no one here to prepare the teachers’ lunches at present it is left up to the teachers. So, our free hour is spent helping prepare the lunch and drinks for the teachers and collecting our thoughts.

Tuesday, February 3

The long holidays are finally over and we have returned to school for in-school teacher seminars. I like the schedule of going to school from February 10th – November 20th and then having an extended “holiday.” I guess it works well here because there’s not much descrepancy in the seasons – it’s only wet or dry. So the idea of having a “summer” break isn’t as important since it’s pretty much summer year-round.