My dreams are made of iron and steel

I'm feeling better about work now that I leave at 2:00 daily. I'm much more relaxed. Our theme has been Art, and there's been a lot of great learning and exploration. Today the kids cut and glued a construction-paper copy of Matisse's Icarus. I told them the story of the mythological Icarus, and they had some amazingly insightful things to say about the piece after they heard it. For example, some thought the black figure was falling, some thought he was swimming (and the yellow bursts were fish). One girl said that the red dot was where the sun had burned him, and a boy said that it was a Band-Aid his father had put on him after the sun hurt him! These kids are goddam geniuses, I tells ya.

I went home and took a nap (which seems to have become a habit lately --- I must need the sleep). Then I drove up to State School a few hours early. There was a mandatory meeting for this semester's 20 hours of field experience. Since I'm taking Classroom Management with Ms. P, who is a principal at H elementary, I've been assigned to that school. Apparently Ms. P likes to keep a tight rein on her students. (This makes it pretty much a given that I'm going to go to Ms. P's stupid Parents' Night Out in February, where she has her students come take care of the kids at her school for "three extra points," even though I chafe at being dragooned into unpaid volunteer work.)

Class was pretty good. We watched a Harry Wong video --- he's a cornball, but I must admit he's got some good things to say. We also went over SBEC (Texas' State Board for Educator Certification) competency five; it deals with an effective classroom and a safe physical environment. It was time well spent; Ms. P may be a cross between a control freak and a flake, but she seems to know her business (helping us to pass the EC-4 PPR test, mostly) and she's fun.