historical misconceptions
God, I love my new job. I should take a photo of the view I have from my classroom door because it looks straight out of English-teacher-fantasy-land.
I turned in my resignation just before someone else (long story--another reason to be glad I'm gone), so the other district let me out of my contract, to my great relief. Good things come to those who wait? Or maybe I just got lucky. Very lucky. My counterpart/long-term sub had an exceptionally difficult time last week when a student went into premature labor....
So now I'm teaching English 9, nearly an identical class to the one I taught for three years in Minnesota. It is fabulous. Even the class sizes are ridiculously small due to a reduced-class-size-bond-initiative that passed a few years ago. 22 is the biggest. I told you it was ridiculous.
We jumped right in with MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech last week. I dug up a Google video of it and played it for them on Friday. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) how many young kids think that MLK was assassinated during his "I Have A Dream" speech on the mall in Washington, D.C. At least three students asked me separately if I was going to show the part where he gets shot. What a frightening thought--that he might have been assassinated in the midst of that inspirational speech in front of the thousands of people, or that a high school teacher would play the live footage of the assassination in front of students.
posted by Jessica @ 3:07 PM
5 Comments:
The new job sounds good. I didn't know he was shot during the speech; I must have missed that part, but I do know - courtesy of students past - that he freed the slaves, which makes me wonder if he really wasn't shot but just died of really old age.
i'm so glad you are happy! it is good to see you write like this in your blog.
and i so envy your class size...i have one class of 88 and another of 96.
huh, that is an interesting thought that your students had about mlk's speech...thanks for sharing it...it's one of those "humm sort of post."
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
If only he had been shot. right at the end. Just so you could use the line 'now there's punctuation for you'.
James: Ah, yes, that would explain a lot. It would especially explain the student reaction when I pointed out that King was standing in front of Lincoln: "He is? Where? Wait a minute, Lincoln's a statue?"
Colleen: I've seen your stacks of paper and am in no way envious. It takes way more charisma than I'll ever have to teach a lecture hall of 96. Go get 'em!
RC: Two more reasons I enjoy teaching: the "humm" moments and the reinforcement that these kids really do need to learn a lot.
Rich: You're a twisted character. I'll be laughing all night now and feeling horribly guilty about it.
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