Today marked my first foray into the classroom as a "real" student in ten years. I knew it would be an exciting adventure filled with moonbeams and brilliant colors of the rainbow and fireworks when I began this wonderful experience of learning.
Or not.
Fortunately, I decided to leave an hour earlier than I needed to, just in case. This happened to be the very best idea of the day, as I found myself traveling behind a tobacco-filled truck at 40 miles per hour in a 55 miles per hour zone for fifteen miles. The incoming traffic ensured there would be no passing but that's ok. I was calm. I was early.
The multiple roads closed around the school due to road work proved another hurdle, but still, I'm cool. I'm early.
I had to park in the new parking area, across the street at the new football stadium because, at 11 a.m., that was the only parking space available, but still, it's all good. I'm early. Besides, it's only 95 degrees outside and two weeks ago, in a fit of adventurous moxie, I was driving through the Mojave Desert when it was 120 outside. It's not temperature cool, but I'm still feeling like this is the best day ever.
Then I noticed that I would be forced to jaywalk. See, when the school decided to expand to the area across the street, they spent an entire year building side walks for students so they could safely walk to the football stadium and to the apartments that are less than half a mile away. What the school failed to do at any point, however, was place cross walks anywhere that connect the football stadium and parking lot to the main campus. I suppose this isn't really a big deal; I was only attuned to the lack of crosswalks because every other city I've been in lately has them and enforces their use. Besides, I'm sure the school will one day decide they're actually needed and will spend a couple of years putting them in place, right after a student is hit by a car doing 60 on the road that divides the two areas of campus, what we from the country call a back country road.
This is when I resigned myself to the fact that no, I'm not in Kansas anymore. Or even Birmingham, Alabama, which I swear has crosswalks.
After arriving in class twenty minutes early, I sat and started taking down the notes the professor had on the board. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I knew I would need the information sooner or later and besides, I was bored and didn't know any of the students coming in. Class began, yadda yadda. We've all been to a class before, so we all know that the first day of class is boring, filled with initroductions and silly games that teachers use as time fillers until the real work begins.
Still, despite the fact that this was only the first day of class, there were quite a few gems.
There were the other two ladies sitting at the same table as I, probably early 20s, who decided to talk about their summer vacation and book buying experience and text message while Dr. S. was doing a class activity. At one point while I was trying not to listen, I heard one of them ask the other in a loud whisper, "Girl, is you telling the truth?"
Did I mention this is a 300-level literacy class for elementary education majors?
Then there was the activity we did, which was to use scissors to cut out a character Dr. S. had already photocopied and then write the title of a children's book and the author's name. One this was done, we would tell the rest of the class what book we had chosen and place it on the board in the area with its corresponding genre.
For example, I wrote Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, by Judy Blume, and placed it in the realistic fiction genre. Simple, right?
Three students out of the twelve did not choose Dr. Suess. The professor felt it necessary to explain the difference between fiction and non fiction.
This is a 300 level literacy class for elementary education majors, people who have had to have taken other education classes and have, the hope is, actually observed in a classroom at some point during their college career.
We would have been dismissed from class early, but the professor decided to let us know her biggest pet peeve, which involves the letter k. Apparently, elementary teachers are teaching children how to write the lowercase letter "k" wrong. It should be (imagine the lines are lined paper):
___________
_________
_/
_\________
Not:
_________
__/
_/____
_\
__\____
I'm sure I haven't thought about this in quite some time. I can't say it was 20 minutes, let the students out of class late interesting, however.
The next class had even more in store for me. Is I serious? You bet I is. One of my fears in returning to school was being "that" student. Everyone knows "that" student. She's the one who asks a million questions and shares her life history while annoying the professor and taking time away from the actual goal of the class--talking about anything but her.
I should not have feared.
The class is a methods of teaching math to students with mild disabilities. I love math but I'm horrible at teaching it, so I'm quite interested in this particular subject. Plus, I've paid a lot of money to be here. Give me my education, please.
The professor for the class is not the one scheduled, as the original professor was in a car accident and is in ICU for the next few weeks. Since this all transpired yesterday, Dr. T. was a little frazzled but, as she explained, she loves math, she loves technology, and this will be a fun class for as long as she's in there.
Then, "she" started. "She" looks like Bette Davis's character from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, complete with the very pale skin with white powder covering and hair that is only missing a bow. BJ was only two seats over from me and I was still scared to look at her too closely, afraid I would be either blinded by the paleness of her skin and hair combo or would be sucked into the vortex that is her mind.
BJ exclaimed, after learning that we would be using, gasp, computers!, that she didn't need to learn any of that math stuff, since she would be teaching kindergarteners and they don't need to be tested on math, which somehow apparently translates to kindergartners would not need to actually learn math, either. And computers? Pshaw. BJ is a non traditional student and hasn't used a computer since, well, ever, as she was last a student in the Dark Ages and they didn't have those confounded machines around then.
This is about the time BJ and Dr. T began the "I'm older than you," "No, I'm older than you" conversation. Sorry, Dr. T., but I think BJ wins this round.
After calmly explaining that just because children are not tested on a subject does not mean they should not learn the subject, because there is this thing called base-learning, BJ fought it some more. The rest of the class had a blank look on its collective face. Dr. T. remained quite calm, but I could hear more of her northern accent escaping as she politely explained what a standard course of study is and that there are still goals for children. Even in kindergarten.
I doubt BJ believes her.
Basically, I learned two things today:
Conjugating verbs is subjective.
Computers is the devil.
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