Fifty Cents on Pay Day

Back at the beginning of this program, a friend asked how much I would be paid while student teaching. I felt a little bad about literally laughing in her face. Perhaps a tad foreshadowing of what is to come, I'm actually paying $40,000 (give or take a g's) right now to work 40+ hours a week. I try not to think of it in those terms too much. I'll have years and years of loan statements to do that for me. 

ANYways-- this week has been a bit more challenging than others, and one of the first during which I've actually felt some anxiety about my ability as a teacher. A student in one of my classes was shot over the weekend while in downtown Portland (innocent bystander during a random act of violence-- she's recovering fine, but she's an exchange student and I can only imagine how that adds to her trauma right now). We had a nice long staff meeting this morning about escalating events of violence and gang-related activity at school. It's the beginning of a new term and I've had no less than two teachers and one student question whether or not I am actually old enough to be a teacher (people keep telling me I'll appreciate my youthful appearance when I'm older, but it's sure a pain in the you-know-what right now). Let's just say I'm feeling a decreased sense of my self-efficacy as an educator these past few days. 

The clouds parted and the light shone down yesterday afternoon. I've developed a good rapport with one of the juniors in a history class. He comes from a disadvantaged background to say the least, but this kid is one of the hardest workers I've ever met. He squandered a lot of chances his first two years, but has really kicked it into high gear this year, taking night classes on his own, seeking out extra help and assignments, etc. He's discovered a real love and raw talent for creative writing. Knowing that I also teach English, he came to me during independent work time with a poem and asked me to look at it for him. After a twenty minute conversation about simile, onomatopoeia, allusion, and various other nerdy things, he started asking me questions about discontinuous narrative (jumping around in the narration of a story) in relation to a short story idea he had. As if his excitement and motivation wasn't enough, another b

oy, one whom I've often thought had more ambition to be a brick wall than in a desk, jumped in the conversation. 

"Yeah, man, haven't you ever seen Fifty Cent's movie? It's like whoa, dude just got shot in the face, and then he tells you how he got there. It's just like that man, it's cool. Real cool." Ok, so I've never thought much of "Fiddy" or his work, but if he can get two of my students excited about and, more importantly, understanding something as obscure as discontinuous narrative or poetry in general-- hats off. Luckily, both boys were able to come up with other examples, too.  (Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, some James Joyce stuff) I was near euphoria, completely re-energized when I left school that afternoon. So I guess somedays I do get paid. 

PS- I need some serious help with formatting and placing pictures in Blogger. I know how to upload them (obviously) but not how to move them around once they're in here. I've looked through the Blogger help menu but can't find what I need. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.