Withitness

I now have less than a week until I will be in the schools once again..sitting through faculty meetings, welcoming students, and observing like only I can do, with pages and pages of fully detailed notes. My observation notes are generally tedious and filled with information that I look back upon and say, "Yeah, I definitely didn't have to write that down." But that's one of the fun things about teaching that I've noticed-- you never actually know what is going to be important when you're doing something. A little side comment could be the key to unlocking a student's understanding of a topic, a finger moving quickly across a desk could be the first sign that you've lost someone.

I pay attention to a lot of these things when I'm observing, but when I'm teaching it's a completely different story. There is so much pressure to perform and keep track of everybody. One of my friends has a quote on facebook that reads "Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." I'd say that it's probably closer to one-fifth preparation, three-fifths theater, and one-fifth having a bazillion eyes and the patience of a saint (what we refer to in Curry as 'withitness'). I do not have the final fifth.

So we will see how all of this turns out. In the meantime I'll be going home and tracking down multiple forms, transcripts, proofs of immunization, etc. so that I can apply to be a substitute in Albemarle County Schools. This means that if my CI is absent I get paid for the time I'm there, which is so much better than having to pay them for something I don't plan on using much in my life.