Tomorrow morning Tyain and I will be meeting with Mr. Simms and his first period, 9th grade English class. I am so excited to get the chance to work with him and his students. This class is actually focused on one of my favorite subjects, mythology. When I was younger, I loved to read Rick Riordan’s books. I devoured the Percy Jackson series, the Heroes of Olympus, and Magnus Chase. My interest in mythology, although not cultivated or refined by any formal education, had continued to carry on into my adult life as I’ve read much of Robert Graves’ Greek Myths. This book outlines in quite explicit detail the entirety of the Greek mythological belief system as it developed over history. Over time I’ve also done some light digging into Egyptian, Norse, and Celtic mythology.

One of the reasons that I’m most excited for this fieldwork project is because I know that my interest for the subject area that these kids are studying will shine through. I hope that I can pass that excitement along as I work with the students. I’m also so excited to see what kind of things these students are doing in their classroom because I know mythology was always a subject that I wanted to study in a course, but never got the chance to. I do think, though, that there may be a chance that my inherent interest in mythology may work against me. This is not necessarily a subject area that everyone is already intrigued by so, I think it may be difficult for me to cultivate students’ interest in whatever project we do undertake in regard to the subject because it may be difficult for me to locate the source of their disinterest.

Moreover, I know that English isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea and I know that there are people who really detest writing, but I hope that by creating a project that really sparks and encourages the imagination I can show the students that English is oftentimes a subject where we can sort of integrate our interests into the course content.

I will be honest, I don’t expect this experience to be easy for me. While I am relatively gregarious, I really do not enjoy public speaking. I most definitely anticipate for tomorrow’s class, the first class, with the students to be the most difficult for me. I am definitely aware of the importance of first impressions and, having been struck down by barracks plague and having to get up and speak in front of a group of people, is a pretty intimidating situation for me to be in – especially because I know how difficult it can be to please high school students. I keep thinking back on when I was a 9th grader. What would I have been responsive towards? What would my attitude have been if someone like this were walking into my classroom? I think these questions are definitely important to consider, but I also think it’s important not to make any assumptions before I walk into the classroom. It’s been a while since I’ve been in high school and this school is most likely nothing like mine was. These kids will most likely be a fair bit different from what I was used to years ago.