Moments of Firsts
This week has been a heck of a week of lasts, my last on-campus university class, my last undergrad stroll through the green. But then, these last four years have also been a heck of a bunch of moments of firsts.
Thursday, for the first time, I went to my school to set up for the start of classes. I walked out in near panic because I didn‘t have a reading corner in my classroom! How can I possibly teach well without a reading corner in my classroom. The students will never learn!
Ok, I’m not completely nuts, I know there are six more desks yet to arrive and the room is already full … and NO to my daughter’s suggestion, “it could always go in that side storage room.”
Dilemma? Not for the reading corner, but for the lack of preparedness by me. I was feeling first day of class stress. I was feeling internship stress…
Another question: Do I bring my hundreds and hundreds of middle years novels to this class and then take them home with me when I leave in December? “Hey, Miss S, can read I The Breadwinner over the winter break?” “Heck no child, give me that book, I’m
outta here!” Oh, give me a break! Monday I’ll work something out with my coop.
But The Panic Remained People… Life line number three – “Regis, I’d like to ‘phone a friend!” (Her name is Tanya, and she helped lots.)
Last year during her internship, she didn’t have time for the guilts or the glitz , she was too busy with students with exceptionalities, extra curricular and, oh yes, 31 kids crammed into a teeny room. Her reading corner consisted of a table-top station, and Writers and Readers Workshop still went wonderfully. Her bulletin board was so high she had to get a step ladder and a janitor and then move computers to reach it. She was too busy to fill her room with guilts or glitz and the kids were having too much fun to care.
So what did Tan and I talk about Thursday night … well, water actually. We chatted about the commodification of water, Aboriginal water rights, the Alberta tar sands and collaborating on a version of “one million acts of green.”
You know this note started out about events of firsts in the last four years, but blogging, for me, always turns into something else, it turns into tomorrows, not yesterdays.
So, here’s to Tuesday, August 25, 2009 my first day… And that’s really cool.
