Harassed.

Well, I'm still alive.  I've been a "real" teacher for about a month and a half, and it hasn't killed me.

What follows below is heavy on dialog.  All of mine is in bold.

I had a fun experience a couple days ago.  As regular readers might recall, I have taught summer school classes the past three summers.

Earlier this week I was walking around the local big, blue, box-store, when I noticed one of these students behind me with her mother.  I never know what to do in situations like that, so I pretended like I did not see them, and turned a corner.  The next aisle over, I heared the student loudly yell,
"No, mom, don't!"
I think, "okay... this should be interesting."
The mother turned the corner and quickly moved to stand right behind me, not saying anything.  This seemed a bit weird, and now I really wasn't sure what to say or do, so I ignored it and walked further down the aisle.  She followed, and stood silently behind me again.  Now I turned and asked,
"Hi, can I help you?"
"Do you know who I am?"
"Well, I saw you with [student], so you must be with her?"
"Yes, I'm her mother, and I'm also black."
I did not respond to this.  At first I wasn't sure that I had heard her correctly, or even where she was going with the statement.  After a few seconds of silence she continued,
"You kicked my daughter out of your class because she is black."
"I did ask her to leave my classroom.  She wasn't registered in any of my classes."
"You let other kids stay in the room"
"At first I let my kids have guests in my room.  They couldn't handle it, so I revoked the privilege.  After that, I kicked a lot of kids out of my room."
"You're a liar."
"Okay... what would you like to achieve here?"
"I want you to understand that not everyone has to live by your petty, elitist  little rules, and you're not king of the world.  I also want you to know what it feels like to be humiliated and singled out, like you made my daughter feel."
"...alright.  Well, it was nice meeting you."  And with this I turned and walked away from her.  It turned out she wasn't done though.  As I walked away, she followed me while singing at top volume, "this guy harassed my  daughter!  This guy harassed my teenage, high school daughter!  This guy hates black people!"

So, what do you do in a situation like this?  I thought about calling the police, but what good would that have really done?  I didn't want to escalate this, or take up any more of my time.  I also couldn't imagine that she would stick around long enough for the police to be any real help anyway.

I decided to call my mentor teacher.  She's someone who's always been able to give advice/suggestions when it comes to academic related stuff.  I figured she might have some words of wisdom.  As I pulled my phone out to dial, the woman chides,
"I think the number you're looking for is 911.  Maybe the police can help make this 'scary black lady' go away."
I ignored her and dialed.  By the time she picked up, the woman had ran away.  Once I explained what had happened, she assured me it was a "once in a lifetime experience."

When I told my administrator at the alternative ed school about this, he told me I should have filmed her and put it on YouTube.  Maybe if this sort of thing ever happens again, I'll think to do that.  Maybe.

Probably not.

A Job Hunter and A Social Studies Teacher (Summer 2012)

I have just finished the first week of the August secession of summer school.
The program ran for three weeks back in June, and I've now got two more weeks left in August.

I have about twice as many kids this time; 11 instead of 6.  I've got four different classes going on at the same time.  That isn't really too difficult to manage, but I've got a couple students who won't stay on task unless I'm watching over them directly.  Another student works really well by himself if I leave him alone, but he has a fancy pair of Beats by Dre headphones, and blasts them into his ears at max volume.  Sometimes he will burst briefly into song for a few seconds.  It's actually pretty funny, and since he's working so well I ignore it.

For those of you keeping track, I did not get that job I mentioned a while back.  In fact, I've only had three interviews all summer.  Despite numerous sent applications.
This past Monday I interviewed for a parapro position at a local alternative ed school.  The job sounded awesome, and the interview went really well, except that it ended with them telling me that I was overqualified.  They also said that it paid a good deal less than I would make subbing five days a week.

On Tuesday I interviewed with a local company that provides security to the University's home football games.  After explaining how my experience wrangling teenagers is actually quite similar to crowd control, the interviewer told me that she thought I "would be a very good fit for the student section."  This job is, for now, only seven home games, but it is in the evenings and weekends, so it should be interesting.
Maybe I'll keep you posted.

A Social Studies Teacher (Summer 2012)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am once again working as a summer school teacher.  It is a credit-recovery program, for kids who failed the first time around.

The summer is broken up into two 3-week blocks; one now (June) and another in August.
This first block is turning out to be pretty easy.  I've got three students in  "World History A," and four students in "American History B."
Just like last year, though, I feel like I have way too much content to fit into a three-week block.  I have the kids for three hours a day, four days a week.  This particular school is on a trimester schedule, so all classes run in 12 week blocks, for about an hour and 15 minutes a day.  All of this means that I need to cover a week's worth of material every day.

On the plus side, a couple of the kids seem to remember SOME of what they learned the first time they took the class.  Once in a while I will get an "oooh!  I remember this!"
Not often enough, though.