Student Teaching - Week #10

by Kristin Trease - Kelvyn Park High School

Life in the City

Halloween is quite interesting in this city. A far bigger event than I anticipated. People were dressed up and going out the weekend before and on Halloween night; I even saw a few costumes the weekend after. I was low-key the weekend before, deciding to avoid the busy streets and go to plays and concerts. On Halloween night, I put my costume back on (after wearing it all day at school, I needed a break for a couple hours) and headed to the parade in Boy’s Town. We didn’t realize that by parade, they meant people from the costume contests walking down the street in their costumes. It was pretty lame, but we saw some really interesting costumes.

On Thursday night, the arts event was the play “Metamorphoses” written and directed by Mary Zimmerman. This was the play that we theatre geeks were excitedly anticipating for the whole semester. “Metamorphoses” is an adaptation of the ancient Greek myths found in “The Odyssey.” The most well known fact about the play, and what keeps it from being performed more often, is that it takes place in a large pool of water. The whole audience got towels on their chairs.

Metamorphoses

It was one of the most beautiful plays I’ve ever seen. I’m a sucker for narrative plays told through stories and narrators; it’s the feminist aesthetic and writing style that strikes me most poignant if done well. And this play was done well. It’s one thing to find yourself connected to the characters, all good theatre should do that; it’s another thing to find yourself connected to the water, the role that it played in all of these stories. It became another character, morphing from role to role as quickly and seamlessly as the actors. One of my favorite Thursday nights of the semester, maybe ever.

Life in the Classroom

The honeymoon period is over. Long over. I’m no longer the fun, new teacher in the room. I’m the teacher that expects things from them, that tries to get them to be quiet, that interrupts their conversations, that expects them to keep their phones and iPods away. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m successful at keep them on task, they just get more annoyed with me now. It’s been a very difficult, very stressful past couple of weeks. There have been some wonderful moments, but sometimes they are overshadowed. Sad, but true.

The past couple weeks we’ve been looking at major platforms of the presidential debates in order to prepare for our class debates. There have been some very interesting and good conversations based around war, immigration, homosexual marriage, and abortion topics. I’ve learned a lot, like maybe it’s not the best idea to tell students where you stand on issues. After telling one student who recently joined our class my feelings towards homosexual marriage, he said to his tablemate, “I don’t like that teacher.” Respectful disagreement with people who think differently than us is something we’re working on. It’s been interesting, and some days more successful than others.

I have ten and a half days left of full time teaching, twenty and a half days left at Kelvyn Park. Now that I’ve counted them, I’m freaking out. It doesn’t feel like our time should be ending so soon. Granted, almost every night when I’m doing homework, I say something along the line of “I can’t wait to be done student teaching.” But in all reality, I’m going to be heartbroken when my students keep going to school and I don’t get to spend every day with them. It’s been the fastest, most stressful, most educational semester of my life.