Observation Hours.

As any education major will tell you, a good amount of time each semester is spent volunteering in a classroom. The schedule is designed so that you always are in some class that requires between 10 and 15 hours doing some form of work with students. Sometimes, the teachers sign you out a bit early and cut you some slack. This semester, I happen to be in two such classes. For one of these classes, I spend my Tuesday afternoons in a middle school reading class. For the other, I was assigned--halfway through the semester--to a high school mathematics class. So, I decided to spend the next three fridays in this class to make sure I complete all the hours.

Now, somehow I had yet to volunteer in this school, even though it is a fairly well-known high school in these here parts. So, not knowing my way around the school, I left my room bright and early, early enough that I could get an iced coffee from McDonald's to assure that I was awake. Now, McDonald's iced coffees are addicting. Unfortunately, they have no real recipe, so the tastiness of the beverage is solely dependent on the maker of the drink. Sometimes you get a bitter barely flavored drink, other times you basically are drinking caramel milk (I always get caramel, though Leah prefers vanilla and Daniel hazelnut.) However, this morning the drink was made wonderfully, and I was quite content as I drove around the school to find the gravel lot where interns parked.

Now, trying to find the main office is the next big problem. Some schools have signs pointing visitors in all the right directions. Other schools just expect that everyone will obviously now where to go. In such cases, I don't like to ask the students, because I suspect that they will only lead me astray. I mistrust high school students, they don't seem like kind-hearted souls that would look out for my best interest. But being left with no choice, I asked a student with a bathroom pass where the main office was, and he escorted me there quite well. I suppose any detour from class was welcome to him. My opinion of students helping me find my way was forever changed, I now know that they are more than welcome to take me to my destination before accomplishing their own tasks. However, I also realize that this is not in the best interest of their educations, so I will try harder to never get lost on school campuses.

Eventually I found the teacher's room (314, which she cleverly decimaled into 3.14, like pi, those math nerds) and get settled in the back of the room with two other interns from my class that had been also assigned this teacher. We talked some, we took the Algebra I test with the class (I can still factor quadratics, what now?) We discussed the weather, as the sky was cloudy and suggested rain (Floridians can predict that weather) and when it would start. I then checked my cell phone, discovering that I had a text message from the college alert system, meant to tell us of criminals and dangers on campus. It warned me of dangerous weather, which the darkening skies and pouring rain only reinforced. I showed the text to my fellow interns. Then the principal came on the intercom and told nobody to leave for lunch, which would be extended needed, the students parked in the lowest parking lot immediately move their cars to higher ground, and that a tornado watch was in effect just south of us. All this on the day before their spring break.

The other two interns left at lunch, and I was escorted to the room where all the mathematics education teachers ate their lunch. Knowing that I might not be able to drive off for lunch, I had packed a granola bar, cheerios, carrots, and applesauce. Quite a fitting lunch. I sat in a chair and listened to the math teachers discuss their lives. I was given a brownie with the rest of them. I didn't participate much in conversation, but was very interested in what they said. I felt... oddly at home. I never realized how much teachers talk about students.

The bell rang. The weather was clearing and the next class started, but the electricity went out. On top of everything else that was happening, the power went out and the students were taking their test by cloudy skylight and the emergency light on the wall, rather unhappily. One student tried to sharpen his pencil, onyl to find that the electric sharpener was in no way working. Eventually everyone adjusted. Then the lights returned, shocking everyone. Then the lights went back out for another extended period of time. Then they returned The power just couldn't make up its mind. I took out Of Mice and Men and decided to pass the time reading since I had taken the test last period and now had nobody to whom to talk. It's a wonderful, though sad, book, which I suggest everyone read.

Then, I asked the teacher where the bathroom was, to which she gave me a key and directions. I entered the student bathroom, then used my key in the locked door to the left of the entrance, and gasped in amazement. The room had two cushioned chairs, a table with a tablecloth, a sink, and some sort of dresser. It was also very decorated. When I returned, I commented on my surprise, to which she replied, "Yes, we have our own bathroom. We prefer not to use the student's bathroom, lots of STDs going around," to which I sat in stunned silence.

I look forward to being a teacher.