Flirting Eagles

So I have finally been hooked up to the fastest internet pretty much anywhere and now I can not only download anything I can possibly imagine for free (stealing copyright material doesn't seem to exist here) but I can also keep my blog super updated so get ready for this to blow up.
After today I will have completed my first month of teaching! I definitely feel like I have gotten better- it took being a bit of a bitch to some of my more rowdy and rude classes but I think I have finally established my authority. So now that things are in control I am having much more fun- especially with the younger kids (shocking I know). The class that I find really fascinating (unfortunately not due to the material) is my Eagle Listening. Its the oldest group (most of them are about 14 except for a few geniuses that are 12) and one of the higher levels so they can speak quite well. Pretty much the class consists of me playing recorded lectures, them answering questions about the lecture and then going over the answers while listening to the lecture again. Super exciting. Unfortunately the class/all our classes are geared to get kids ready for the iBT TOEFL exam so they can all go to Harvard which means that lectures are usually pretty dry but I'm kinda a dork so I find them interesting. The one lecture that I did not find interesting was on men and women in the work place. It discussed the obstacles faced by men and women and was pretty much wildly sexist. Being the daughter of a totally hippy feminist and a strong, beautiful Barnard woman (this is how emails to the Barnard community were addressed) I was very opposed to teaching this material. In one lecture in particular it said that women did not face competition from men but that they had to override their natural instinct to take more administrative roles and care for family. Not acceptable material in mind. Anyway, it didn't seem there was much I could do but I happened to be reading a wonderful article in the New Yorker about The Feminine Mystique and came across this quote: "The belief that women are biologically destined to be domestic and subordinate is just a construct, created by psychologists and social scientists, and used as an ex-post-facto justification for inequality" (Manand, Louise. "Books as Bombs". The New Yorker, Jan 24, 2011). Great quote but unfortunately way over the heads of my students. Instead I simply told them the lecture was wrong thank you very much.
The other aspect of my Eagle class that makes it so fascinating is the flirting. I haven't spent time with middle schoolers since I was one and watching them it doesn't feel so long ago that I was behaving exactly as they do. Its only between the "cool" kids but its absolutely hilarious. While I can relate because I was one of those super cool kids in middle school (and always) as a teacher it has become maybe one of the most annoying this ever and it seems impossible to put a stop to. Its like the three hours in English class are the only time that they get to see people of the other sex and they just can't focus on anything but impressing them. Next week there is going to be a seating chart.
The Eagle class is also the class where they have to do presentations, and I have been assigning different genre's of music. Yesterday we did country with Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. I got the best response from Dolly Parton, mostly because she looks like a barbie and because I followed it up with this video. It seems that it is going to take a little while to really get them to actually use their minds and form and independent opinion of any of the music but I am requiring them to actually listen to the music (why I have to make that a requirement is beyond me) and talk about their opinions in their presentations. So far the kids that have done the best job are these three 12 year old girls that are super smart so hopefully I will get the others to follow in their footsteps.