Monday, March 10, 2014

I woke up to a cold shower because the hot water heater wasn’t working, but that’s ok, because I have ice-water in my veins (not really, don’t worry mom).  We had the very traditional gallo-pinto for breakfast (white rice and black beans).  I even wore my purple shirt today, so it was safe to say that I was ready to lecture.  I finished up the final touches to my presentation during my morning period and then got myself ready.  We started class with a warmup where I had the students tell me what they knew about Capitalism.  Some knew too much for their own good, others were pulling up Wikipedia.  After the warmups, we finished up the newspaper article presentations as we learned about the happenings in Egypt, Syria, Venezuela, and the Ukraine.  Then it was my turn.  The lecture was about the Industrial Revolution.  I did my best to ask questions to keep the students engaged and drew on some pretty clever references if I do say so myself.  I talked about Kevin Durant shoes being better than LeBron James shoes when discussing the law of competition and how they have to compete with each other to make the coolest shoes.  After that, my kid with a broken arm challenged me to play basketball when he gets his arm out of its cast.  He’s on.  I had joke breaks in the middle to divide up the material.  For example, what’s the difference between a school teacher and a train locomotive?  The teacher tells you to spit out your gum, while the locomotive says Choo, Choo, Choo!  I even got to make a supply and demand chart during class.  The problem was that trying to get through an entire chapter in one class period was a little ambitious and it turned into an hour to an hour and ten minute lecture, much longer than the average attention span of 9^th Graders.  Next time, I’ll have to be less ambitious with getting through as much content, but that’s what student teaching is for I guess.  After school, I was exhausted.  I sat down to take off my shoes and change clothes, but that quickly turned into a 90 minute nap.  Oops, oh well.  For dinner, I had some steak and onions and they were delicious.  Liliana must be prepping for the Onion Festival that starts here in Santa Ana this week.  She’s super excited for it, and I am too just to say that I’ve been to an onion festival.  Well, that was just another exciting day in Costa Rica.