-Brett Sanders '09

What a terrific experience on Wednesday!  During the morning hours, all three of us, including Scott Liska, Mitch Palmer, and myself were able to fully experience Chicago’s public transportation.  Needless to say, the CTA is definitely a mental, physical, and cultural experience to be had in very few places throughout America.  After a ten minute train ride, we all hopped onto the public bus and peeled back our eyelids, trying to stay alert from the early morning rise.  It is interesting to notice the different people that come and go on the public transportation.  If I had one piece of advice for future CUECE’s, it would be to use the public transportation early and often.  This will help if any one is in dire need to get home, or it can simply allow one to see some of the people of Chicago.  There are some interesting people on the public transportation indeed.  However, thus far while using the Chicago train system, we have become acquainted with a die-hard White Sox fan, some travelers from Canada, and some people that we perhaps did not desire to meet.

            Once we arrive at Prosser High School, we stepped through the metal detectors, which were a brand new experience for me, and luckily they let us in.  I proceeded to grade some of my host teacher’s papers throughout the first two periods of the school day.  Next, I observed some great discussions pertaining to the Shakespeare play, Othello.  All the while throughout the discussions, I was going through the preparations for my short lesson plan on Transitional Devices that I had worked on the night before.  Once the Sophomore American Literature course rolled around, my nervousness was rising and the room was getting very warm.  My host teacher performed a little re-cap of the day before lesson plan, and then he introduced my teaching subject and me.  I was very nervous, but to my surprise the students were absolutely respectful, attentive, and gave a lot of feedback for me.  It was a great experience.  After the first few minutes, I began to loosen up and the discussion began to flow better.  Although it appeared that I was not nervous (or so my observers stated), I felt extremely nervous.  However, afterwards I realized that all of my nervousness was for naught.  There was absolutely no reason for me to be nervous or even think that the classroom would turn into brouhaha.  Even though it was a short time period of teaching, those fifteen minutes has changed my perception of urban schools and the possibility for me to be able to teach within one.