Day 22 at St. Florence: The End

and so ends my official tenure as student teacher at St. Florence. it was awesome.

little kids in grade 1 are arguably the best age for kids to be. they know how to pee and poo and wipe on their own, they say really cute things, they still look really cute and they hug you and hold your hand just to say hello. by now they know how to read and write the most common words, so they laugh at your jokes for the right reasons. their personalities are starting to flesh out but they're not at the stage of grudges and cut-eyes and backstabbery that plagues grade 5 and up. even when they're hurt and crying they can be cheered up with a hug and a funny noise or face. the best part about teaching grade 1 students is seeing how they've improved from the beginning of the year. the fruits of the teacher's labour are clearly evident in spelling tests and carpet-time questions.

we had a brief 8-word spelling test today, on less tricky words than last time because these could be sounded out (rich, chest, shed, club, land, ring, etc). i was given the task of marking while the teacher carried on with the next lesson. i thought checking eight words per student was a little bit too easy, so i set up a chart with eight boxes per student to track which words they had the most trouble with. then i totalled the scores and calculated an average. there are no calculators in a grade 1 classroom, so i had to do it manually for 20 students. to make it easier for myself, i plotted the marks in a histogram first (1 zero, 2 threes, 2 fives, 4 sixes, 4 sevens and 7 perfects). then i dotted all the boxes that indicated errors with a red marker so they'd stand out. most kids had trouble getting 'club' correct on account of mucking up their 'b' and 'd'. it was so nerdy; i wish i had taken a photograph of it.

can you tell i was playing with Excel the other day, tallying my university marks? i finished with a cumulative grade point average of pi (rounded to two decimal places) by the way. i was quite pleased since i had been on 2.9ish for the longest time. and then i found out i missed out on a Distinction by 0.06 and i felt like a loser; it was great.

anyway, there was a lot of hugging and hand holding and begging today from kids asking me not to leave; i already told them i would be in tomorrow. and now i will likely be in every monday, wednesday and friday for June as well (because i have no life and i like the attention they give me and because the teachers suckered me into it). now that i'm technically off the clock, i can be a bit more bold in building relationships with the kids and staff and subtly ministering to them. i should bring a camera some time.

Day 21 at St. Florence: "What are you still doing here?"

at long last: lunchtime talk turned to pregnancies.

we went through 8 cm dilations, not-false pregnancies, icky-placental guck, 34-36 wk births (4 pounders that fit in the palm of your hand), hospital policy, sleepless husbands (troopers!) and this story:

"when my mom's water broke for her fourth child, my dad said he was hungry and asked her to make a sandwich. she made it and he ate it. when they got to the hospital, the nurses asked, 'what took so long?'"

until kindergarten teacher asked, "Herman, what are you still doing here?"

it was late into the lunch hour and the only people left in the staff room were mothers, soon to be mothers and one male volunteer doing his elementary school teaching placement.

i shrugged. "gotta be prepared for this some time, right?"

kindergarten teacher: aren't you grossed out?

me: [shrugs again]

kindergarten teacher: that's your reaction to everything! i love Herman; [to the principal] can we keep him?

principal: yes, we should! can you come to our play date on June 25th? we're having games and hot dogs!

grade 5 teacher: and you can help set up...

principal: oh, and you can come to the bowling trip. [to grade 5 teacher] there, now you have one adult volunteer. you'll just need two more.

me: i'll come whenever i'm needed.

grade 5 teacher: oh, just come from June 2nd to the 27th...

by the end of the day, i had been suckered into spending at least half of June volunteering at St. Florence, which is great since i have steadfastedly refused to look for a summer job, even though this is the big year that i really need to.

Day 20 at St. Florence: Powerless

for the first half of the day we operated without power. this was scheduled electrical maintenance; some switches needed to be replaced and for some reason this couldn't be done on the weekend. the replacement procedure required a complete shutdown of the power in the area, and it took a few hours to reboot. this makes for a crazy day for kids because they need routine, or else their wires get all crossed up. most of the older students were off to Track and Field today, making for a further break from routine.

the one advantage of power outages is that everyone naturally becomes quieter with the lights off (on top of cutting out the white noise of air intakes, etc). and it was a gorgeous day. not overbearingly hot, with a gentle breeze and almost no humidity.

the rest of the afternoon after recess was spent enjoying the lovely weather at the playground with three other classes. while the teachers were busy chatting, i tried to supervise about 60 kids. fortunately two of the classes were grade 5 and 3 respectively; they didn't need too much monitoring, and they took care of their younger siblings.

LCG pulled me aside and told me she needed to talk to me in private. this struck me as a little bit weird for a 6 y.o. girl to ask of me, but it turns out she only wanted to ask me some personal questions.

