Mikey D

Well I had my first week of training as a mathematics teacher (I suppose the title of this post implied that). Here are the highlights of my week:

~The training itself was boring (to say the least), but useful. It's obviously no fun to sit in a classroom in the middle of summer going through a math book for seven hours a day for five straight days, but it was helpful to see the material I was going to teach. I feel much more comfortable now after seeing how certain lessons should be taught and knowing what resources I have available.

~I actually had a full work week. I will get paid, something I haven't really had happen to me in about a year now. Sad isn't it?

~I was much better socially than I could ever have imagined. After a week in the class, everyone knew me and were joking around with me. This is a big step for me, as I'm usually the shy kid in class. I raised my hand a ton to answer questions, and gave smart-ass responses to people that were idiots (so I was being myself basically). I was really proud of myself for being more outgoing than I've ever been.

~There were three people from Michigan in my training group (out of 16), including myself. Both were from Central. Even our trainer was from Michigan, as she went to U of M. I think we are going to have to rename Maryland to "Michigan 2" or "Michigan Refugees".

~Both Central Michigan girls teased me about State being a "farming school" where all we do is "farm". I know we used to be the MAC, but is that still the stereotype about State these days? They proceeded to brag about how Central is the best school to go to if you want to be a teacher, and that I should have gone there instead of milking cows. I proceeded to pull out the U.S. News' rankings of colleges of education, and I pointed out how I failed to see Central's name on the list. Oh, but next to number 1, there was the good old cow milking college, MSU. It was my own personal, "scoreboard!" moment.

~My trainer tried to make fun of my going to State, saying that all State does is churn out a bunch of smart asses. I found it hard to argue with her, as I am now ten times the smart ass I was when I entered State as a freshman. Perhaps she is right.

~I actually got asked out by the girl who sat next to me, despite my subtle hints of having a girlfriend ("My girlfriend in I live in Columbia"). It was still flattering though, and I will take it as a compliment.

~Being asked about by the aforementioned girl, however, has made me realize one of my biggest turnoffs: stalking. I don't like to be stalked. Everyday after class she would wait for me and walk me to my car. Yeah, she walked me to my car. Then, since we traveled on the same highway home, she would literally follow me for twenty miles, bumper-to-bumper, until her exit came. Just weird, and I decided I didn't like it.

~As a teacher there is the common saying, "There's always one in class". There's always one class clown. There's always one troublemaker. Well in my training class, there was the girl who would not shut the fuck up. Each day she would ask the most asinine questions imaginable, over and over. When the trainer would ask a question, she would be the first to raise her hand. When called upon she'd ramble for two minutes, and then admit that she didn't know the answer. She almost made me commit murder, and I feel as if that would have been a bad thing.

~On the plus side, because she was such a dumb fuck, the rest of the class just made fun of her behind her back. We even kept tallys of how many times she asked questions in one day. Her high total was 37, which is kind of remarkable if you think about it. By the end of the week even our trainer was laughing at her when she asked a question.

~There were only two boys in the class, and they both sat on the opposite side of the room of me. I made it a point to try and bond with them, but it didn't happen until the last day. I went and sat with one of them at lunch instead of going out with my school. And low and behold there the guy was reading a fantasy football magazine. We talked for an hour straight about fantasy and football in general. He was a Giants fan, and the other guy turned out to be Browns fan. He felt my pain on the losing year after year thing. I am kicking myself now because it took until Friday afternoon to get to know these guys, when I could have been talking football and sports with them all week. Shame on me.

So that was my week in a nutshell. Nothing too exciting, I just wanted to share.

~Mikey D