So I have survived my observation week. It went pretty well, actually, although I am freaking exhausted. My mentor teacher is good. When I come back, I'll be taking over his two Drama 10 classes. There are only four blocks in a day, and with few exceptions, every day is the same. One of the exceptions is music. The choir and the band are in the same class, so they just alternate days. The music teacher is rather, well, incompetant. I blew him out of the water. It was actually quite sad... Between the fact that he can't conduct a 3 pattern and the fact that half the kids in his one band class were wearing earphones, it just wasn't a good scene.
My mentor teacher teaches two Drama 10 classes, one Drama 20 class, and one CALM 20 class. Almost all of the courses are semestered. Drama 30 is next term. I have no idea how administrators think that Fine Arts courses can be semestered in high school. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms. The Drama classes are radically different from one another. One of the 10 classes does presentations about triple the length of the other, but has more problem students. The 20 class has a lot of skill and a lot of camraderie, but they totally don't keep their energy in check. One of them is totally one of the Weasley twins. The hair, the sense of humour... I keep expecting there to be another of him. He and some other Drama 20s tend to hang around for the afternoon Drama 10 class, so they're around for the second half of the morning, lunch hour and the first half of the afternoon.
My mentor teacher knows my high school Drama teacher, Agrell. Apparantly, Agrell has shaved his beard off. I couldn't believe it. My mentor teacher has a much more game- and activity-oriented approach to teaching Drama than Agrell did. I'm finding myself feeling less confortable in this format, since it's been a long time since I've been in a Drama class that was controlled as much as junior/senior high needs to be, but was also focused on creativity and group work and acting projects. All my university classes on those topics have had much less teacher discipline and have been more academic, so I just don't really know the setting I'm in as well as I'd like to. At least I get to teach a script unit in November. My mentor teaching seems to want to put a lot of emphasis on memorization. I guess this is kind of the flip side of the coin he's working with now. A lot of the scenes done by the Drama 10s have had ideas, but timidly spoken diaglogue because students didn't really know what to say as a character. In script, though, I worry that they'll just stand there with their faces screwed up in concentration and recite their lines in choppy bits. Then again, I guess that's what high school Drama courses are for--practice.
Oh, and one last thing: It takes half an hour to get to the school I'm at in Spruce Grove. It's pretty direct--Terwillegar Drive to Anthony Henday to Highway 16A--but still a long way. It takes me at least 50 minutes from my driveway to my classroom at the University in the mornings. That just... bothers me. At least I'm getting better mileage...
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