Thursday, March 04, 2010

We Pause for a Station Break

Where I'll be for a while.

Horses I Have Known on Temporary Hold

And here's why.

I spent the day at school, teaching. I have come out of retirement for the rest of the year to cover for a young English teacher who is going out on maternity leave. I am, frankly, just a little mentally tired, so I can't quite bring myself to write the next, much happier chapter. Sorry to leave you all in misery, but I promise you, the next part gets better!

Meantime, here's the deal. I will be teaching in the same school system at the Academy, a high tech school on the campus of the local County College. The school has quite a different atmosphere from what I am used to.

All of the students are basically honor students, and my impression is that they are all smart and motivated. I had a lot of fun interacting with them. I taught the freshman group (9th grade) today, and the regular teacher worked with the 11th grade. The kids seemed really receptive.

The schedule is far less demanding than the ones I had in my old job. Today, the morning was taken up with supervising a sort of study hall in a computer lab. Senior students work there on projects for their engineering courses and I have nothing really to do except work on the computer myself.

Then there is a pretty long break of 2 hours before I teach two afternoon classes (Except on Monday) of 88 minutes each, which is double the length of the classes I am used to. This is what is called "block scheduling" where the kids only take the class three days a week instead of five, still meeting the same time requirements but in a different pattern. For me, that means teaching only four lessons a week (Mondays all the classes meet for one shorter session, so that's a cinch) instead of twenty. (It would take too long to explain, but that's how the math works out.)

Better yet, I will be able to teach Shakespeare plays and hopefully a bit of mythology. I have nearly all my materials from my old lessons, so I'm all set up there too.

All I need to do is get some of the books from my old school--it's all the same school system, and I can share--and I'll be all set. The only shocker to me was that the job will go to the end of the year instead of just a month or so as I had expected.

So, until June, I am a working girl again.

7 comments:

  1. If they pay you really well, you can get some cool new horse stuff.

    Or whatever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:16 PM

    Sound pretty interesting and fun - let us know how it goes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Full of surprises! It sounds as though it might be very rewarding.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I second what SprinklerBandit said! I for one seem to spend all my spare money (when nothing important needs to be bought of course) on saddle pads. I have a rainbow of colors. I'm particularly fond of my wine colored pad though...so classy.

    I thought of becoming a teacher myself. I don't think I'd have the patience. Even when I was younger, the kids in my class irked me. I remember one time some boy put super glue in the key hole while the teacher was coming back from lunch as we were waiting outside! I have much respect for teachers...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gosh that school sounds like a dream. I am really happy for you!

    ReplyDelete
  6. It sounds like you will have a good time teaching again.

    ReplyDelete
  7. will help pay for your unexpected winter expenses, good luck with it.

    ReplyDelete