Did I have to sign a release for this?

The first day of my second EDU class started today; Intro to Classroom Relationships. It's a hybrid class so the schedule is a little wonky. We met today, Friday evening at 4 until 9pm and we will meet tomorrow at 8am and stay until 5. We repeat this schedule, not next weekend, but the one following. In between, we have two online projects to complete and turn in. I normally don't like online classes but who can pass up 3 credits and a chance to complete my electives requirements over the course of three weekends. Certainly not this guy!


What to say about this class. Well, let me first begin by saying that I have no doubt my professor's intentions are all in the right place and I believe that he truly has a passion for children. The flip side is that he can come across as a little... eh... very creepy at times. As well, some of the lesson plans were pretty difficult to muster the proper energy to complete adequately.


We began our night with a "get to know you activity" in which we were to divide into groups, introduce ourselves to our partners and then... get this... write a rap about the other person, including all of their likes and dislikes. Excuse me? Did you just say rap? Im Irish and German... Time fo' some Riverdance in the Haüs! In all fairness, I did get partnered with the only African American in the class, so I had the house advantage. This was not without it's own awkwardness though, because as it turns out, the rap my partner wrote about me was a tale about how women apparently flock to me and I know how to keep them "satisfied" For those of you who truly know me, you can imagine how mortifying this would be to perform in front of 30 people I've never met. 


After the musical portion of the evening, we then continued to the lesson in being creeped out. I'm not sure if that was the goal of the lesson, but it was definitely the result. Once we were all back in our proper seats, the professor took his digital camera (do we still specify digital today, or is it just assumed?) Anyway, he took out his camera and took our pictures. First there was the individual close up with smiles, followed by the individual close up with "wacky faces" Great, now that's done, now how about group shots of us all hugging each other! That's appropriate because now we've spent a total of 2 hours in the same room so we are practically besties! Here comes the kicker, once the hugging photos were complete we went outside to take our "jumping in the air" photos. Should I be reporting this? 


Eventually we found ourselves back inside discussing some powerpoints that where intended to make us think about the power of good relationships. After the discussion we had a dinner break. The professor suggested that the tradition in this class is to go to Sweet Tomatoes (a salad buffet) as a group and eat together. Well, when you've already been photographed hugging and jumping together, I guess it's also fine to eat together. One hitch; we had to take a photo of ourselves in our groups doing something embarrassing in public before we were allowed admittance back into the class. Aside from being seen with 30 people in the corner of sweet tomatoes, not talking to anyone while everyone else is photographing themselves doing embarrassing things, I could not think of what to embarrass myself with. Eventually the girl in our group decided that we should take a pic of her and I forcing our partner, the rapper, to eat ice cream straight from the soft serve machine. Immediately my "food handler" instincts tried to stop this from happening, but as I looked over at all of the assuredly booger covered little hands fondling the machine, I began to loosen up. 


We had one more project after dinner in which to make even bigger asses of ourselves. We were once again divided and in group we had to act out a series of animals or scenes that were called out by the teacher until told to "freeze" Once frozen, a judge would determine which group performed the best and then there was time for an encore for all others to see in detail. The scenes were as follows;


1. One person is a super model and the other 3 are photographers.
2. One person is an elephant trunk and the other three are the ears. (Asian and African elephants have two ears, but ours had three)
3.One person is a Queen bee (my job by the way) while the others acted as the wings. (same freaky evolutionary hiccup)
4. One person was a donkey with a flatulence issue. The others where to follow making the distinct raspberry sounds and wafting the air as if their noses where offended. 


Super.






I'll put the pic of the ice cream incident here when I get a copy.