Programming Notes

A few things before the stories of my time in the chemistry mines can get put on the web for everyone to see.

I went ahead and took the rosters of the three classes I'll be working with the most, put all their names into a spreadsheet and then matched all their names with fake names taken from a random name generator. This means that I can use consistent names that refer to specific people, which will save a lot of time in telling any stories about what goes on in the classroom, without worrying about loss of anonymity for the people I want to talk about. Since these were taken at random, this has the unfortunate effect of making the classes seem like they have random octogenarians sprinkled in the high school, so when I start talking about Norman, Constance or Marylou, remember that those are nowhere close to their real names. Genders have been kept constant, though, since randomizing those would muddy the waters too much when talking about high school students. Also, the appearance of a Rodrigo or a Latoya should not be taken as indicators of class make up, if you know what I mean (when thinking about the school, think pale).

There's another thing that makes this student teaching experience a little unusual, in that Mr. CT (my Cooperating Teacher, if I haven't made that clear before) has, historically, worked in close collaboration with the other teacher of Chem 1 at Midwest High, whom I shall call Ms. Bio. Not only that, but Ms. Bio has her own student teacher this semester, whom I shall call Ms. ST. So, rather than the class being me and Mr. CT or me alone, it's looking like it's going to be mostly a four-person collaboration, at least for the immediate future. Which is a good opportunity for me to learn more of the trade, but it means a great deal more time at the school than I really anticipated getting into this.

On to stories!