Week Four Journal Entry

I am sitting down to write this entry on Sunday night. I have worked a lot this weekend. On Saturday afternoon I did some planning, then I watched Jason and the Argonauts in preparation for the mythology class I'm picking up on Monday. I skipped church (and the sunday school class I was supposed to teach with my husband) and worked all day today. I got a lot done, and I'm in good shape going into the school week, but I really didn't have a weekend. I have a feeling that not only will student teaching continue to be this way, but also my first year of work will be this way. Every class I teach for the first time will be a blank slate, with all the planning to do and all the assessments to create.

I'll report a success before I sign off for the week. As I've written previously, I'm teaching Julius Caesar to my English 10 classes. I have asked both classes to vote on whether Mark Antony is a good guy or a bad guy. In Block 3, J. exclaimed in frustration, "I don't know! I don't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy!" I was thrilled, and I told J. that Shakespeare would be thrilled. I believe this is the beauty of Shakespeare's work...he revels in the "grayness" (as opposed to the black-and-whiteness) of the world. There are two sides to every story. At the time, I knew that J. was frustrated, and to a certain extent, I sympathized with him. But at the same time, it was a thrilling moment for me as a teacher. I had not simply told my students that the play was ambiguous; instead, I had led them into that moment. OK, I had a little help from the Bard.