A Cruel Irony
March 10, 2009So, as life would have it, everything's come full circle in the personal life. The first year I taught, I was seeing a guy named Noah. Within a month of school starting, we broke up and I was pretty upset (we'd dated for nearly a year). This second time around teaching, I was again dating (another!) guy named Noah. A little more than a month after school started, he broke up with me. (This was just 3 days ago.) Bizarre, huh?
Anyway, the title of today's entry comes from one of my all-time favorite movies: "The Emperor's New Groove." Heh. So yesterday in my dreaded 5th hour class, the students actually did enough work to earn both a game AND 10 minutes of "video clip" time today. Our game went fairly well, and almost all the students actively participated. The last 10 minutes of class were devoted to watching "The Emperor's New Groove." When I heard the line, "It's called a cruel irony..." I thought, "What an appropriate title for today's blog!"
Also, due to the aforementioned breakup, I took my first personal day this year. I had really hoped to hold out until after fall break (in early October), but I was pretty devastated on Wednesday and decided to take the day off. I'm glad I did; I was in no condition to teach. The day was spent instead with good friends and physical activity (including going to the batting cages!).
I had my first "formal" observation this Monday (before the breakup, fortunately)... and today I had the post conference for it. The principal had NO critiques; I was astonished. I asked what I could do better, and she had suggestions that didn't pertain at all to classroom stuff (it was just general professional development advice). Not too shabby!
Anyway, my last class starts in about 10 minutes, and they're a good group, so it should be a decent end to what turned out to be a not-so-decent week. After class, I'll probably spend 2 hours here grading the studets' latest projects. It's cool, though; immersing myself in work is probably the best thing I can do at this point.
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About Marybeth Anderson
Ms. Anderson is honored to be a part of our educational system. Since age 6, she has wanted to be a teacher, and pursued both a Bachelor's and Master's degree to attain that goal. After a challenging first year teaching a 4th/5th grade combination class, Ms. Anderson worked the following year as a health educator. She then returned to public education, and is currently a 6th grade mathematics teacher in a Phoenix-area middle school.
Ms. Anderson prides herself on being a creative and resourceful teacher. She has created two YouTube videos performed in classrooms: one with an anti-tobacco message, and one performed with 25 students pertaining to the order of operations. Further, she has raised several thousand dollars toward new playground equipment at the impoverished school where she first taught. During her career in education, Ms. Anderson has served as PTO secretary, Arizona Odyssey of the Mind judge, science fair committee member, after-school tutor, anti-tobacco and anti-drug coalition member, and constant volunteer. She looks forward to serving society until the end of her days.
Read more from Marybeth at her blog, Teaching: The Sequel.
