Where a kid can be a kid -- Kyle

Imagine a place where students actually perk up when they are asked to do something in class. Imagine a group of students who are so motivated to learn about seemingly boring texts like The Odyssey and Great Expectations that they finish their books weeks before the final reading is due. Imagine a classroom that is actively engaged for an entire ninety minutes in pursuit of an education based around discovering deep and influential meanings of literature. Now imagine that I have been given such a class for my student teaching experience.

Unbelievable, I know, yet I have proof! This Monday, obviously a day when students do not want to be awake at 7:20, let alone working, I taught a lesson on archetypal theory in The Odyssey. Archetypal theory is essentially the universal idea of the hero’s journey, which is wonderfully modeled by Odysseus’s quest to return to Ithaca. Needless to say, the ideas presented were highly sophisticated, and I worried that my students may be turned off by the difficult content on an unfortunate day. My worries proved groundless; the class jumped enthusiastically into my planned activities. To make the concepts easier, I presented the theory to them through “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips, and my students immediately wanted to assume the roles of the precocious youngster and his imaginary, yet oh-so-real, stuffed tiger. When I introduced markers and chart paper, the lesson practically ran itself. They were even excited to stand in front of the class and present what they learned over the course of the day.

No one is more surprised than I to discover that teaching the 9th grade is a wonder and a delight. When I first engendered the idea of being a teacher, I wholeheartedly believed that only the upper echelons of the high school strata would do for me. I wanted to teach 11th or 12th grade literature because I was under the impression that those students were the only ones who could discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of the literary works that I studied in college. I am quickly discovering, however, that while my AP 12 class is challenging and exciting, I am having far too much fun with my 9th graders to dismiss them to the void of subjects that I will never teach.

I have found that 9th grade lies in that strange time between the social awkwardness of middle school and the stratified society of high school. As such, my students are willing to act like children, yet conduct themselves with a surprising sense of maturity. Because I myself am a child at heart, I await every 7:20 AM with great anticipation and excitement. That is the time that I am forever surprised and forever overjoyed that I find myself teaching the 9th grade.