LCG: how old are you?
me: i told you two weeks ago.
LCG: fifty-two?
me: yep.
LCG: are you hairy?
me: [points to head] yep.
LCG: and on your legs?
me: very.
...
LCG: do you have hair on your nipples?
me: no... [LCG], what do you talk about at home? these are some weird questions.
LCG: whaaaat? do you have hair on your bum?
me: yes. it's like a carpet.
some random grade 3 girl listening in: EEEEEWWWWWW
...
LCG: do you have a girlfriend?
me: no. why do you keep asking me that? do you want me to have one?
LCG: if you don't get a girlfriend, you can stay a kid forever!

Day 19 at St. Florence: Moving On

and so begins my last week at St. Florence. the cute little boy did an awesome dance this morning for o canada as he sang along (he was mostly behind). but he dances and sings every morning, so that's not really anything special. this is on top of the singing and dancing he does for Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

i had my first gym class with them today and i was assigned to lead them in some locomotion exercises for grading (report card season is nigh). so i lined them up and had them walk around like horses, prowl like cats, leap like frogs and waddle like pigs/bears/crocodiles. i have to do it again on thursday because it was so good today (like wha?). now i need to come up with a few more animals with distinctive attributes (elephant?).

lunch time conversation was interesting too. kindergarten teacher and i were reading the paper about the dreadful daycares around the GTA. it depressed her so we pulled out the Life and Entertainment section (formerly Arts & Entertainment and Life) to cheer her up with more brainless reads. apparently, couples in China set up appointments for sex. i had to remind myself a few times that kindergarten teacher was not Hannah.

Herman and the Fox

there's no hate. i respect the huge headway Firefox has made for alternative browsers into IE's marketshare. back in 2003, only a small bastion of early Opera users and Netscape holdouts were using browsers other than IE on Windows.

i liked it when i first tried it. there's something every attractive about animals on fire. foxes are naturally associated with fire due to their flame-red coats and wilyness (vulpix and ninetales anyone?). also, Samson tying torches to the tails of foxes to raze a Philistine village after they insulted him. what Firefox really has going for it is the coolness factor, due in most part to the image it conjures in your mind. a literal fox on fire is really not that cool, but we're talking mythical fire here.

Firefox is also attractive because it empowers the user. the extensions API (advanced programming interface) gives users countless options in terms of feature, performance, graphical experience, etc. if you are a Firefox user and you haven't dabbled into extensions yet, you'd be better off with another browser.

The Fox is marketed as being better, faster, safer than IE6 or anything else out there. as far as marketing goes, Firefox gets an A+. unfortunately most of Firefox's claims are not true, but most users don't care too much and hold on to what they've grown to like. that's alright, Firefox is a capable browser with a very helpful user-base that continues to make improvements.

i originally did not intend to switch to anything when i tested out Opera. Firefox was in its heyday, having just released 2.0 with great features like in-line spell check and... that's all i remember. i had just gotten the hang of tweaking the program to do my bidding, streamlining the interface and setting up shortcuts through keywords and tinkering with the cascading style sheets (userChrome).

after spending a bit of time on Opera, overcoming the slight learning curve with the rather intricate interface and list of options, i began to notice Firefox's shortcomings, specifically in the start-up time and rendering speed. i don't know how it works on your computers, but on mine, Firefox takes like 10 to 20 seconds to fire up. that's like a lifetime compared to IE6's instant activation. to be fair though, IE6 is coded into Windows, so it is technically always on, even when it looks closed. Firefox, however, has no excuse in comparison to Opera's 2.47 s mark. clearly, good coding can achieve times similar to IE6's 1.77 s, even in third-party applications. start up times and rendering times can be found here.

i will not go into how the feature set of Opera compares to Firefox. using basic installations, Opera blows Firefox out of the water, but Firefox has nearly limitless potential through extensions. users beware though, as not all extensions are equal in quality or security. they are made by users like you (with lots of time on their hands), so there is the possibility of incompetance and/or malice. also worthy of passing mention is how a good chunk of the really good FF extensions are copied (not always cleanly) of Opera features.

so, in conclusion, i thank Firefox for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of browser tweaking and showing me that it is okay to expect more than the status quo.

