Player One Podcast

In my last post, I apologized for not doing much blogging lately. Especially after I had been bugging CJ for so long about setting up the thing. Well, I’m doing it again. Once again I will bust out the excuse that California really runs its teaching candidates through the ringer. I’ve spent the past week working on a gi-normous assessment paper that I need to complete before graduating, and I’m currently taking a break from finishing up an extensive case study on a struggling reader that’s due…oh, in about four hours.

So yeah, this is another “Phil is a teacher” centric post. Not much game stuff here, sorry. I will quickly say that the YouTube upload feature in Noby Noby Boy is friggin’ fantastic. More games need this sort of thing. I’ll be talking more about that on our next episode.

This was my little adventure today, and it goes a long way in explaining why I’m very tired right now and not really in the mood to write up a case study. As a student teacher, I am currently required to be in the classroom on Monday through Friday. All day on Tuesdays and Thursdays and ’till lunch on the remaining days (starting at the end of March, it’s all day, every day!). I was pleased because as today is Friday, I was going to get out nice and early and get home to finish up this assignment.

As I arrived at school this morning, I happened to bump into the principal as she was getting out of her car. She sees me and exclaims that I was just the person she was looking for. She goes on to explain to me that one of their 3rd grade teachers was out sick and that the district was out of substitute teachers for the day (apparently there was some sort of training conference going on). Would I, she asked, be able to take over the class for the day?

Note to self: Add "teacher" to list of words to not Google Image Search unless SafeSearch is on.

Now, part of my previous student teaching placement (with 4th graders) during the first half of the school year required me to spend a week teaching the class on my own. Like, with the “real” teacher out of the room. So I certainly had some experience handling a class by myself. However, that was a class that I had been working with for months, so they knew me and wanted to work with me. This time, I would be running a class full of strange kids, and we all know how kids act towards the sub.

Still, what choice did I have? I told the principal that I’d be happy to take the class. It would be, after all, great experience, and making the principal happy is a smart move for someone who will be looking for a teaching job in a couple months.

Without wasting much more words on the day, it went well. The kids goofed off a bit, but nothing more than I could handle. I brought the hammer down on them pretty early so that they knew that I wasn’t going to let them run the class, but I also let them know that I could be a pretty easygoing guy if they let me.

I  do have to share the story about meeting the first kid to pop into the classroom, though.

I’m just hanging out in the teacher’s room about ten minutes before the bell rings. All of the kids are out on the playground when one boy wanders into the room. I look up at him and immediately know that he’s going to be trouble. He’s got one eyebrow raised, and he’s wearing a shit-eating grin as he swaggers over to me. This is the conversation that we had:

Kid: So I hear you’re going to be our substitute teacher today.
Phil: Yep. That’s me.
Kid: What makes you think you can teach 3rd grade?
Phil: Well, I’ve taught 2nd grade and 4th grade. I figure I can handle the one in the middle.
(at this point, the kid is a bit stunned that I’m not backing down from his carefully planned ribbing. Little does this kid know that I was him at that age)
Phil: What’s your name?
Kid: (says his name…I’m obviously not going to say it here)
Phil: Well, nice to meet you, (kid’s name). I’m Mr. Theobald. (I shake his hand)
Kid: I can see where the “bald” part of your name comes from.
Phil: You’re a clever kid. No one has ever made that joke before.

Clearly the kid was a little snot, but he was a likable snot. I survived his test, and he ended up respecting me for it. It also helped when I told him that yes, Captain Underpants was pretty funny and I (gasp!) knew what a Nintendo DS was. Not only that, but I’ve played LEGO Indiana Jones on the DS and the Xbox 360!

It was an interesting start to my day, to say the least, and being tossed right into the substitute teaching fire was a pretty good experience. It also means that I get paid for my student teaching today. So woo-hoo! Even so, it was also plenty stressful, and now I only have three hours and fourty-five minutes to finish this damn paper. Back to work!

Phil Theobald School School, teaching

You’ll have to forgive me as this post isn’t very game-centric. Still, it’s probably more interesting than Greg talking about racing games. Again.

I feel pretty bad right now. I had been bugging CJ for a while about getting this blog up and running on our main page with the promise of writing all sorts of entries for it. Now that it’s up, though, I haven’t added much to it. In my defense, I’ve been extremely busy with school.

This past week was my first week back at student teaching. During the first half of my credential program, I was teaching a class of fourth graders. This time, I’m in a second grade classroom. Although teaching fourth grade was fun (and definitely challenging), I have to say that I’m enjoying second grade more. The kids are simply easier to control, and they’re more eager to learn.

After telling my master teacher (the slightly goofy term us student teacher use for the “real” teacher whose classroom we’re in) about my previous job as a game reviewer, she suggested that later on I bring in some of my old issues of GameNOW to show the kids, and that I teach a lesson that has the kids writing their own game review.  I’m thinking that once the lesson is over, I’ll collect the kids’ articles, toss some screenshots in there, and turn them into a mini-magazine for the class.

A piece of artwork given to me by one of my fourth grade students during my first student teaching placement. Kids think it's pretty amazing when their teacher plays videogames.

When I told my master teacher about my game producing job at Backbone, she told me to bring in some of the games that I made to show the class (the edutainment titles, of course…I’ll probably leave the poker game I worked on at home). I told her that I could easily tie the games in to a lesson about teamwork and cooperation since so many people must work together to make a game. She liked the idea and expanded on it by saying that we could actually have the class design a game. With different students coming up with characters, plot, artwork, etc.

My master teacher is pretty cool.

In addition to my student teaching every weekday, I’m also attending my regular classes in the evening. On top of that, I’m also in the middle of finishing the second and third parts of a massive four part assessment program that California has just instituted for its new teachers. I’ve heard that becoming a teacher in some states is actually pretty easy, but they really run you through the ringer out here. It’s very stressful/exhausting.

So if you don’t see a lot of posts from me, it’s probably because I’m doing homework. On a more positive note, I finally got an HDTV this weekend. I’ll talk a bit more about that on the next episode of the podcast (#118). It’s nice to be able to put those Blu-rays I’ve been buying to good use.

Phil Theobald School