Gettin' Some Culture

When I decided to go to SLU during my senior year of high school, my favorite history teacher teased me that I would return from St. Louis wearing Baby Phat clothes and high top Nikes. I laughed it off obviously, thinking that my conservative self would never give into the urban culture. And now as I student teach in an inner city high school, I can see how far I’ve come from the uber conservative self I was, but at the same time, I’m still in a total culture shock.

Yesterday, my cooperating teacher and others in the department were told that they need to create a new SMART goal for the month and they’ve decided the new goal would be to increase my “hoodness” by 5%. To start with, they decided to write up a list of movies I need to watch, songs and artists I need to listen to (I got over a gigabyte of new music today from them!), and TV shows I need to watch. This is the important stuff they forget to teach you in college. Professors always say you need to connect with your students, but they never give you insight on how. Hopefully this education helps because I definitely need to improve my understanding of my kids. I wonder what my high school teacher would say now.

[Proven example: last night I watched “The Bad Girls Club” on Oxygen and while it was painful to watch some of the stuff they do and say, I came to a better understanding of why the girls at my school get into cat fights over boys and hair that end up getting them suspended for 10 days. I can’t believe that people act like that on TV and are ok with portraying themselves in that manner, but it explained why girls behave in the ways they do.]

Movie list so far:

-Get on the Bus (or anything Spike Lee)

-Rize

-Kings of Comedy

-Soul Plane

-CB4

-The Wash

-Rosewood

-Krush Groove

Music includes:

-Gucci Mane

-Public Enemy

-Beastie Boys

-Dr. Dre

… and if I’m really good and show my 5% improvement, I might even get a nickname!

Listening to: "Gangsta's Paradise" Coolio

Thought of the Day: "We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." -Anne Frank

Sexy History

Tomorrow marks the end of my first week of complete teaching - lectures, activities, grading, everything! I'm not going to lie, I'm very happy that tomorrow's Friday. It's been a long, yet super fast week. But I am extremely blessed to have an amazing cooperating teacher. He's been very friendly, supportive, and encouraging, always knowing the right questions to ask and advice to give. Yesterday I was discouraged about my ability to lecture (I stink at public speaking!) and not being able to be engaging and culturally relevant to the students. This morning when I got to school, my teacher handed my a Borders bag and in it there were two books. In order to start my collection of stories and references that will help me to, as my teacher says, "make history sexy", Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live and Uncle John's Bathroom Reader: Plunges into History. They sound extremely weird, but so far I have learned so many random facts! I would highly recommend these for anyone who doesn't like history - but watch out; if you didn't guess it from the title, Badass is a bit crude, but amazing. Yay for new books and amazing mentors!

{Ben Thompson's Badass}

{Uncle John's Bathroom Reader}

Listening to: "How Do I Breathe" Mario

Thought of the Day: "Fall seven times, stand up eight." - Japanese proverb