Wednesday, August 15, 2007
 | Current mood:  contemplative Category: School, College, Greek I love my job teaching, I really do. I am grateful for my new school and my new job. However....8th grade boys are not what i signed up for. See when I got the job I was supposed to teach Science and have 7th grade girls as my homeroom. 7th grade girls and 8th grade boys are a teensey weensy bit different...we are coming to the end of week two and they haven't made me cry yet, but they have come close. They just exhaust me with their endless energy and their need for defiance, independence and autonomy. See, these are not your run of the mill, suburban, easy going boys. They are from the south side of Chicago. Most of them live in one of the few remaining housing projects. So, they are tough. Their lives outside school involve more challenges than I know and challenges that require them to be independent, tough, strong and sometimes violent. When they come into my classroom, they are expected to leave all that at the door and value school, education and books. Everything I ask them to do goes against their home experience and their outside lives. The order I need to teach them goes against their need for autonomy...its a constant battle. They see me as an outsider who doesn't know what they need, because I have different values and experience. I value education and see it as the key to their future beyond the confines of their limited experience, they value street smarts. So the question has become, how do I bridge the gap? |
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