My Fieldwork

I spent my last week of Christmas vacation completing my Sophomore fieldwork hours.
I had the great privilege of observing a long-time friend, and a great teacher.
One of the requirements for completing fieldwork is that you write out a list of 20 things that you observed that are not found on your observation sheets. I wrote them a list, a very good list, but it was hardly what I wanted to say. Here is what I wanted to write.

My 20 Observations after Sophomore Fieldwork

1. A public high school is an interesting thing.

2. A public high school is nowhere near the den of iniquity that you might have been led to believe. Note: I do realize that I was observing in a small-town high school, but I was still impressed with how behaved the students were.

3. I had never heard of a "Block Day" format, but trust me, the entire world should switch.

4. High-schoolers look younger and younger every day.

5. Lunch is everyone's favorite period of every day.

6. Looking over papers from the 9th grade was the most groundbreaking experience of my life.

7. 11 prepositions and no subject and verb DOES NOT a sentence make.

8. I squared all the past tense verbs and circled all the present tense verbs in one paper. I did that as a way to show the student how much they switched between the two. When I talked to the student about it, I simply said "You switch a lot between your tenses, you need to choose one past or present and stick with it" He looked at me and said, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about" and he didn't.

9. Two teachers teaching the exact same class find very different ways of teaching it.

10. Apparently, I need to take a TRIBES class.

11. Who is your favorite fairy tale character and why? It's essential to understanding communication.

12. Plagiarism is incredibly commonplace in the public high school.

13. You cannot threaten not being able to get into college with these kids. Most of them don't care whether they go to college or not.

14. Grammar is hated everywhere, but equally necessary everywhere.

15. "Twilight" is big there. I tried to reason with them, but I could not.

16. Libraries remain the sweetest haven of rest. Anywhere.
(the librarian was incredibly awesome)

17. Senior exhibitions: an interesting premise. I would enjoy to see some higher quality ones someday.

18. Art teachers are on crack.

19. Huckleberry Finn is read everywhere. And equally hated everywhere. Funniest moment: the boy who believed that "The Walter Scott" was the name for every boat throughout the whole of Huckleberry Finn. Seriously.

20. No matter how the rest of my life turns out, I have no one to blame but myself. If I end up unmarried, I have no one to blame but myself. I was the one that turned down the marriage proposal from a cute boy. I have no one to blame but myself.


If you would like to hear the background behind any of those, let me know and I'll be glad to share. Admittedly #20 is the longest story, so you might ask, and I just might not share.