Jobless No More
I was offered a job at my first choice high school and took it enthusiastically. Which is good, because I got a note from High School From Hell that although they were impressed and will watch my career with interest, blah blah blah, they went with another candidate. I finally got a call back from HS #1 telling me that I was one of their top 2 choices and asking if I'd come in and meet the principal. Good Lord -- it took them over a week to narrow it down to their top two? I'm glad I no longer have the option of working there. I was even able to cancel the interview at the middle school, which made me very happy.
The original position I interviewed for at First Choice was for 11th and 12th grade, but the department head, Mr. Pierogie, told me that he had switched it around so that I'd be teaching five 9th-grade classes (although he also told me he'd like to groom me to teach AP courses, and it's nice to have a career path).
Orientation starts in two weeks. School starts in four. I'm filled with a mixture of excitement and dread.
The original position I interviewed for at First Choice was for 11th and 12th grade, but the department head, Mr. Pierogie, told me that he had switched it around so that I'd be teaching five 9th-grade classes (although he also told me he'd like to groom me to teach AP courses, and it's nice to have a career path).
Orientation starts in two weeks. School starts in four. I'm filled with a mixture of excitement and dread.
Labels: teaching, Won't someone please hire me?
posted by ilse at 11:33 AM
19 Comments:
YAY! and another YAY for good measure! Heartfelt congratulations!! I've been thinking about you all week, checking here to see if there was any news yet. I can't think of many people who would be more suited to this vocation than you. They're going to love you, students and colleagues alike. Go knock 'em dead.
And good news on the AP thing. I can tell you from experience that they're my best and most irritating students, both. It's a challenge, but a rewarding one. And? you get to look forward to submitting a Course Audit to the College Board. I know thats years away, but something to look forward to.
Thanks :)
...and when the AP time comes, you can be absolutely certain that I will be consulting you about it!
i'm so excited for you!!! i LOVE teaching 9th grade and, imo, it's the best place to start. you really don't want to mess with seniors your first few years--they can be such pains in the ass.
I'm just excited because I already have lesson plans for the second half of the year, when I'm going to be carrying a 9-credit course load myownself.
Another thing I'm going to have to adjust to is going from a 90-minute block schedule to a 45-minute period schedule. How do you get anything done in 45 minutes?
Can't help you with the 45 min. thing. We've been on the block for 10 years and we'll never go back. When we have the rare 45 minute periods (when we have only a half day of school for some reason), it seems like I've just taken attendance when the bell rings.
Best suggestion I have? Preach the block gospel to your new school. :)
Congratulations!
Does this mean you're releasing me from the pre-nup?
You wish.
45 minute classes (we did 50 and 55) are not terrible, imo. just a mindset switch.
one girl i teach with has had good success with lit days and writing days--3 days per week she does lit and 2 writing. that would work well on 45 minutes, too. me, i'm not that compartimentalized.
when i did shorter classes, i would have a short intro activity--like 5 minutes--and then main lesson--30-35 minutes--then review, closure, etc. for the remaining. the biggest difference, imo, is there is precious little time for them to do assignments in class. you have to pick and choose.
the perk, imo, is that you have the kids daily all year. i REALLY wish we could get off our shitty semester-block schedule and go back to 50 or 55 minute periods (and i know goth disagrees, but his block is better than mine).
you'll adapt--you'll overplan like mad the first couple of weeks and then it will all fall into place.
Luckily, I have lesson plans prepared (well, mostly) for the first three weeks, as that was an assignment for one of my summer grad school classes, and I made them up based on a 45-50 minute period.
That IS one of the drawbacks to the block schedule, IMO -- if, for instance, you have an "A" day on Tuesday and Thursday one week, and a student is absent on Thursday, you don't see that student for almost a week (the following Monday). There isn't day-to-day consistency.
At our school, we have an on-line system (called "Blackboard") in which teachers can upload handouts, presentations, class notes (I can put my SmartBoard activities there), etc. so that if a student misses (or even if they were there and want a review), they have to take responsibility and get the stuff they missed. It takes me fewer than 5 minutes at the end of the day to upload everything. And I can also communicate with the students via Blackboard if they have any questions. So I might not have in-class contact, but there's contact. (I've been using Blackboard all summer for my summer reading assignments, for example.)
And there are some students I don't mind going from Tuesday to Monday without seeing. Just sayin. ;-)
We have Blackboard, too -- or my new school will. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works. My old school had its own system, which was very user-unfriendly, and given the time crunches I was usually under, I deemed it a lower priority than, y'know, actually having lessons prepared and papers graded.
I use the discussion board part of Blackboard pretty extensively. We have novel discussions there, and that hits the students who don't want to say something in class or need time to gather their thoughts. I also borrowed a page from our boards and give them an Off-topic forum; it keeps the serious discussions from going off topic and lets me listen in on what's important to them in their personal lives. (Sometimes they forget I'm listening in, sort of like my kids do when I'm driving them and their friends someplace.)
I also use the messages (sort of like an e-mail system), announcements, and course documents sections of Blackboard fairly often. Oh, and digital dropbox for when they submit assignments. The rest I pretty much leave alone. The students I know use the digital dropbox to save their assignments and drafts, so they're available when they switch computers, or move from school to home. All in all, it's a pretty good system. And very user friendly.
Ok, I take it all back. Blackboard yesterday just switched to a new server (for us) and new software. It's full of bugs and is horrible--HORRIBLE--to navigate around.
That, plus the fact that they made the switch before school starts to give teachers time to ready their classes. Neglecting, of course, to inform those teachers who had been using the system for their summer contacts. (They neglected to inform just about anyone, it seems. I found out when I logged in yesterday.) It's going to take a while to transfer everything now, assumming of course that they can still grant me access to the old stuff. (After 1 day and a flurry of e-mails and phone calls, nobody has yet to say sure, it can be done.) And so much for all the information/directions I posted to students writing their summer essays which are due first day of class.
Love it when they make more work for me, when I already have so little to do. Fuckers.
Don't get me started on block schedules!! Oh wait, I am started. First of all, what is the friggin point of block schedules? Not enough teachers, class space, WHAT????
I was introduced to it last year, my son's freshman year of HS. He was fortunate enough to have blocked study freakin hall and algebra. Now tell me, what is a kid going to do in a 2 hour study hall? Oh, and if you knew his algebra teacher, you'd kill yourself if you had to spend 2 period blocks listening to her!
Can you tell I DESPISE the block schedule? B got bumped down to Geometry B this year because of that stoopid block schedule, and now he has blocked "dumbo math" (his term, not mine) *YAWN*
I can see blocking something like art, or music, or cooking, but leave the core classes the fvck alone! Not all kids can take 2 straight periods of math or science! Thank cod they don't block English.
/rant
Oh, sorry for being rude. Congrats Ilse! You'll be an awesome teacher, kids will be begging to block with you!
I guess I'm a little late here, but congrats! I guess you've probably started already. Hope it's going well.
Hi, Ilse.
How's it going, anyhow?
Blogless no more too?
Mrxoua go the squigs.
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