Day 18 at St. Florence: Outdoor Mass

today was the long-awaiteddreaded outdoor Mass and it was as advertised: one big chore. it was hot, crowded and boring. too many people were involved doing little bits of nothing. the sermon... i don't even remember what he talked about because i was trying to concentrate on not rolling off my stool. the audio technician was clearly a last-minute call-up who had never seen a mixer board in his life based on the sound balance throughout the singing and the faith-shaking feedback (all 26 instances). too many people had things to say, and what they said was unremarkable, especially to 500 kids sitting in the middle of a shadeless field on the second hottest day ever. just before the massive recessional singing of "trading my sorrows" (a song that i now loathe), the TCDSB head whatever guy of this school region, Oliver Carroll, spoke about family values and stuff in the wake of yesterday's school shooting, which you can catch some of on City Pulse 24 today and possibly tomorrow morning. at a certain angle, i thought he looked like Richard Gere.

i was laughed down. apparently someone else said the exact same thing last year with the same result. someone mentioned that the cameraman from CP24 looked like Matt LeBlanc (Joey from Friends). there was a bit more debate about that one. in any case, we all got to talking about Richard Gere over lunch, and a story came up about the time one of the teachers had to explain Richard Gere and gerbils to my teacher. apparently there is an urban legend going around that Richard Gere has dabbled in the questionable practice of gerbilling. i love lunch room conversations and i am so glad this school does not have those stereotypical Catholic school teachers.

Day 17 at St. Florence: Two Fire Drills in One Day

kid: [hugs] you're the best mr. chan!
me: oh, thanks! don't get too close, i'm a bit sick.
kid: [holding] that's okay, i'm sick too!
me: okay, now i'm a lot sick.

---

lcg: are you famous?
me: yes, i am. would you like my autograph?
lcg: no... do you like girls?
me: yes, i like girls.
lcg: do girls like you?
me: do you like me?
lcg: yes.
me: then yes. girls like me.

---

lcg: mr. chan! i found you in the newspaper! [points to asian boy in the background]

---

peace prayer, written by a grade 1 student:
"my prayer of peace is for M______ to stop fighting and making fun of people and getting into trouble."

---

girl from next door classroom: do you love A_____ (other volunteer)? K______ (her sister, in my class) told me that you do.

---

my teacher: those kids in New Guinea need these rosaries like they need a hole in the head!

---

@ the 10:30 staff meeting
principal: okay, we have to choose between two dates for our staff retreat next year: Sept. 28 or Jan. 25.
custodian: i vote for Jan. 25 so we can go to Rama (the casino).
my teacher: [with raised hands] how holy!

Day 16 at St. Florence: Gimme that old time religion

so it's been about 3 weeks in a Catholic school, and i hadn't seen much Catholicism. sure, every classroom in the building has a crucifix with an elegantly modern-shaped benevolent Jesus and every morning begins with a prayer over the PA, but it was all... less than expected.

today, we got down to the nitty-gritty: making rosaries for starving orphan kids in Africa or New Guinea. the church of this district (diocese, i am guessing is the term) thought it would be a lovely idea to have the kids in all the Catholic schools in the area fork over a dollar and make rosaries for the poor heathens and pagans on the other side of the world. the sentiment around St. Florence is that a) the rosaries are effin' complicated for primary and junior high students alike; b) the dollar could've been put to better use for things like books, socks, beds, housing, FOOD etc.

so there was a bit of wondering why the church is headed by such pompous and chest-beating pricks -- pardon my Medieval English -- who start off their meetings with, "well, Sacred Heart (another school) has finished all their rosaries..." and wondering about the religion in general. sermons at mass are apparently either dreadfully boring or infuriating because the priest comes off so stuck-up and self-righteous. the teachers who are parents brought their kids to Mass regularly, but now they only go at Easter and Christmas. kind of reminds me of how much the church i attend has been blessed greatly with Godly leadership and servants (with only a few jerks sprinkled in for flavour).

i haven't had the time to sit down and formulate thoughts and theories about all this, but it all bears striking resemblances to things we've seen over and over and over again; there is nothing new under the sun. Roman Catholicism, in general, is one big punch-line in my mind, though there are definitely pockets of genuine Christ-likeness. the same can probably be said for Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Atheism as well.

all religious mumbo-jumbo aside, i love this place and the students and staff in it. they've all got their quirks and wrinkles, friendships and... animosities, just like any other group of people stuck together in one place for an extended period of time. this is community.

Day 15 at St. Florence: Siiiiiiiick

i managed to go to school today, though i probably should've just called in sick. i wasn't able to speak until about 11:30 am, so i relegated myself to working in the corner, stapling and labeling folders for next year's grade ones or photocopying stuff.

my teacher forgot her purse at home this morning, so her husband, my program coordinator at UTSC, had to drive it up.

student 1 - "Mrs. D---, was that your husband?"
mrs. d--- - "Yes it was."
student 1 - "I thought that was your grandfather!"
student 2 - "I thought he was your dad!"
mrs. d--- - "i will let him know, it will give him a good laugh."

for your reference: he looks like Colonel Sanders, but with a full beard.


[EDIT: 9:17 pm]
on a shallower note:
my abs have never been sexier than they are now, and they were plenty sexy to begin with according to the Ladies ("Fred, Harmony... the girls in Transcription"). no need for special diets or exercise; firmer abs are a natural by-product of trying to invert your bronchial tubes.

