Student Teaching - Week #12

Life in the City

Festival of Lights Parade

The Festival of Lights seems like an important event to be in Chicago for. People described it as the Chicago equivalent of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I describe it as mass chaos with way too many people. So yeah, probably pretty close to Macy’s Parade.

In order to see anything well, you have to show up hours ahead of time and be committed to staking a spot and not moving. We weren’t there early. And we weren’t committed to sticking around. After about 30 minutes of barely seeing anything, we left. Or at least tried to. It took another thirty minutes to get out of the crowds. I’m not typically claustrophobic, but after that, I wanted nothing but to sit alone and be very introverted for a couple hours.

Chicago History Museum - Magic Exhibit

It has been a good week in terms of exploration. Over my long Veteran’s Day weekend, my friend Aleah came to visit. I had another reason to be touristy, which I don’t like doing very often. We visited slightly random spots, including the Lincoln Park Conservatory, Candiality, Hersey’s, and Sprinkles Cupcakes (we apparently had quite the sweet tooth). We saw a workshop performance of an opera being produced next year called The Suitcase Opera Project, written around a suitcase of letters written right after WWII by a homosexual man who was dishonorably discharged from the Marines. It was very good, but would have been better had it been a play and not an opera. I finally made it to the Chicago History Museum as well. I love going to museums with my friend Aleah; we tend to explore museums at very similar paces. It was a really great weekend.

Life in the Classroom

It’s getting to the point of the semester when the kids realize that I won’t be there much longer. Almost every day a different student suggests I just take my cooperating teacher’s job. As much as I would love to keep working at Kelvyn Park, there are a few things in my way. One being the fact Ms. Holzmann loves her job and isn’t going anywhere. Another being that my Iowa teaching license doesn’t automatically transfer to Illinois without taking tests. Slightly frustrating, but I should have planned ahead better.

It’s been a hectic week. We didn’t have school for Veteran’s Day, which was nice. And then the Tuesday after Veteran’s day we had parent-teacher conferences. That was nerve wracking. We only had twelve parents show up, ten of which had A or B students, so it turned out fine. It was disappointing that we had so few parents, but I got a lot of planning and grading done.

After Thanksgiving, I begin dropping periods that I teach one by one. I’ll have two weeks left, finishing up by December 7. It’s crazy to think how quickly this semester has gone. It has been one of the most challenging, most stressful, yet encouraging and enjoyable semesters of my life.