Reviews

For the first time in my teaching career, I had a personal friend sit in while I did my thang in front of the class. I was nervous for the first thirty seconds and then seeing the faces of lazy, unmotivated students put me right into gear. I used my normal bag o' tricks to get the class workin': far off surveillance, close surveillance, walking in and out of aisles, eye contact, verbal cues. Anything and everything to get 100% engagement in the lesson.

Immersed in the zone, I completely forgot about an observer. My beady eyes were busy scanning their papers to spot out the glaring, blank white ones. But admidst eagle hawk duty, I cracked a couple (literally, 2) jokes and ended the class by having them share their personal essays. I ended with a smile and scooted the kids on out, feeling victorious of a lesson gone well. I turned back to my friend with high hopes of two thumbs up only to hear,

"Wow, you're really mean!"

Wha~! I mean...but...they're kids! 12 year olds! Hormonal! You saw the knuckleheads! I threw out my best excuses but all to no avail for I heard back was "nazi", "micromanager", and just plain "scary".

Actually it was a good thing that this occurred because it kicked my butt into applying for a Master's degree in Education, emphasis on teaching Reading/Language Arts. Because they're aren't any Teaching English for Dummies book available yet.