Nerd Corner: searching for answers

if you haven't done this already since you found out about keyword searches in Firefox and/or Opera, you might find it useful to set up such searches for particular translations of the Bible.

simply navigate to your preferred online Bible (Bible Gateway or Crosswalk) and select the desired translation in the drop-down menu. right-click the search field and Create search... or whatever Firefox calls it. repeat as desired.

Firefox dumps keyword searches into the bookmarks area, pretty much willy-nilly, unless you create a folder specifically for your keyword searches. Opera is cleaner; keyword searches are squirreled away in the Preferences... under Tools, where you can edit the name and keyword of any existing search.

Day 14 at St. Florence: Can I Borrow a Feeling?

a lot has happened since the school day ended, so i cannot rightly remember much about the day itself.

it was just one of those normal days, slogging through the schedule, doing menial tasks, eating lunch and listening to them talk about the season finales for Grey's Anatomy and ER. no one brought up the finale of The Office (which was SOO many flavours of emotional that i need to watch it again to parse through it all) so i didn't get to gush and natter like i wanted to. last hour of the day was spent supervising a boatload of children on the playground. we had like 3 classes out there, with classes from the neighbouring school rotating on and off. i didn't even know which kids belonged to which school. extended playground time, unfortunately, causes latent emotions to boil over, and we had lots of crying and yelling because of hurt feelings. i think i might be too sarcastic to take a child's emotional pain seriously. i remember what it was like back then; you feel everything three-fold, be it pain or happiness. i think it's a proportion thing; the smaller body of a child does not dilute and diffuse the physiological responses brought on by emotions quite as much as an adult-sized person would.

i think i just coasted through today. i didn't really have the mental or emotional energy to really put myself out there. i am now sick so i think i'm being told to refuel and slow down.

shinny hockey helped to clear my mind a bit, and allowed me to try out the new senior stick i bought. less back pain now that i have something longer; less rattly hands now that i have something stronger. it is with a bit of sadness that i retire my trusty Jofa. i take this to be a metaphor for myself. there are still certain mental/emotional tools or reactions that i've relied on since i was young, but they are no longer adequate. i need to spend at least as much time and care on upgrading those aspects of myself as i did on choosing this new stick.

it just occurred to me that i've been serving (churchwise) since Fall 2000. i think it is nigh time for a Sabbatical. i've done a lot of growing in those years, but not really in the departments where it counts (spiritual walk, devotions, God-centric worship). i also conveniently have some soul-searching i'd like to get started on.

Day 13 at St. Florence: Satisfaction

the students here are subjected to biannual testing in their aptitude for spelling. 32 common words are dictated, with a demonstrative sentence, and they are to spell it. i think the same list will be used for grade 2 as well. they take the test at the beginning of the year and again around Feb/March to track improvement. this year, the second round of the spelling test fell on today (well after Feb/March, we realize, but we do not care). the words were fairly simple, but phonetically tricky (good, soon, pretty, would, train etc.), so the test measured experience with words more than anything.

at the beginning of the year, a majority of the scores were 0 - 9, with three outliers hitting 16, 21 and 22 out of 32 respectively. the little cute boy (who licks himself) got 0 in October, and scored a 21 this time around. he talked throughout the test and supplied sentences at times ("would... would you like to kiss me?"). improvements like that were across the board. the kid who scored 16 the first time scored 31 today, only mispelling the final word pretty as 'pritty'. nerd girl (of pee-pee foot fame, was away again, so she did not play -- i assume she would know how to spell pretty). the girl who scored 22 actually transferred to another school the day before i first arrived. juding by the scores i've seen and the tones of veneration i hear when teachers and students speak of her, she must've really been something special.

putting those two scores side-by-side and seeing the huge leaps of improvement really make all the yelling and haranguing worthwhile.

Day 12 at St. Florence: Put on the Spot

this day was all about flying by the seat of my pants -- slow flying mind you, as i was verging on zombie again by 1:30.

the day started out, interestingly enough, where it left off the day before. nerd girl was absent (for the first time EVAR, so i'm told). we surmised it must have been an issue with getting peed on, a therapy session perhaps. her little brother in kindergarten was absent as well, but i found out about that a little later.

i was sent down to the office to ascertain the reason for nerd girl's absence. in the process of returning i was stopped by the kindergarten teacher, who reminds me a lot of someone who now lives in China, to take attendance for her class because a kid got hurt in the morning. the kids were neatly arrayed in a circle with their name cards on the ground or in their hands, sitting quietly, completely unsupervised until i got there. my, they were well-trained. taking their attendance was pretty fun; i only mangled three names. here is where i found out nerd girl's brother was also absent. they were both sick, according to later reports.
this wasn't the first time i'd been stopped to watch her class; yesterday, a kid got whapped in the head with a clock (not a real one) -- literally "clocked in the head" (kindergarten teacher and friend in the motherland pun alike), so i had to watch her kids as she fetched ice.

