"We Playin the Girl Game"

August 28th

Current Place of "Residence" The Belden Stratford.
Subbed? Yes.
Grades Taught A myriad again, this time with no seventh grade.
Subjects Manning down my computer room like it's no one's business.
Times I wanted to say "fuck" Once or Twice, but that's a normal day at work, right?
How well did I teach? After despising myself for writing that sentence for so many blog posts now I've finally decided it's time to embrace the verbage of what I do instead of the nounage of who I am. Either way, I sat in a computer room and made sure no one died. Self report? At least a 9.5.

Another day, the same computer room. I feel bad because the more I have control over my space and my classes, the less interesting my posts become. I really am not complaining, because it's nice to have a steady income and a familiar environment.  As the days go by I am starting to recognize more of the students and they all know me. It's a nice feeling.

When running the computer lab I get some time to myself and I really just supervise them and make sure they don't play the wrong type of game. It's an interesting distinction between the "right" games and the "wrong" games. While there are certain sites that I force my students to go on that have educational value, some of them are only based in an educational world. Yes it's good that you are using different types of bugs to fly through the floating circles, but do you even know why they fly differently? Do you even care?

Then there's the game where they race cheetahs, which I'd love to criticize but then I imagine actually watching cheetah racing and I think that it would be the best, though least humane, sport ever. Actually, if dogs can race couldn't cheetahs race too? Dogs and Horses have a tight grip on the circle tracks, maybe we do cheetah drag races.

My favorite moment of the day actually had to do with a very different topic than cheetah racing, although I feel like I might need to revisit that one. One of my classes got free reign over the computers and they all went to the various websites they love. I took note of the games that the boys played and the games that the girls played. Regardless of the type of game, the "boys" games had a black, red, or other dark background on the screen, while the "girl" games all had pink. I don't want to get on a big gender role rant immediately following my proper tenants of education rant, but it's interesting how ingrained these ideas are. At seven years old these kids knew what a "boy" game and a "girl" game meant. I knew this because, apart from the girls playing a "dress up the princess" game and the boys playing a basketball game, four boys tried to make a statement.

"We playin' the girl game!" they announced. I turned and watched them play for a little bit. The game was a simple platformer akin to a simpler version of the old Super Mario. However the boys played as a princess and the background of the website glowed pink for all to see. These two familiar archetypes made this game a "girl" game, whereas some boys across the room were playing a nearly identical game except for the pirate protagonist and the black background.

The point I'm trying to make here is one that rings very similar to one I made previously. I strongly believe that the social element of school is important and that kids don't need to be in their seats quietly learning one hundred percent of the time, but with me here "supervising" their computer time what actually gets taught? Are my students leaving with any more computer knowledge when they leave my class? Are there negative consequences to "free time" in my room?

These aren't questions to which I can provide the answers to, but merely want to think about.

Maybe I made this post so educational because I haven't been that educational in class?

Lesson 8: There's always something to be learned, even when you're not learning