Professor Noob's Daily Disquisitions

I shouldn't be writing this. Right now, this very second, there are any number of more productive activities in which I could be engaged, including:

• laundry
• grocery shopping
• picking up my toast leavings
• cleaning spittle off the bathroom mirror (I had an accident with my toothbrush)
• unplugging the shoddy toilet
• another load of laundry
• cleaning my long-suffering beta's bowls
• working on lesson plans
• grading papers
• working on my book (!!!)

This is the benefit of being naturally lazy and unorganized: I might feel bad about not accomplishing all the items on that list, but I'm well-accustomed to the sensation of failure and am therefore not unduly bothered. I also have a partner who encourages me to be slothful, helpfully reminding me that in the past week I have a) moved from Medium-Sized College Town to Small Western Town, b) fought with my parents, c) made up with my parents, d) begun my student-teaching and e) substitute-taught for the first time. Which erases my guilt about everything except for not working on the novel that's due at the end of the semester and for which I have written, by my estimate, about 1/1000th of the current story-line. Oh, well.

Yes, you read that pathetic list correctly: I have just finished my first week of student-teaching. On the Indian Reservation. With no concrete lesson plans. And a mentor teacher who was sick on Friday (but who is also, fortunately, the Perfect Mentor).

When I got together on Friday with the two other student-teachers who were sent to this (dry, small, oddly hippie-ish) region of the West and compared notes, I was quite impressed with the skill with which they had navigated the downright swamp-like social waters of middle school. The one teaching seventh grade is already wowing the skater-boys with her laid-back attitude and mad knowledge of Extreme Sports. The one teaching eighth grade seems to be not only dealing with the Mentor From Hell but also not caring. I envy her composure and grace under pressure (though I suspect that the two whiskeys she drank were helping a bit). Me? I gave my first detention, my first write-up, grabbed a kid's wrist, treated the seniors like kindergartners and made sexual jokes with a student. Go me.

In all fairness, however, I am not trying to navigate the swampy social waters of middle school but the shark-infested, pitch-black ocean of a high school where all the students are from a different culture (didn't you catch that the school's on the Reservation?). Professor Seventh-Grade will be a big help there - she's not only from the area but knows a lot of the Native Americans and will hopefully be able to gently guide me into the grown-up's social circle. Meanwhile, however, I'm stuck with the students.

The good news is that I'm the least intimidating person on Earth, and so despite differences in culture and - let's be honest - skin color, they've already opened up to me considerably. The other good news is that the majority of them are good kids and at least decent students. The bad news is: I'm the least intimidating person on Earth. Which leads to comments such as:

Me: I think such-and-such a character is sort of annoying, don't you?
Ms. Mouthy: [marginally under her breath] You're annoying.

Me: Take those snacks out of your pocket and give them to me.
Trouble Student: I'd like to see you reach for them.

Me: Stop doing your math homework in my class!
Mr. I Don't Care: Write me up. I don't care.
[This was also the unfortunate wrist-grabbing incident. Not a good time.]

That last student has already been the victim of a lunch detention and has now been duly written-up, with the principal assuring me that the only way to affect him is with after-school detention and that he will Make Him Suffer (all right, he didn't actually say that, but it would have been nice). I'm planning to make his defeat complete by asking his math teacher, with whom I'm slightly acquainted, to not give him credit/give him reduced credit for the assignment. My wrath will be devastating and final, and maybe it will make him think twice about crossing me again. Probably not. The pity is that he's not a mean kid - he can be rather nice when you catch him out of the classroom (like when he's doing lunch detention.) He's just stubborn, attention-seeking, and doesn't give a shit. Intellectually, I understand all that. But disobey a direct order in my class? Oh, hell no. I don't care who you are, I will go all Professor Snape on your trouble-making ass. Especially when I know the other students are watching...