i got back to the grade 1s to find them in the middle of a probability lesson, concerning dice: which would occur more often when rolling two dice, doubles or non-doubles? well over their heads, i'm sure. my teacher introduced them to the dice and to the concept of doubles, then promptly handed off to me to explain which one showed up the most often. fortunately, my math did not completely fail me, though my chalkboard management skills did, as my list of possibilities (1|1,2,3,4,5,6...) verged on gross. i'm pretty sure no one got it, but we still had a high old time counting to 36. i have to learn to speak to the kids, not to the chalkboard. they start crawling all over each other once you turn your back. one tiny little boy, who is very, very cute in looks and mannerism and even voice, does the weirdest thing when he thinks no one is watching. when he raises his arm to answer a question, sometimes he'll lick his arm (like a cat). later i saw him licking his knee. these weren't little nips and dabs, they were long, langourous licks (like a cat). it cracked me and the other volunteer up.

yes, the other volunteer was in today. when little kids see a guy and a girl in the same setting more than once, they automatically assume romance is, or should be, in the air. i was prepared for this, due to years of Day Care. so Little Cute Girl asked me if i liked her, and if i would ask her out, etc. she seems way more concerned about my personal life than i am.

me - "do YOU like her?"
LCG - "yeah, but not like that!"
me - "i like her the same way."
LCG - "ooh."

and when one asks, everyone within earshot will ask too. ignore them and they won't pursue it further, because their attention spans are not that long.

Day 11 at St. Florence: Simple Pleasures

this post comes from my mom's computer, via Opera Portable. if you have a usb drive, i highly recommend finding a portable version of a web browser just in case your computer blows a tire (like mine seems to have) and requires a reformat. this one has all the features of a full Opera install, but doesn't leave any trace on the computer you use, has options for multiple profiles and is packed with all the speed inherent to the Opera browsing experience. i don't like browsing on the configurations of other people's browsers (it is usually the standard set up or overtweaked); it's like using their toilets.

anyways, about today. today was much better than yesterday, due to slighty more sleep and slightly less allergies and a few adventures to speak of.

i stuck around in teh staff room at lunchtime today because i was feeling better; as a result i am now privy to some really neurotic moments in the lives of the teachers i work with. it's like watching friends, and every character is a meld of Rachel and Monica. someone woke up last week to a mouse falling from her ceiling onto her shoulder, so she is mildly traumatized, traumatizing other mouse-haters by extension. mouse stories evolved to rat, raccoon, rabbit, cat, fox, coyote stories. i like animals.

i worked witht he special ed kids this afternoon so i missed out on some excellent excitement while the grade 1s went out to play while my teacher did more shotput tryouts. Fancy Dancer tried out and swept away the competition with a trial distance of over 12 m with a 4 kg shot. my teacher thinks he's on steroids; i think he's a robot. the other fun time i missed was pyro-boy deciding on a whim that he needed to pee, so he let it fly off the top of the slide and it hit the nerdiest, most legalistic girl in the class on the foot. she tattled. the girl who is absolutely in love with pyro-boy told off nerd girl for getting her beau into trouble, so nerd girl got really upset and threw a fit. my teacher whapped me with her clipboard later for laughing at her and abandoning her at such a crucial juncture.

while all this was going down, i made a paper airplane and helped some kids with their homework on interplanetary objects while finishing the day's crossword.

throughout the day i tried to make note of the simple things that i appreciate and enjoy (much like Amelie). i've taken a shine to watering the little plants we jiffy potted on Friday; watching the soil soak up water is rather sublime. one has already sprouted and i stared at it for a good 2 minutes just amazed at life. i potted some extra jiffy pots with soil but they have no seeds and receive no water. they are my control group. they are also there just in case God wants to pull off a flashier miracle.

Day 10 at St. Florence: Taking a Dip in Post Quality

this morning was the pits. i woke up rather sore. allergies were acting up in class. the window was open and the weather was cold. i could have fallen asleep on my feet due to last night's late dinner and Boggle-fest. walking down the hall i actually thought to myself, "someone is having a case of the mondays," before i mentally slapped myself for quoting someone annoying from Office Space.

i zombied through the first half of the day before taking a cat nap in the corner of the room after eating lunch to get me past 3:30. the last half hour of the day was spent doing shotput tryouts, which was decent fun. hefting the 4kg shot around the school woke me up a bit.

