Required Blog: What after-school activities are you doing?

Well, last week I finally started coaching.  We had baseball tryouts last week when a frigid cold front moved through the entire Southeast.  It was rough.  It was freezing.  But, it was fun.  It was really great seeing some of these kids outside of school.  This week we started practice, Mondays and Wednesdays only, until Christmas.  After that, it's on.  We will be practicing every day and even on Saturdays when we don't have games.  That is going to be rough, but the other coaches are really cool and will be really lenient with me as well. 

It was a breath of fresh air dealing with these kids outside of the classroom setting.  Although only a few of them are my actual students (most of the players are upper-class men) and I teach the bottom of the barrel (freshmen), it was still nice.  They are much more respectful, and much more personal.  I am only an assistant, but they still treated me like an actual leader, which was surprising.  It really makes a huge difference when you see these kids doing something outside of school that they actually want to do. 

I think that is most of the problem with education in the state of Mississippi:  The kids simply do not want to be there, and that makes it tough as hell on any teacher...

One of my students is one the team, and he had my class today.  He was acting up, I shot him the teacher look, he asked, "What, Mr. Gray?"  I responded sternly, "You can call me Coach Gray from now on Jamal."  That shut him up real quick!