Recently I completed my practicum which is the few weeks spent in a classroom teaching/observing in order to prepare for student teaching next semester. I taught the French Revolution, Napoleon, Romantic Movement, and the Industrial Revolution during my three weeks at Timpanogos High. As a history teacher in training these are subjects I am qualified to teach although had you been a witness to these endeavors, you could have formed very different conclusions. So, as I was trudging through this ridiculously large unit did I find myself being greeted with smiling faces, eager to learn every day? Did I enjoy pouring knowledge into thirsty little minds? Quite the contrary. As it turns out, high school history classes are devoid of smiling faces, apathetic towards knowledge, and the minds of the pubescent teenagers are solely focused on food, friends, and sleep. There is no room for the Radical Revolution in there. If you have ever encountered one of these creatures imagine looking into the blank faces of thirty of them all day while they pass cruel judgements on you because you and your teaching partner, by some cruel twist of fate, showed up in nearly matching outfits...almost everyday. Is this what my practicum was like, yes. Did I love it? Not so much. Do I have an outstanding love for teaching? Well not right now. Maybe I should reconsider my life course and just stay as a recess guard at the elementary school. Where all the boys have crushes on me, the girls tell me all their secrets, and because I can dunk it on those tiny basketball hoops, I almost always win lightning. Ahh, that is the life.
In the long run, I did come to find that I highly enjoy the sarcastic snottiness of high-schoolers...probably because they sound just like me. Yes, although I have long since graduated from good old Weber, grand old Weber, it just so happens that my mentality is still that of a teenager. So why do I want to be a teacher? Because it gives me a perfect excuse to hang out all day with people just like me.
