Justine Selsing

Never really having been on this side of the teacher/student dichotomy before, I came in with no clear idea of how to go about helping kids with their homework. But it’s quickly becoming clear to me that, when it comes to actual learning, the homework problems are sometimes secondary.

Because sure, it’s important for me to go over the 7 times tables with them, or to explore the unique sound made by the vowel combination OU, or to try to convince them to read something slightly more difficult than The Essential Calvin and Hobbes.

But it’s just as--if not more--important that I’m simply there to listen to what they have to say on subjects varying in seriousness from Lay’s potato chips to getting poked in the ribs by a girl to finding a pack of cigarettes in an uncle’s room. I’ve found that nothing seems more helpful to the general learning process than to just take these kids seriously, and acknowledge that their ideas are important. Then the flow of ideas really begins, and complex word problems might not seem so daunting anymore.

And sometimes, I even have to say it’s okay if they don’t get how to divide fractions right away, and that I don’t really get it either, and maybe we should go see what Calvin and Hobbes have to say about it.

Sam Cheney

Are you sensing a theme here, reading these intern posts? Are we noticing a common tone, maybe? Does it feel a little too pleasant? Too sentimental, too positive, too kids-and-fun-and-rewarding-and-hilarious? Yeah, I think so, too.

So here He comes, New Intern #4, flying facefirst into the Wall of Lies, here to give you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but it, so help us all.

Let me begin with the beginning:

Monday, January 25

-- LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR WORKSHEET

I know, right? Kids have those! And I had to try and help!

But it was, as I said, only the beginning…

Friday, January 29

-- Chapbook-making

How many stories of self-robotization can one man be asked to read? How many aliens-and-humans morality plays will it take to teach the simple lesson? Worst of all, how much are you going to write about music, writers? WHO EVEN LIKES MUSIC??

At this point I think to myself, “Maybe this is just some sort of First Week Blues. Maybe I’ve just shown up at a bad time. Maybe—and why not?—maybe things will get better.”

Oh, the cruel jokes of the world.

Monday, February 1

-- JESSE ONLY GIVES ME ONE (ONE!) OF HIS FLAMING HOT CHEETOS.

Can you even grasp how thankless, how ungrateful these kids are? I bet if you asked for Flaming Hot Cheetos from every student at every table one every afternoon for a week, you’d be looking at three flaming, hot, miniscule, twice-licked, broken Cheetos come Friday afternoon. THANKLESS, I SAY!

I write to you now from an undisclosed location. I am in hiding, strategizing my next offensive against Falsehood. The War Against Lies must continue to be fought, and continue to fight I will.

Wish me luck –

New Intern #4