Today was the first day of student teaching with the added benefit of real live students, who, in keeping with American tradition, returned from their summer break on this first day after Labor Day.

I sat at a desk and observed, introduced warmly once per hour by my cooperating teacher.

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I come from an E/BD background. Let me tell you this. I was kind of freaked out today by how normal and polite the students were. It was great. Some of them even made small talk with me, asking questions about where I go to school, how long I’ve been in school, when and for how long I’m going to teach them. Did I already say that it was great?  I barely heard any foul language or gang talk all day, and believe me when I say I was listening out for it: I’ve been trained to.

And a damn good thing, too, because I couldn’t sleep for shit last night, thinking about this whole experience. Today, coming into something approximating lucidity, I realized that I couldn’t put a finger on what exactly had me so terrified. Certainly it was enough to give me nervous stomach once I got within a block of the school, but even so, I knew I was only going to be observing today, so why all the terror?

I know that there will be nights when I’ll be writing about what a hard day it was, but right now, I’m just thrilled by this whole experience and the promise that it holds for my students and I.

Finally, I touched base with my supervisor as provided by the university. She made it clear from the beginning that she is uncomfortable with the title of “supervisor”, and after acknowledging that she, the cooperating teacher, and myself are all kind of unorthodox in our approach to teaching, we launched into a ten minute discussion about educational philosophy as it relates to urban learners. She seems brilliant, and I’m excited to learn more from her.

Not only that, but she offered some lesson plans for Catcher in the Rye, so that can’t hurt.