Day 9 at St. Florence: Road Trip

hitch up the wagon, ma! we goin' ta Wal-Mart!

first thing we did Friday morning after the Daily Physical Activity (DPA) of dancing to Peanut Butter Jelly Time, was saddle up the caravan and walk on over to Wal-Mart. i got to tow the Play-Skool wagon to carry the plants we were going to pick up.

elementary school classes rarely go out on group walks like this, and it shows. the discipline of the students is easily surpassed by the kids at day care because day care kids walk together all the time. the walk to Wal-Mart was short, but it was not that fun. inside Wal-Mart was actually better than i thought it would be. kids love to touch things, but nothing got knocked over or grievously soiled.

i spent the rest of the day helping the kids plant flower seeds and beans into jiffy pots. some extra seeds were planted outside into the ugly ground. i have no gardening skills so it was a fun and messy time.

apart from that, marvelously quiet and boring day.

Day 8 at St. Florence: The Friend Zone

awww man -- back in the Friend Zone again.

there is another student volunteering with the teacher i'm working with; she's really friendly, nice, and actually attended the school from kindergarten and graduated in '99.

the teacher made the boo-boo of introducing her to the kids by her first name, thus making her equal with the kids: a friend, if you will. she corrected that mistake by introducing me by my formal address, Mr. Chan, elevating me as an authority figure in the eyes of the children. This, of course, also leads to various pronunciations by the non-Chinese (everyone else): Mr. Chang, Mr. Chen, etc. the other student volunteer calls me Dr. Chan because she thought someone called me that on the first day.

anyways, if you're nice enough to the kids and not a very good disciplinarian, the kids will bring you back down to the Friend Zone and basically never listen to you unless you're saying something they want to hear. so now i'm having a lot of trouble getting them to listen to me when i tell them to sit at the their desks or walk a bit faster after playground time. it's like day care all over again, especially with the girls. i'm like a toy now.

littlest and cutest girl (LCG) in the class - "Mr. Chan? Do you have a girlfriend?"
me - "Nope."
LCG - "Why not?"
me - [shrug]
LCG - "Are you a teenager or an adult?"
me - "Adult."
LCG - "So you should have a girlfriend! ... It's easy. Just find a girl that you like, and then ask her out on a date! Oh, but what if the girl rejects you?"
me - [shrug] "Find someone else?"
LCG [to the other girls] - "I asked Mr. Chan, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' and he said, 'No.'" [giggles]

Day 7 at St. Florence: Relationships

when doing these writeups i like to take a look back at what went on during the day in all disparate episodes and try to weave the most important funny ones with a common thread. y'all had better appreciate this extraneous effort at post quality.

as you can tell by the title, today was a slow day.

staff room chatter was about bras and fake boobs. someone bought this months copy of [insert celebrity gossip magazine name] and the younger teachers pored over it. a moment of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was brought up (when Will gets locked in with a girl he'd been trying to impress during a party and he finds out all her attractive features were essentially fake -- nails, lashes, hair, etc -- "is ANYTHING real?!"). so for about 6 minutes i was the only guy in the staff room with a bunch of women as they talked about that sort of thing. good thing i do that on a regular basis or else i might've been embarassed.

anyways, our resident grade 1 couple hit a bit of a rough patch today. the teacher does not seem to care much for this sort of thing, but i live vicariously through them, so i felt the pain. they're both really cute; she gave him her phone number (which he nearly lost), invited him to her birthday party last weekend and gave him a paper mache star she made at day care; the boy is a big time trouble maker, the same kid at the water fountain and with the cool pyromaniacal quote on day 1. they got into some sort of kerfuffle at lunch and he gave her the finger, which hurt her feelings terribly. my grade 1 relationship was hardly this dramatic.

Day 6 at St. Florence: "You, shake your junk."

teachers are people, just like students. everyone can have good days and bad days. the fun part is getting bunches of people together on their good, medium, bad, neurotic days and having them try to cooperate and interact together on a daily basis.

my teacher shared about one of her past experiences at a school she'd like to forget. the staff there was cliquey -- "you can't sit there! that's mr. so-and-so's seat." St. Florence, small and quaint, is very much not like that. most of the students attending the school have been there since the beginning, and all their brothers and sisters went or still attend. though the neighbourhood is not the safest and the family backgrounds are not the most ideal situations, everyone at the school genuinely cares. little grade 1 kids will share their stuff like family. most kids don't have erasers; anytime someone asks to borrow one, two or three hands shoot up to volunteer and the erasers borrowed are always returned.

the teachers are as friendly with each other as the students are with their friends. for half the day we sat through a dry run of the thursday concert (more like classroom presentations). some classes did songs, some did dances, some did narrated scenes. the grade 6/7 class was easily the most impressive. they coordinated an elaborate 'stomp' routine that was simple, organized and quite delightful. grade 4s did dance routines, but dancing is hard for people on the cusp of puberty and feeling awkward about their limbs.

one of the highlights, especially for the teachers, was the segments of ballroom dancing done by the grade 8s. i don't know about you, but dancing in a public setting at the wallflower age for me would have been mortifying (tack on a cheesy mountie costume and i've got some lovely memories coming back to me now). the awkwardness showed in the people set in the background, with tentative touches of the hand; one brave hand actually ventured a bit south of the waist, but i'm not sure anyone else noticed. these guys did 4 different dances in different styles, to varying degrees of success of course. front and centre was the tallest man-child the school had to offer. relatively speaking, he is mature in manner and form. they got him to dance with 3 different girls (the pretties who could dance better than the awkwards). he moved with deliberation, poise, grace and at times a daintiness that belied his size. it sounds like i'm gushing, but i am merely quoting the teachers from their lunchtime schoolgirl gabfest about how graceful and elegant he was. one of the teachers said that he looked older than me; i took that as a compliment.

