Intercession: Day One, or my first day as Ms. Somers

Here is is, guys. The moment you've all been waiting for: my first day in a class full of craaazy middle-schoolers. As I said in my last post, for the next week and a half I will be co-teaching a course called "A Midsummer Night's Dream Revisited" at Crosswinds School in Woodbury.

All the teachers in my cohort showed up to school early for a staff meeting, where we were shown the ins and outs of fire drills and attendance slips. Afterward, Molly, Rebecca (my co-teachers) and I went upstairs to survey our classroom space. The classrooms at Crosswinds have kind of an odd layout; they have no walls, so if you try you can see and hear the classroom across the hall. Molly, Rebecca and I spent a few minutes talking through the day's lesson plan and organizing supplies.

At 9:15, students started piling in for homeroom. The kids in our homeroom are not the same kids that will be in our regular class, but we're still responsible for taking attendance, checking in with them and playing a little game every day. Today, we dealt with all kinds of questions we didn't know how to answer (such as, where is my next class? and what's for lunch?) and didn't have time to play my all-time favorite game, "Move your butts" (a.k.a. "I love my neighbor").

For the next 90 minutes, Molly, Rebecca and I had our prep time. We set up our class for the activities and went through the part of the play we planned to read. At 10:55, we were on. The first hour of class, honestly, was HORRIBLE. We sat our 30 kids in a circle on the floor and asked them to share their name and one fact they knew about Shakespeare. There were so many side conversations going on that no one could hear a single introduction (except for the kid that said "I know Shakespeare's a perv," which derailed the entire class for a good five minutes). This made it impossible to take attendance and it made the class impossible to control, because Molly, Rebecca and I couldn't use the kids' names to get them to shut up. Awesome.

Next, I went over the scope and expectations of the class. To be fair, the kids had a lot of questions about how much performing we would be doing and what the play is about, but I was talking over at least 10 kids at a time. Next, still talking over the chaos, Molly introduced the iMovie our group put together to summarize Act I of the play. The projector we were promised was never delivered, so the kids had to crowd around Rebecca's laptop to watch, which didn't work well.

I noticed that many of our problems stemmed from the classroom setup. We didn't set up desks our chairs because we wanted to read the play sitting in a circle on the floor, but as we moved from discussion to watching the iMovies we found that the kids didn't have a set place to be. A lot of kids wandered off into the many nooks in the ill-designed classroom. As Molly shouted over all the kids, trying to get them to map out the play's characters on the board, I did my very best to support her. I stood by groups of kids who were talking and used my very best teacher death stare. I tapped kids on the shoulder. I shushed loudly. No good.

Next, it was my turn to introduce the game. We invented a game for the class called "Lost in the Woods." To play, we set up all the desks and chairs randomly so it was a maze. I told the kids to find a partner they thought they could trust (this was loud). One partner would be blindfolded and the other person had to lead that person through the "forest" of desks. I shouted these rules while standing on top of a desk. Classy. I told the kids we could only play the game if I could trust them to be quiet and listen to the directions. They sort of responded to that. Sort of.

I told Molly and Rebecca to send me the partners who were quiet and ready to play, so they came over, one at a time to be blindfolded. That was a pretty good idea, but I'm not going to lie and say they were under control for very long. I must admit, though, they liked the game. I had to give up a lot of control, because there were many partnerships going through the maze at once, many partnerships running back to the front of the line for a second attempt and many partnerships who were not allowed to play because Molly and Rebecca wouldn't send them over. But the kids who played, despite the chaos, seemed to be having fun and totally got the significance of the game when we debriefed it later.

While I was putting blindfolds on kids, Molly and Rebecca decided that our next activity (reading Act II) HAD to happen in small groups or it would be utter pandemonium. It was the best decision we made all day; even with three teachers, 30 kids are just to difficult to direct in one activity. In fact, I noticed that having three teachers caused some problems. The kids often didn't know which one of us to look to, and since we kept taking turns introducing different activities, the kids had a hard time deciding who was in charge. So, back in the circle, we counted off by 3's and divided into groups. This turned out to be a good plan, because it split up chatty groups of friends who were sitting next to each other in the circle.

So I passed out scripts to the kids in my groups, and was delighted to hear them asking for certain roles. In fact, the kids self-selected (with a little guidance from me) roles that went well with their personalities, which made the readings of certain scenes all the more interesting. One girl said "I'm dramatic! I need the dramatic role!" So she became Hermia, one of the lovers. Another kid kind of wanted to be the rebel badass (my words, not his) so I convinced him to play Puck even though he's a fairy. He totally rocked the role, too, and improved a few funny lines. All the kids read with expression, which was surprising. Only two kids decided they didn't want to read a role, but I'll encourage them to pick one tomorrow.

As we read together, I tried to hype up the drama in Act II (magical love potions, a fight between the fairy king and queen, the lovers running around being in love with each other). Most of the kids got into it, which I really appreciated. Rebecca ended up with a lot of the really disengaged kids, and ended up having to say "Please follow along" and "Read with expression" one too many times. I might take a few of her kids tomorrow.

Everyone noticed that this is a confusing play with a TON of characters. Tomorrow, I think, I'm going to bring a whiteboard with all the characters and have the kids map "who is in love with who," and then alter those relationships as we read Act III. The names and relationships are super hard to keep track of, but I think the kids understand what's coming. When we came to the part with the magical love flower and King Oberon's plan to use it, I asked the group "Is this going to go well?" And they agreed, no, things are going to get out of hand. I hope they feel some excitement about what will happen next.

So, in summary:

Sucky things:
1. Keeping 30 kids' attention.
2. Shouting instructions.
3. Bratty kids who don't appreciate being yelled at to "be respectful."

Good things:
1. This is a fun play, and most kids (hopefully) are interested.
2. My co-teachers are incredibly good, and we totally have each others' backs.
3. We now have planned to work in small groups, so I hope there will be no more large-group pandemonium from here on out.

Comforting things:
1. Several of my cohort-mates had serious problems with classroom management today as well.
2. We learned important lessons today that WILL help us teach tomorrow.
3. I actually found this whole experience energizing rather than draining, so I have hope that teaching is the right career for me.