One Down (YA with a Lens on Middle-School Texts) and Another To Go (Maxwell Greene, Ubuntu) Before an Upstate New York Wedding

It's always a marathon. Too many days are 14-hour days, and I guess it's just a way of life, like the Dean of the Newhouse told me during a basketball game once at a Syracuse basketball game. It is a way of life. Learning that a community-engaged opportunity folded, I had to think fast and began chiseling a way to make class for a 2.5 turbo this Wednesday. I got this.

First, however, I had to do the middle school class - Literature for Young Adults - where I ran the class like a library and everyone read different texts. The selections were classics like Little Women, Hatchet, and Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, to Harbor Me, Star Child, The Misfits, and Star Child. I suppose it takes a little bravery to trust the students to be independent experts on their chosen texts, but I like the democracy created by choice and sharing. The evening is always more peppy and poignant.

I also gave the students the job of seeing as middle schoolers, hence the Halloween glasses, and fed them Pumpkin Oreos in exchange for their brilliance. Our room has no windows, yet we let a lot of light in. 

This morning, I'm sprinting to the finish line to prepare for Philosophy of Education, but I'm hoping to bring context to the very nature that we are NOT visiting a school today. Every single moment is more complicated when digging deeper into the layers. We still can target course objectives, but will move the academic reading a little earlier in the course.

After class last night, it happened again. Students hovered around to discuss how unlike their other classes, the one I am teaching them is...I have to stop them and ask them to name what is different (always fearful they aren't learning anything). They assured me it is the opposite and they are learning a lot, but they are coming to their knowledge in different ways than their other classes. I will go to my grave finding this interesting. I am just teaching on the shoulders of many greats whose shoulders I'm sitting on. If you pay attention, you pick up what works and doesn't work to push knowledge along.

Time to post this and put the ram horns down. We got this!