Recording

Who has two thumbs

and loves being an English teacher?

I had to record my class on Friday to show my teaching. I knew ahead of time that if I didn't tell the kids the camera was there, they would find it and flip out, but I also knew that telling them would also cause issues. I ended up telling them, just in case any of them had an issue with it--they didn't, thank goodness. However, they could not calm down. I had one student trying to get me off-track every now and then, and another trying to ask stupid questions. For the first time, a student argued with something I said about the author. Another first time occurrence I had was a "brain fart," or in other words, my mind when blank for about two seconds--right in the middle of a sentence!! Luckily, I'm pretty good at covering up any mistakes, so I simply repeated the first half of the sentence and remembered what I was saying. It is a very scary feeling to just....forget something like that. It was only scary, however, because of the stupid camera peering at me from the bookshelf. Normally, I would be okay with forgetting what I was saying--I'm only human, right? Anyway, overall, it went alright-- I got a successful recording with a few errors. It was just irritating because some of the kids who are usually just fine were getting silly and squirmy because they either wanted or didn't want to be on camera.

1. A girl turned and put her arm up to throw a balled up piece of paper away--saw the camera (very obvious), shrinked back and handed the paper to her neighbor to throw away. Priceless.

2. A boy turned and mouthed "A** H*** to the girl behind him. Also priceless!

Even if I can't use the video for my portfolio, or if I leave it out, I'm so glad I captured 45 minutes of the first class I've officially been teaching. They're great kids. I'm really going to wish I was back in the school the day this job ends. Maybe maybe maybe....