March 01, 2002 // 5:48 p.m. // A day at school
The school is very similar to those I taught at during my six years as a Utah Museum of Natural History intern. It's located in a low income area of the city where the majority of the students are minorities with only one parent and below the poverty line. It's such a blast. I missed teaching so much. An advantage of having someone "young" in the classroom is they look at me as more of a peer than as an instructor. It makes things comfortable for them, but tougher for me, as they took 15 minutes to do a three minute assignment. They kept asking me about my class ring (which I oddly wear on my right hand, pointer finger) how I got my hair to do what it does and how often I go to school. They were also interested in how tall I was, because to them, anything over 5'6" is tall. I've always been one of the tall ones, especially through seventh grade, but there have always been at least a few people taller than me in every class(except when I took child development my sophomore year and was the tallest). I can remember early in kindergarten being measured and learning that I was 4 foot tall, second only to a girl named Natalie who was a smidge taller. It runs in her family. In the late 80's/early 90's her brothers and cousins (all like 6'8") enjoyed impressive runs as basketball players at BYU. But about the teaching. I enjoy it. I also enjoy my final hour history class where the small cluster of us all talk to each other, and are almost friends. It's a Breakfast Club-like existence. We have the girl who sits next to me, the Brian. She's the one who has notes on everything the teacher's ever said, and will laugh at his bad jokes. Actually, we have about three Brian's. We have the girl who sits in front of her, the Claire. The beautiful girl, who transcribes her notes on a Palm Pilot and keyboard. The professional girl. The one who will speak to you to be nice, but won't initiate a conversation with you. We have the boy who sits two rows over. The Andrew. The guy who never knows the news, but always knows the sports scores. His voice is different and I see the same love of sports in his eyes that I once had. We have the boy who knows more than we think. The dictator. The boy who sits at the fron of the class but rarely takes notes. Who misses class. The John Bender. The boy who'll get you laughing by making a mistake. Finally we have the Allison. The girl who you can count on when the class is dead to tell you about the time she had a pencil shoved into her nose, or the time a goose hit Fabio's nose, or about how her hair gets cold when she goes into the cold and forgets to dry it. The one who'll become your good friend if you get to know her. I know none of their real names. I talked with the Allison-like girl on the shuttle bus. We talked about Faith Hill, other country artists, other songs, weather, how to find your car in the vast parking lot, and about her Olympic trip to Arizona. She's probably the coolest one to talk to in the class, even if she is a bit naive. I'd still love for the Claire girl to talk to me. Jason Last time on Apexsensatin : Now on Apex : Apex Archives : Next time on ApexsensatinI'm beginning to enjoy my volunteer project. Today I had to teach a group of third and fourth graders about multiplying by factors of five, how to tell time, (more specifically, how time passes) and early story problems.