just a little too late

This is a little late, but here's an update on teaching as of last Friday. Life is certifiably crazy right now as I'm officially homeless until Monday and have a ton of work to do for BTSA and my MA, plus my classes have changed some, etc etc, but this should give you a taste of what I'm up against this year :)

First Period
English 9

I have about 24 (now 18)kids in this class but it feels like 5, since that's about how many speak during the course of the hour. I know from my other classes that it's not because of me, but just because it's 8 in the morning and kids don't guzzle coffee like I do. (They're much better now) I song and dance my way through the hour regardless and get a few laughs. For the most part they are really sweet kids, I only have one student who may pose an actual problem, and it's more an issue of insolence than misbehavior. It's a nice slow start to my day, but it makes me really look forward to second period.

Second Period
Senior Lit & Comp.

I have 30 (now 32)exuberant seniors in this class (3 are varsity football players so we talk a lot of trash about Davis High), and I love each and every one of them more than the next. These kids are awesome; funny, thoughtful, mellow, respectful, and appropriately curious about my personal life (see period 6 for inappropriate curiosity about my personal life!). Today we wrote "I am From" poems in all of my classes. I told the seniors that they could sit with their friends and turn on the radio as long as they kept working. And they did! It was incredible! I've never seen anything like it! Teaching outside of the city is amazing!

Third Period
Prep
Another teacher uses my room during my prep, which stinks, but it's amazing how much photocopying and lesson planning you get done without a computer sitting on your desk to distract you!

Fourth & Fifth Period
English 2

Well, this is an interesting story. I have 7 kids enrolled in this class. Yesterday, after a disastrous 2 hours, I called my Bilingual Ed supervisor and asked if she could review the curriculum with me. I was concerned that either the text we are adopting will be too advanced for the students, or that the students had been placed in my class erroneously. And I was right. All of them were designated CELDT Level 1s so all but one of them have been moved to the English 1 class. Which, of course, leaves me with only one student for two whole hours. I'm not sure what's going to happen with her, or what will happen if they close my class because then I'll be short two classes, but we'll have to wait until next week when all the CELDT testing is finished. Whew!

Period 6
English 9

I originally had 27 (!) kids in this class, but it's down to about 22 now (and now 16!), so that's more manageable (especially since there aren't supposed to be more than 20 kids in any English 9 class this year). These kids are my stars. They are hilarious, bouncing off the walls after 6 hours of class, and almost inappropriately interested in my personal life (this is the class that has no qualms or embarrassments about telling me how pretty I am and asking if I need their home phone numbers for something OTHER than calling their parents, winkwink, nudgenudge). But they are also well-behaved and, again, just all around great kids. (although they're getting a little too squirrely and "not doing their homework-y" for my tastes these days)

I know I should not be amazed that the kids are nice. I also know I should not be fooled into thinking that they are perfect. One look at my 12th graders discipline records will tell you that. However, it's still such a huge difference from teaching in "the city" and I'm so thrilled I decided to take this job.

Two absolutely amazing things happened to me today. During my prep, I went down to the office because I was told that there was a box for me and Katie had sent me a 50 pound box of books! As I struggled to carry this enormous and unwieldy box back to my office, a student coming out of the counselors' office asked if I needed help, and then took the box from me and carried it to my office, all the while making polite conversation and telling me about all of his teachers. Unbelievable! At my old school, I think my students would have watched me be crushed under the weight of the box, and then they would have laughed at me. Truth be told, these kids are probably pretty normal, but to me they are just angels compared to what I dealt with last year.

More later - I'm a real teacher now with real papers to grade and really not enough time to blog!