educational vocation

i've been teaching for six years now (gawd), and i remember my choral mus. ed. professor telling me right before i started -- start a journal of your experiences, because it'll be something to look back on that will make you smile when you're having a tough day. boy, there were tough days my first few years of teaching. but the fun days were really ones to remember. i will try to recount the really good ones in later blogs. and that's the purpose of this thing -- to record the crazy things that happen in my classroom every day.

i teach at a very culturally diverse high school in metropolitan washington dc. they are really not kidding when they say that it's important to find a school that's a good fit for you -- your personality, your work habits, etc. it's taken three tries to get it right -- but while things drive me crazy on a regular basis, on the whole i'm amazingly happy to be there. and how many people can say that -- that they are thrilled to be in their workplace?

i sort of feel like teaching is a calling -- sort of like a religious order. i think there are a lot of things that i could be good at, but i've always wanted to do something with my life that served others (cheesy sitcom lesson music, but i'm really serious). teaching is something that i feel takes a LOT LOT! out of me, but i get so much out of it and it does so much for me -- that it's a fair trade.

quick story, an old but classic one. so i teach at a culturally diverse school, and my classes are usually very mixed. the kids at this school are really used to this, and will tease each other with ethnic slurs. when i first got to this school, it really shocked me -- this kind of language surely starts gang wars in other schools! but even though it took me a while to be okay with it, i really do think it's all in good fun, and that the students really aren't that offended -- which is amazing considering the amount of racial tension that exists elsewhere. (my nagging guilt in the back of my head says i really should quelch it, but damn, sometimes it is just too funny.) so, one day i send my kids out in sectional rehearsals -- you put the sopranos in one room, the altos in another, etc. so they can concentrate on hearing their part. and during this sectional, we had a power outage. now, 12 high school boys in a small dark room is nothing but trouble. of course someone tries to hold the door shut so no one can get out, and you hear all sorts of scuffling. so i yelled, and eventually got them all out, and one of my hispanic kids says, "oh my god mrs. woods, when the lights when out i said, 'where's chaya?' -- one of the black kids in my classroom. "i couldn't see him when the lights when out!"

one of my pet peeves about my students is when they come into my classroom and say, "what are we going to do today?" i usually answer with, "oh, i don't know. SING???" dorks. but i love 'em.