The patient students who endured my 15 weeks as a Student Teacher at Middletown South have wondered when I’m going to reply to them, and I wanted to thank them again for, well, putting up with me. It was one of the most challenging times of my life, not just because I had to be on time, every time (and I was born 8 days late). It was hard because there were 20 odd kids listening to me, and they deserved the best I could give, every single day. Other challenges including not laughing when they did something funny or goofy. I’m just not a good disciplinarian-I’ve gotten enough detentions in my day to know that they don’t really help anything.
So, I wanted to give them a poem. [groans come from the back of the class]. Not a fluffy poem about flowers or something, or one that rhymes, but one written by a man on death row. There are no tests, quizzes, participation points, or anything that robs reading of its joy. Let’s be honest – if I came over to your house, and started grading you on how well you played GTA, and gave you participation points and gold stars, pretty soon you’d hate GTA and wouldn’t play it. So there is absolutely no reason to read this poem other than the fact that you might enjoy.
As for myself, I’m almost done with my Masters. The summer will involve relaxing at the beach, and August I fly to Europe. I’m hoping to spend a month hiking from Lake Geneva, Switzerland all the way to Nice, France, walking along the GR-5. The route will look something like this, and will be brutal – my feet will bleed. After (If?) I finish, I head to London, and stay on friends’ couches until I get a ‘real’ job, whatever that looks like.
Here’s the poem: http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1093
Questions for further consideration: no questions. I hate questions for further consideration.
