Being a Teacher what a concept!

Well school has started for real.  This is Teacher Jerry talking.  I have 4 groups of students, two 8th grades and two 9th grades and teach each 3 hours per week.  Sounds easy enough, but there is going to be a lot of prep and lesson planning to go along with the curriculum for their text books.  Not to mention grading homework.  Most of the kids are wonderful and really anxious to learn, but not all of course. There is a wide range of understanding or lack thereof in their English so I will have to work to span the range and still keep it interesting for all of us.  The books are really fun for me, because the topics cover the whole range of the worlds issues, history, math, etc.  They key is going to be a consistent discipline in the curriculum and the classroom.  I have had to get tough with a small group in one class and it looks like it may get even tougher to be fair to the other kids who do want to learn.

I took videos of each student pronouncing their name and telling how many years they have studied English and will watch them to learn the names and show them to entertain the students.  But even more entertaining will be the video of me trying to learn and pronounce the words I asked them to teach me.  They have all ready had a ton of laughs with this idea and it will continue since I have such a bad ear for language and I promised to video me practicing the vocabulary.  It will help me learn faster, but I will suffer the humiliation and hope it will be worth it.  I will get group pics next week. I already have a new and finer appreciation for the profession. I want to see the new film about education in America. Waiting for Superman. Who knew they would make a film about me so soon.