Chinese Buffet for One, Part II

I'm alive--I promise. I realize I haven't blogged since just before I started teaching. This is a shame because a lot has been going on, but I'll try my best to summarize a month of life in one blog post. Here goes nothing.

I am now officially known to over 100 students and their parents as Mr. Brownell (or Mr. B as some prefer). My first day of class was on Monday, June 3rd in Cape Girardeau where I borrow a classroom at a Christian school. I started with a class of half-a-dozen 3rd graders, immediately followed by a class of 10 high schoolers. It was nerve-wracking, but I successfully taught my lesson plans and held parent meetings at the end of each class. Although it was weird to be at the front of the class telling everyone what to do, it was even more bizarre to see my students listen and follow through with my instructions.

You will respect the bow tie.

I returned to the Drury Lodge in Cape after that first day of classes exhausted, but very happy. It seemed like my life was completely different from what it had been just a few short weeks ago. The Lodge is very nice and has free dinner, but it's still hotel dinner (chicken strips, macaroni, hot dogs, meatballs, salad, nachos, etc.). I don't really know anyone in Cape, so I decided to find a quiet place to have dinner and read my book. Naturally, I gravitated towards a Chinese buffet. So not even a month after my sad one-man dinner at Kirksville's China Palace, I found myself requesting a Chinese buffet for one once more. I suppose not much has really changed.

My first week flew by in a whirl of student names, parent concerns, distributed materials, stories about fat cats, broken crayons, word structure analysis, and phonics lessons. On that Saturday, I drove to St. Louis University where I teach a class of 20 2nd graders, 20 4th/5th graders, and a class of three student-parent pairs of 1st graders. It was a bit exhausting to say the least, but the experience of teaching at a large university classroom is a lot more exhilarating than teaching in a small Christian school classroom in rural Missouri. However, I have grown to genuinely love my teaching days in Cape Girardeau; it can be quite beautiful there.

My walk to my SLU classes isn't so bad either though.

This program is set up in five week long courses in which the students attend one two-hour class with me each week and complete four sessions of home practice per week. Each age level has slightly different goals for reading development, so there is a lot of variety. By the fourth week, I give an individual book level recommendation for each individual student based on assessment during class, general observations, homework assignments, and conversations with parents. This means I get to learn a lot about each of my 101 students and his or her reading abilities. I thought I was going to be struggling with names for all five weeks, but I was surprised to find myself using names without referencing the seating chart by the end of my second week. It has truly been a joy to get to know these young people and see each of them grow in both skill and confidence as they tackle reading material that may have first seemed impossible to them.

A typical week for my first five weeks with IRD goes something like this:

• Saturday--Wake up around 8:30 to get to SLU by 9:30 for class at 10:15. Teach 2nd grade, 4th/5th grade, 1st grade. Leave by 5:30. Get home, enter student data, pack for three days of teaching in Cape Girardeau.
• Sunday--Wake up around 6:00AM to leave by 7:00 so I have plenty of time to make the two hour drive to Cape and be there early enough to start my first class at 10:00. Teach eight preschoolers with one parent each, four 1st graders with one parent each, and 20 4th/5th graders. Leave a little after 5:00 PM, check into the Drury Lodge, pass out from exhaustion.
• Monday--Wake up around 9:00AM for the continental breakfast, prep lessons by the outdoor pool for a couple hours, grab lunch, and get to the school by noon to teach 3rd grade at 1:00 and high school at 3:45. Leave around 6:30 and grab free dinner at the hotel. Pack to leave in the morning.
• Tuesday--Wake up around 7:00AM for breakfast, check out of the hotel, get to school by 8:15 to teach 2nd grade by 9:00 then middle school at 11:45. Finish and pack up my teaching materials around 2:30 and drive back to St. Louis. Get back to St. Louis by 5:00. Pass out from exhaustion.
• Wednesday--Day off! Mostly relaxing. Might run errands, get groceries, clean, etc. I think trivia night at a bar in the Loop might be a thing now.
• Thursday--Day off! Must be sure to enter in all student data online from the past week though. My friend from Truman, Jonathan, and I have started "Throne Thursdays" where we watch as many episodes of Game of Thrones as we can. A wise life decision.
• Friday--Day off, but must wake up before 9:00 for an hour long phone call with my supervisor to discuss how classes went and specific student concerns. Then I have to prep for a new week of teaching and start it all over again.

I can still manage a smiling selfie in the mornings though.

I must say, I've loved the crazy and varied schedule I've had this month. I feel so lucky to get to work with every age group and see how they all develop not only as readers, but also as young human beings. My only regret is that I only see them once a week for a couple of hours.

On second thought, maybe only two hours at a time of 20 full desks is plenty.

Schedules for the late summer session will be coming out soon. My supervisor recently called me with an exciting opportunity. Because teachers are people too, we get sick and need vacation days. This means that classes throughout the country will need substitutes who are trained in this material. IRD's solution to this is to schedule teachers as "reserves" who are on-call to go to different teaching locations as needed. If I were to do this, I would be paid for 11 classes each week even if I teach fewer than that. Furthermore, I would get paid for additional classes that I did teach. This would be a crazy schedule, but I think I would enjoy it. I would see different students and places every day. Plus, there is 1% of 1% of a chance that I could go sub in Hawaii. However, it's more likely that I'd be going to Nebraska. Being in St. Louis puts me in a position to be sent virtually anywhere though, and I wouldn't be paying for any travel expenses other than food. Maybe I was crazy for saying I was open to the possibility, but I don't know when I'll get a chance like this to travel so often and be paid for it. My sense of adventure is high these days, so I think I'm ready for the challenge. It also means a lot to me that this company thinks I'm well-equipped for this type of demanding schedule.

I should find out by the end of the week what my new schedule will be like and if I will be one of these "reserve" teachers. I'll try my best to blog some more. I also need to start planning my next move after my summer contract with IRD runs dry. It might be nice to take a month or two at the Lake to recollect myself and prepare for teaching English in other countries. Or maybe stay here in St. Louis for a bit. I feel like I have lots of options. The future still seems as uncertain as ever, but bright nonetheless.

-Anthony