Day 5 at St. Florence: Getting into the Flow of Things

today i got to work with the special ed. teacher instead of the usual grade 1s. she is in charge of the spring concert this Thursday so much of today was spent decorating the gym with all the art projects each class made to display for their parents, putting up posters and signs and generally using up rolls of tape. there were some very creative pieces. the grade 4 class made crayon/pastel tshirts (cut out from paper) with Earth Day slogans and pictures on them. i put them up on the wall with some fishing line and clothes pins, and from a distance, it looks really cool. i can't imagine how some of this stuff gets done without student teachers and assistants year round. elementary teachers have so much to do in hardly any time. high school teachers get one period free for prep, on top of lunch -- the teachers here talk about such prep periods with a mixture of awe and envy. the only time these teachers seem to have is before class, recesses, lunch and when the students are in music or french.

anyways, today was also my first lesson. i was drafted into teaching a special ed. class science. we did flight, so for the last ten minutes of the day, we made paper airplanes and helicopters; tomfoolery was had by all.

working with a different teacher is quite the experience. the grade 1 teacher (wife of my program coordinator) has been teaching 30 years, so most of her stuff is routine and organized. this teacher, though statuesque, was confused by the new student teacher today as being a student. she is the type to say, "do whatever you want, you'll be fine," which is sort of the way i am. she's very nice and encouraging and puts the radio on during class. she tried to find Flow 93.5 this morning but got Barry White instead; i think Barry White (listen) for breakfast is a great way to start the day.

i got a pretty good dose of routine and organization last week and last year, so putting up decorations and throwing stuff around the room was a welcome reprieve.

about 0.0015 teslas/Chicago

since when did "chick magnet" become a moniker for me?
i'm sort of flattered, but i'm mostly thinking, "what am i doing to provoke this?"

sure beats being called a "ball magnet" though.

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[EDIT]10:35

Mel lent me Little Miss Sunshine and i watched it pretty much as soon as i got home. it's a cute loser movie, with lots of cringe-worthy awkward moments and a heart of gold. most of the movie was set to DeVotchka's How It Ends (listen). the beginning of the road trip across America was set to Sufjan Stevens' Chicago (listen), which is an inspired choice because of the album's glowing tribute to Americana.

anyhoo, Sufjan Stevens' Chicago performed in a capella!!!!


BONUS: Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy Jr.

poignant and absolutely chilling.

Day 4 at St. Florence: Whispers

i went to fetch some students today who were perennially in the bathroom. they love washing their hands, i guess. anyway, as i neared the washroom, some older kids were hassling one of the students in my class at the water fountain; they were at least twice his size, pushing around a kid half my size. i gave them a stern, "hey, what's going on?" and they gave me an equally stern, "who the hell are you?" with their eyes and under their breaths. not one to pick fights with students i had never met yet, let alone any authority over, i shuffled off the maligned boy and went to the bathroom to find the other, calmly and casually. i went in, stopping just inside the door and called his name, but received no response. i waited a few more seconds before a gangly girl came out of a stall with a deer in the headlights look. what's a girl doing in the boys' bathroom? [beat] what am i doing in the girls' bathroom? calmly and casually, i walked back out and past the pushy big boys amidst guffaws, snickers, and whispers to the (real) boys' bathroom to await the student i had come to fetch. so if you hear any news of strange men in a Catholic school's girls' bathroom, that was me.

earlier in the day, before my wonderful adventure into awkward accident, i was setting out some wooden shapes on the desks of the students before class began. the music teacher (who tours other schools) came in to chat up the teacher i worked with. in whispers they discussed their opinion of me thus far as a teaching assistant. i went about my business and pretended not to hear anything (other than the music in my head) but i caught "he's great with the kids."

i hear that a little bit more often than the incredulous "teaching?!" when asked what i plan on doing after school, as if they expected me to be doing something more sexy with my life. for that i am relieved, affirmed and encouraged. going into the program i had some trepidation about my ability to teach. i am not a natural teacher or public speaker; my skills and interests lean more towards knowledge seeker than lesson preacher. but moments like the one above (not the one above the above) remind me of why i wanted to teach in the first place. teaching is not my career choice; being the best husband and father i can be is the career i've chosen. teaching just so happens to facilitate my career choice. though the earnings are modest, they are pretty much guaranteed coming out of school. the hours are regular (almost to a fault) and every summer i will have lots of time to spend with my (future) kids. i will be going into family building preloaded with mountains of experience raising children. in the voices and laughter of the kids i work with now, i hear whispers of the little ones i will one day raise.

