An Interesting Teaching Day

Just a few thoughts. I've finally (as of Monday), really, genuinely started teaching classes. I go to my classes and the teacher either works with me in class, or he/she sends me into another classroom with 3-6 students. I've done a fairly even mix of the two, thus far.

On Monday, I did an activity where I gave each kid a celebrity, but they didn't know who the celebrity was. They had to ask their classmates yes/no questions until they figured it out. Basically, it was "Who am I?" Prior to class, I had cut out pictures of Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, Leo DiCaprio, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Barack Obama, his hottie wife, Michael Jackson, Hallie Berry, etc... Turns out I did a good job. Because when I would show the kids which famous personality they would have to help their classmate guess, they would all go "Oohhh, ahhhh!" Or in the case of Michael Jackson or Britney Spears, they would all laugh and act all embarrassed that someone was them. (In MJ's case, they thought it was funny that they had to be someone who was dead; in Britney's, they thought it was funny that they had to be someone who was crazy.)

The activity went really well. The few kids who were standoffish at the beginning were some of the ones who got most involved and excited. I was pleased with it. What was interesting to me, though, was that the first two questions each kid asked (in both groups) were inevitably: "Is it a woman?" and "Is she/he black?" They didn't ask about whiteness first, and if the answer to being black was "no" they assumed that the person was white. I was bummed that I didn't include more diverse celebrities but I literally went through my People magazine page by page and cut out the people I knew they would recognize. [Also interesting: when the kid who was being Michael Jackson asked the race question, the kids didn't know what to answer. Half of them said yes and half of them said no. Then one kid stammered out, "Een ze beginning, 'e eez black. But, een ze later times, 'e become white."

My brain is tired now because I had a full day, even though I didn't actually do very much. So, though I would love to write a doctoral dissertation on the thoughts regarding these young, impressionable minds and their relationship with race, I think that will have to come another time.

But a note to myself/other assistants who might read this and want to try the activity: Other celebrity ideas could be Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Mouse, George Bush, Lindsay Lohan. And if you wanted to be more complicated and involve other things, you could include the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building... Anyone have other ideas of things the kids would recognize/be able to describe?

Also, in one class that had a lower level of English, I did this but didn't make them use yes or no questions, so they weren't as put on the spot. So the one standing, trying to guess, could say things like, "What is my job?" And they would answer "actor," or, "President of the United States." That last one sure didn't take long... but the kids had fun with it.

Soon: a post about how I found an apartment, bought a futon, and cleaned my room.