So its been awhile. Basically, every day I get the chance to discuss, describe, and analyze teaching in the car ride back to school. Therefore, when I get here, I really dont feel like typing in the blog. This really is a problem, but I just don't have the heart to tell people I carpool with the shut up because I need to save it for on here.

I do want to talk about one thing I've noticed in my classes though: there is a surprising lack of diversity in them. In my history class, the students are doing verbal reports on thier cultural background (a continuing feature from the immigration age chapter). So it is interesting to hear about all the different places these students have come from. However, most of them as the steriotypical Ohio resident- WASPS who had a family member come over in the late 19th century. One interesting situation did come up in my Psychology class though. It happened a while ago, but don't worry I'm currently teaching a chapter on memory so I'm confident I will have the ability to remember how it went (I just can't seem to kill the sarcasam or jokes even on a school blog, sorry).

Anyways, in my classroom the teacher was doing taste tests the first day or so I was in the room. There were two Islamic students in the class, Somalian I believe. This was the time when Ramadan was going on, so they were fasting during daylight hours. An interesting dilemna for a taste test. My cooperating teacher was very good about not making them do anything, and telling them they could leave the room if it bothered them. Sounds pretty good right? Well my question is this: why not move that chapter back a section? The teacher has been teaching this for 14 years, I doubt that this is the first time he has experienced this problem, and I'd hope he saw it coming. Instead of having to draw attention to the Islamic students, I would have thought he could move the chapter so they could participate and it would be a non-issue. The next two chapters I have taught have not included food. I will have to remember to ask about this sometime, if I think I can pull it off without seeming like a know-it-all college student that has no experience.

Interesting little story though, thought I would share and see what anyone (and by anyone I mean the one person that is probably reading this) thought they would do in this situation. I would give my teacher an A+ for caring professionalism, probably a D for creativity and adapting to the environment around him. But at least he tried, I suppose in the eyes of the students that is the most important thing. Knowledge to keep in mind for the future. (And yes I just graded my teacher. With evaluations and finals coming up I wanted to turn the tables just once, for my sanity's sake).