Some Highlights

I started this blog with the intention of chronicling my experiences as a first year teacher. I realized early on that I wouldn't be very good at it. I can definitely tell you the general vibe of what it's like to be a teacher (overwhelming, time-consuming, wonderful). I'm still not quite familiar enough with the Bronx to write about it very well, but even if I was, I still think I would write in generalities. I have very few stories to tell about teaching. Every day seeps into the next one. I very quickly let go of what happens during the day, and I come in fresh the next morning. I'm sure I could come up with some better stories if I truly racked my brain, but I bet the would be at least partially fictional.

This is the best I can do for now. Here are some transcripts of actual exchanges that occurred in class between my students and me:

Me: Today we're starting a unit on parallel lines. This lesson's going old school--all the way back to Ancient Greece. There was a man who created geometry as we know it. We learn geometry the way we do today because of this person-

Student in the front row: Hitler?

Me: {Speechless}

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Me: And so Ben Stiller's character looks at the scale model of the school they want to build for him, and his face scrunches up, and he gets really angry, and he shoves the model to the floor. He points at it and shouts, "What is this, a school for ants?! How are they going to be able to learn anything if they can't even fit in the building?" And that explains the idea of similarity between shapes--how two things can have the same proportions but totally different sizes. Obviously, Zoolander didn't understand this concept.

Entire Class: Blank stares.