Went from working an office job and adjunct teaching a couple of freshmen level college Kinesiology classes to taking a job teaching high school PE, Health, Weights and Conditioning, and they decided to throw in Anatomy, at a small charter high school. Am excited, but nervous.
Was informed yesterday that I’m going to have a student-teacher assigned to me for 2 months. Apparently, I’m ready to “step up and take a leadership role”. Do I feed it or something? The more I run away from responsibility, the more it seems to come my way. Also, I got 9th grade for the 6th straight year, yay me! I’ve avoided US History for another year, so I’m doing something right
Been doing a lot of work with your school district lately. Got everything lined up for a charity banquet honoring Dr Townsend and Morgigno in the spring.
Just got my rosters today. Highlights: A student who has not been vaccinated due to “religious reasons” A student who is allergic to horses A 9th grader who got a 27 in Algebra for the year last year Also, after BEGGING for 3 years, I’m finally back to having more sophomores than freshmen
gf teaches first grade and i helped her set up her classroom and man that is a lot of work and driving around buying random shit for it that's all i got
also her school is pretty old and poor. none of the classrooms have doors and each one is one massive room that is separated by two walls to make three classes. seems counterproductive since there is no privacy and tons of distractions but apparently that was common when the school was built and now there is no money to separate them with actual doors is that regular?
yeah that's what i thought. it is morbid but sadly accurate that the first thing i thought of was how fucked they'd be in the event of an active shooter also students wandering into different classrooms around the dividing walls and hearing noise from them seems really distracting and difficult
I mean the first point is very accurate but the first thing I thought of was your second point. Teaching in a middle school I know I’d have all kinds of turds working in and out of my room
yeah its a rural school with a decent immigrant population. principal gave her the roster and said to expect a number of them to just stop showing up for whatever reason. pretty sad. its old but the staff has done a good job setting up the school and hallways to be as positive and vibrant as possible. pretty excited for her.
a lot of newer elementary schools are built where classrooms open into grade-level ‘commons’ area but not having a door is stupid.
I’ve seen them where one of the walls for every classroom is glass. Like it’s a boardroom or something
was gonna mention that imo the setup works well for early elementary but fuuuuuuuck not having access to an enclosed classroom
I’ll be doing some presentations to all of the elementary schools in pearl in two weeks but I think you teach ninth right.
For some reason we have a week and a half of inservice....but they originally only planned for 5 days instead of 8. So they’ve had to spread it out over that time. The result? HUGE swaths of time to prepare my room. Problem is I’ve been done and ready since Monday. Been bored out of my mind
As I was skimming through, I was like wow a 27 in math on the ACT as a freshman. Then I realized Algebra isn't math on the ACT.
Was at Morton Elementary school yesterday during the massive ICE raid in the community. Pretty sad scene.
Change of plans; our principal told me at the EOY meetings that I was going to move up to 7th grade, but it looks like I’m staying in 6th. I actually don’t mind because I get to keep the same room.
Teaching one class in person and one online this fall while I work my regular 40 hr desk job. Gonna be a busy semester But that paycheck
University. I only have master's, not PhD, but there's certain classes I can teach here as a staff member
any of you in athletics have experience with transgender athletes? i’m a counselor and one of my students is trying out for the volleyball team. advocating hard as fuck for her but it seems like most are hoping she doesn’t make the team so we avoid tough conversations. she will be the first transgender athlete in our district if she makes the team (and her hardship is approved by the high school league)
I had a "he that identified as she" (sorry for incorrect title) that was planning on doing track. The AD contacted the state activities association and they said there can be one declaration as male or female, then the individual had to stick with it the rest of their time in school. The kid only came to one practice then quit, so things weren't pursued any further.
yea it sounds like there’s a lot of room in our process for the hilljacks to slow-play it and eventually make it a nonissue. right now our admin and AD are being amenable but they for sure would be just fine if it gets shot down at the state level it’s middle school volleyball and she’s taking testosterone blockers so i will be pretty miffed it they try to pull some competitive advantage type shit.
Wife’s first day teaching was Wednesday and already she’s had 3 sets of parents forget to pick up their kids from school, including one set who went home and got so high after they dropped their kid off on the first day that they had to be woken up to come pick them up
I suspect one of my advanced students was in a situation like that last year, probably ended up missing 25 days of my class because of it. I asked him one day if he was coming in so late because he was missing the bus, but he shook his head and said “Sometimes I wake up and my mom’s not at home”. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you thankful you had parents that nagged you.
Ran my first discussion sections today. Enrollment is way down (45 students in a class designed for 80-100) and my last section currently has 2 students in it. Still, pretty happy with how it went. Would be interested in any tips you guys might have for starting/facilitating discussions (TA'ing for a survey course on American history)
1. Make them talk some the very first day so they get used to the fact that it's not just you talking the whole time 2. Open class with a funny video sometimes; gets people loosened up and more ready to talk 3. Let students submit some of the questions 4. Do either "think-pair-share" or groups of 4-5 that discuss amongst themselves for a minute, then share out to the group as a whole 5. Give them some info about you -- why do you like history so much? What are you like outside school?
Ps how tf is your enrollment that low? Did Florida stop requiring history of all majors? Normally surveys of American history stay packed bc every major on campus needs one
My enrollment is way down in my 7th period class because the school made a rule that anyone who takes 4 APs can have a study hall instead of an elective. I only have 17 in a class that had 28 last year. I’m making up for it because the rest of my classes have 29-32.
That sounds optimal. Lower enrollment is almost always good, except when you get below a critical threshold. If that section with 2 in it that yaywaffles has doesn't get some more students it'll prob end up getting canceled or consolidated to another section
We're planning on siphoning off students from other sections. For some reason, the first section has 19 students. The other two have 12 and 11 respectively. Section assignment isn't done by the students (and I doubt they'd be racing to sign up for the 9:30 friday morning section anyway), so I don't really know what the issue is. I was actually assigned three sections (total of six for the class), but we just don't have enough people.