teaching week two, pt. 2: “miss adams, get some rest.”

In a conversation with Z last week, she mentioned that she and Dan had wondered when, in Dan’s words, “Kat’s going to do that sarcastic impression thing to one of her students.” That day was yesterday.

Yesterday I did a grammar review with my students. After reading their in-class assignment, I decided to review a few basics that I thought they were having trouble with, and then play a game over what we’d reviewed (a game which, thanks to Ezra’s suggestion, required me to do very, very little). 

The first class went well. They participated in the review, they were enthusiastic (in 9:30 AM terms) about the game. Success.

The second class. Maybe it’s because some of them are older, or perhaps it’s because their brains have perked up by 12:30, but they effectively and consistently stumped me on grammar. I’d gone over the basics again, but frankly I haven’t thought seriously about grammar in years. This become progressively more obvious as the 75 minutes progressed. Unfortunately (by which I mean “Thankfully”), I have a very bright, eloquent sophomore in that class who is in his third semester of Latin. He knew everything. He was very respectful about it, but on more than one occassion he had to interject, “Miss Adams, isn’t it actually [blank]?” And of course he was right. I’m glad he spoke up, and I know it certainly helped other students, but the whole thing did end with me saying, “I’m Brandon! Predicate nominative, blah, blah, blah!” Over the nervous laughter, I did explain that I wasn’t making fun of him, and that he was obviously right. Hopefully everyone caught that bit.

Despite being grammatically pwned in front of my students, the day was much better than Tuesday. My classes were entertained by my retelling of the nightmare I’d had the night before, in which half of them got up and left in the middle of class, only to come back and insist they were there all along. This unfortunate circumstance was only made worse when, while they were arguing with me, an ex-boyfriend walked in and smirked condescendingly at me. The students really liked that part.

As I was leaving my first class, a student (the “difficult” one whom I actually like) said, “Miss Adams, get some rest this weekend. You can’t keep drinking those huge cokes.” I think I’ll take his advice. Though I still feel Whataburger’s large is a perfectly acceptable serving size. 

Filed under corrupting the youth |