Being a student again

Well, we've settled in nicely, and pretty quickly--with some help and support from friends and family. And the other day I began my new "job"... as a student.

A student-teacher, that is. I've just begun a 15-week internship at a local public (charter) school, where I'm working with kids in both the 4th and 6th grades. Really interesting so far, and no signs of that letting up. The kids are really bright, articulate, generally very well-behaved and consistently engaged in class... wow, is this K-6 Heaven or what?!

Today I was impressed by many students' ability, and relative ease, in describing their science projects that they're currently working on. A few examples of their self-selected projects: powering a small light bulb with lemons; determining if a vertical wing (of a paper airplane) provides significant benefits to flight distance; tracking the migrations of a certain fish (off the coasts of Mexico and Japan), and trying to determine why some of them head south while others are happy to make the long journey west; ascertaining if there is a correlation between playing computer games and having superior eye-hand coordination. All very impressive, on the whole.

Which makes life both more interesting, and rewarding, for this particular student-teacher, as I inch closer to earning my K-6 credential and get the chance to become a full-fledged teacher of similarly bright kids.