Levedy

The exhaustion of the unemployed

Since leaving the director's position, I haven't had any more time off than I would have had if I had stayed. It's tiring. This weekend is the SAT. That will clear my schedule for about a week. Then the craziness will start up again.

I really love teaching, and I enjoy helping Lindsey out in the office, but I'm tired. To quote John Coffey, "Dog tired, boss."

A student asked me last night about my new blog. I was a bit taken aback. I sometimes forget that I give out my web address to students, and that a lot of them read this. I haven't written anything that I don't want students to know about (my prison history, my obsession with chicken wire, the bodies in my basement, etc.) but it is a reminder not to talk about things that I wouldn't want the YOA (Youth of America) to hear.

Wow. I sound so OLD.

Never mind, kids. Eat sugar until your heart explodes. Engage in wildly dangerous, immoral, and certainly emotionally scarring physical acts with your peers. Cheat on exams. Make it a point to tease the less popular in a desperate bid to improve your social status.

Whoops. I sound too YOUNG.

In class on Sunday, I invented a game to help students review SAT vocabulary. It's a lot like Cranium, and it worked like a charm. I called it, rather unimaginatively, Sculptors, Painters, Deceivers, and Mimes. I assigned each of four teams to one of the roles. Each group was assigned a different SAT word. The sculptors were given Play-doh, the Painters could draw on the Whiteboard, the Mimes, well, mimed, and the Deceivers were to come up with false definitions of the word in order to fool the other teams. Each team tried to guess the other's word, and then we rotated so each team got to do each activity.

It was a lot of fun. The kids were very creative.

The students came up with some really great results. One of my favorites was the Painting for the word feral, which means wild, savage, or untamed. The kids drew Roy and a white tiger. Blood was spurting out of Roy's neck Monty Python style, and the tiger's mouth was fangy and dripping blood. That was sad (Roy is a local staple), but funny at the same time. The funniest part (I think) of the drawing was that Roy was smiling.

They are a good group of kids. If only they'd do their homework...

Posted by Jen at March 23, 2004 7:53 AM