Teaching

I've been teaching this week, and it's been fantastic. I teach two math classes for students who are going into the ninth grade, and they are all there because either they need extra help or they don't show up for class. Needless to say, the ones who do not show up for class during the year also do not show up during the summer. Therefore, they are the ones who are much further behind than the others. It makes it difficult as a teacher when they show up after missing two days of summer school and I need to re-teach them the material they missed and also have them keep up with the rest of the class (in order to pass, all work needs to be turned in).

But it has been great. The other day, my second class informed me that the cutoff between "old" and "young" is definitely 30. It was unanimous. Today, a student delivered some flowers and an apple that were from her older sister who I had taught two years ago. I was able to talk to two parents so far with confidence, something that was a little shaky in my past experience in a school setting. Yesterday, I overheard a student talking about a miscarriage "her sister" had (I thought she told her friend it was her, but when I asked her later in private, she said her sister). Then we had a short, sweet talk about precautions and good decisions. The other day, a student was talking about her aunt's pregnancy, and another student asked, "Does she know who the father is?". The students have been showing up early and leaving late.

I love it. Today we talked about the weather, and I told them I hope it doesn't rain tonight because my mom and I are having a party. The conversation went like this:
Student: "You have a party with your mom?"
Me: "Yes, we're having some family and friends over."
Student: "With your mom?"
Me: "Well, it's not one of those MTV parties that you see - we're not going to get too crazy."
Student: "Sooo...do you just sit around a table with some chips and dip?"
Me: "How did you know? We're making four dips. It's going to be fantastic."
Student: "You are old."

Kids are fantastic.