Had my first day...

And the situation is real. Educational inequity is real. The problem is starin' us right in the face.

This summer I'll be 'practice teaching' at a summer school Geometry B class at Oakland Tech (the school where Lynch went) and today, I had my first day of observation. Virtually every kid was disengaged. Kids were playin' on phones, had ipod headphones in, some were sittin' in the back chattin', others sleeping. Cursing throughout the class, walking out freely, laughing whenever the teacher mispronounced words. Think about movies you've seen where it looked pretty bad... it was that bad. You could sense the teacher giving up on classroom management as the class went on, attempting to talk over the voices rather than demand students to quiet down. You felt for her. It seemed real tough. It seemed even more real when I thought... "wow, I'll be teaching this same class in a few days."

The teacher Ms. Mason (who speaks english as a second language) told me and the other fellow, who's going to be teaching in the class, that we'd essentially take over this summer. With a pre-written syllabus and pre-selected homeworks as our guide, we're taking the reigns starting this Thursday... alternating the teaching duties of two 2-hour blocks of geometry until summer's end. She even told us, "you can select your own homeworks if you'd like. And it'd probably be a good idea if you created the tests since you're going to be the ones teaching."

"Damn," I thought. "Am I even ready for this?"

Well, I'm going to need to be. Might as well start now.