Day 3 at St. Florence: The Visit

not by the Pope, which would've been a funny experience for me (watch out for Force-lightning), but by the district Superintendent. the reason for this visit was last year's pitiful EQAO scores. apparently there was a 3rd grade teacher in over her head and the scores reflected this. so the Superintendent dropped by and chatted up the principal and the 3rd/6th grade teachers. it was pretty cool seeing the teachers band together in a show of solidarity -- not that our visitor was a bad guy -- in the face of inspection. the principal shadowed him while other teachers would peek out of their rooms once in awhile. some made excuses to be in the hallways at regular intervals and raised signals when the Superintendent was spotted. the school halls were like gopher tunnels.

apart from that, my day was the usual dose of miscellany. i started off the day plainly enough by marking arithmetic (gotta get that mental math back up to speed). then i donned a SARS mask and cleaning gloves to spray acrylic sealer (matte finish) on some molded plaster flowers (soon to be Mother's Day fridge magnets). there was a lot of construction paper cutting as well.

lunch time = listening to conversation time.
today's topics: American Idol, Grey's Anatomy and the story of that time the teacher i'm working with took the grade 1s, 2s and 3s up north for a 2-night camping trip. she shared a tent with someone notoriously high maintenance, and after a day of activity, they unzipped the tent to find swarms of squirrels and chipmunks pouring out of the tent. apparently, HM woman had packed a bag full of chocolate.

Day 2 at St. Florence: Confidences

it's pretty amazing how quickly people open up to near-strangers when you just put in a little bit of time.

walking through the (tiny) halls i bumped into the French teacher and we almost didn't stop to chat. it looked like we were both about 50/50 in terms of wanting to stop to chat or not and looked to the other for body language hints to see which way the other was leaning. it was awkward for all of three seconds before we both decided to turn back to be introduced properly. turns out he used to teach High School Math back in his home country, Haiti, but is now stuck doing French for elementary. he is fairly miserable because most elementary students don't enjoy learning another language on top of struggling through English; he probably feels underpaid and under-appreciated. but it seems most of the kids really like him. he showed up at the door once and three kids leapt out of their seats -- one from the back of the room -- to hug him. it was sweet; they got in (minor) trouble.

i spent a good chunk of the morning coaxing one boy to copy out one sentence. in that time i found out he likes Spider-Man and French, occasionally tries to write with his left hand and returns everything he borrows immediately after he finishes using it. he has a lot of trouble with reading, writing and academics in general. for a grade 1 student, this entails mostly reading, writing and comprehension thereof. motivation is a problem too; he either drifts off into space or is easily distracted by what others say, latching onto that train of thought, forgetting his original focus (copying out that sentence).

the teachers know him very well. most of them lunch in the staff room. much of the conversation centres on the 'problem-child of the day' and carries on from there. i'm not one to gripe about kids -- i'll tell funny stories for sure, but purely for laughs -- but i see how this is a necessary thing for teachers. it allows them to unwind a bit when the infuriation sets in, and discuss with other teachers about possible solutions or tactics that may have worked in the past. parents, in general, figure prominently in these discussions. the teachers have personal relationships with these parents; they are considered extensions of the kids they teach and they make it a point to get to know the parents to get to know the kids better. unfortunately, many of the cases in this school are instances of "children raising children" in incomplete families. i listen in on scraps of conversation (as usual) to find out more about the kids i interact with to try and communicate with them more personally.

when i found out the boy liked French, i suggested that he tell his teacher once in awhile. i hope he remembers to. i'll have to bug him about it.

Day 1 at St. Florence

it's been a long time since i've posted about the cool stuff kids say. now that i've started my placement at St. Florence Catholic elementary, i can do so once more. i'm working primarily with grade 1s, so it is going to be great for quotes.

when asked to suggest ways we can be better "stewards of God's creation" (make Earth greener and cleaner):
"don't light schools on fire."
"no throwing beer bottles, or else the glass might get into your shoe."
"no setting fire to houses."
"no spraypainting walls."
- all from the same kid.
i am really glad he was taught such important family values.

as i was leaving: "Mr. Chan, is your dad's name Jackie?"

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also worthy of note: every morning, following the national anthem and announcements is an exercise time. a pair of older students (i assume gr.5-6) come into the classroom and lead the kids in a fairly involved dance routine to the music of "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" by the Buckwheat Boyz. the kids really love it. i kid you not -- i couldn't make this up even if i tried.