Napoleon Dynamite - Lord of the Dance

My parents have been glued to their television set lately watching Dancing with the Stars on ABC.

While I was walking up to my room this evening, I heard a familiar song - Canned Heat by Jamiroquai. As I looked at the television, it was two professional dance couples jumping and jiving to this familiar song.

It was extremely entertaining but, from the perspective of a college student, it failed in comparison with a more famous interpretation.

Even though they may be professional dances with years of training and study on the art of the dance, they in no way have got anything on my main man - Napoleon Dynamite.

Tough Day

After today, I have decided that I really need to stop making so many ignorant jokes when talking with people; especially when they come to me with a problem that they are having trouble with.

This very thing confronted me today which led to the toughest day that I have ever had as a substitute teacher.

I was supposed to discuss a topic that is a very difficult topic to say the least with a health class this afternoon. Myself, I did not feel that I was qualified to lead a discussion over such a difficult topic with young people.

Because of this, I sought professional advice from anyone that I could find or talk to. Some really helped me which I appreciated. Others tried to lighten the situation by offering a joke. I know that they were just trying to make me feel better about it but, for me, it was a time when I really needed some "professional advice."

In the end, I deviated from the written lesson plan after discussing it with another person within the health/phys. ed. department who I hold a tremendous amount of respect for. It has been the one time that I have not followed the exact details of the substitute lesson plan provided for me. The rest of the day was very good and every other class went well but even now I am still bothered by my decision.

I still feel very rotten about what I did. For that one class, I did not follow what was specified. My main goal in life is to give my very best in everything that I do every day and I just don't think that today was one of those days. I guess the best thing that I can do is just move on and accept whatever happens.

I am just glad that my blog was able to listen.

Hot Dogs and Coaching

What an amazing day! The weather was perfect, the events were exciting, and the hot dogs at the ballpark were warm.

It was a pretty successful day of subbing at Tipton today. I learned some very important things about how I want to run my own classroom when I get it.

I think what I learned about the most was expectations about my students. For me, it is very saddening to see someone give up on a student and to think that they cannot achieve great things.

Granted, as my friend Chad says, "Life is not a beautiful field of daisies, dancing kittens, and sunshine and rainbows." But, it is my hope to never become complacent and jaded with my work.

I am sure that there will be bad days but I really hope that I am able to keep the same level of passion and energy throughout my entire career. It is not fair to me or the students if I don't.

After my day of learning, I was very busy visiting tennis practices, going to track meets (my players kicked major butt again! Good job ladies!), and attending my good friend David's baseball game.

Even though I told him that all I needed was a Coke and a hot dog to enjoy myself, I was extremely impressed with the way he handled himself and how well prepared his players were for the game this afternoon.

In thrilling fashion, they defeated a very talented team 4-3 in one of the more memorable baseball games that I have seen in a while. I think the main reason that I enjoyed myself so much was because I have been in his position before. Seeing our players perform to the level that they are capable of makes winning and losing seem so small in the grand scheme of things.

Good job tonight buddy! I hope you continue to have that same passion for coaching and baseball. If for no other reason than giving me an excuse to come to the ballpark to watch your team along with enjoying my Coke and hot dog.

The Last Day of Education Class

My classes for this semester are now complete and my summer vacation has just begun. I am very happy to see this semester end because it seems as it has been much more stressful than others in the past.

Right now, I only have three more classes that I have to take before I start my student teaching. I am looking forward to it because I will be paired up with a well-respected teacher in a subject area and grade level that I very much enjoy.

My last education class of the year was definitely a site to see as our teacher went around the room asking each of us whether we preferred to teach in high school or middle school after studying both throughout the year. Almost everyone in the room other than me wanted to teach in high school.

The most popular answer I heard was because the content in high school was more in depth than it was in middle school.

Another interesting comment that I heard was that they did not go to college for four years to talk about the basic principles of their subject.

A recurring comment that I have heard throughout the year has been, "Kids in middle school have raging hormones and too many emotions for me to teach them."

Lastly, others were upset with their student teaching placements because it was not at the level that they wanted to teach.

I don't know why these comments bothered me but they did. One of the reasons might be because I enjoy teaching middle school. Also it really does not matter to me what level I teach at as long as I get to coach and be involved with the school and community.

Then their was the "raging hormones" issue that always gets brought up. My understanding was that all people have a wide range of emotions that are uncontrollable. We have seen plenty of this from anyone who has competed on American Idol and Deal or No Deal.

I guess the real thing that I was feeling as I left that class was that we are teachers; nothing more, nothing less. Our job is not to impress our students with the wide range of knowledge we gained in college or to load them down with mindless content drivel.

I see our job as a position that should inspire them to seek out that knowledge for themselves and achieve their potential. I think that some of us take our content way too seriously and forget that we are really there for the students.

My feeling is that if a person's sole purpose for entering education is the content then I think that it should be time to find a new career. As we all know, education and teaching is so much more than just scientific theory, equations, and diagramming sentences.