Another New Job

I am changing jobs after the semester is over, it was too hard, the schedule, the students, the people, the chemistry on a cart. Going to work at a charter school teaching math. I think I could handle the students who didn't want to learn but not all the rest of it. This gets me back on the path I wanted to be on anyway.

I will be teaching Geometry and Stats and I will have my own room again.

Not too sure about this

I am six weeks in and I am not feeling too good. Some parts are ok. I am feeling ok about my classroom management. On Wednesday (when I was having a formal evaluation) my fifth hour kids worked like angels and seemed to be engaged and even showed evidence that they learned something.

I just don't like my schedule, 7 period day, five 45 min classes, one 45 min prep, 15 min for lunch and 45 min in my PLC, every day. Then I work at school until 4, go home make dinner, work on prep until 8:30 or 9, go to bed so I can wake up at 5, get back to school at 6:30, students at 7:15. It is a grueling schedule and I teach in 3 different rooms, science on a cart. I have 150 students and have not made enough phone calls. I tried doing it yesterday, but I cannot get on the data base to find the numbers. I feel crappy about my grading because I haven't figured out how to do sbg with my new curriculum (science, not math) and I am still working on a concept list. The bell schedule and prison type atmosphere (every door is locked at all times) is making me crazy. I am drinking Tension Tamer  and "Happy" Tea to help me through the day. I dread Mondays and the weeks are long.

Starting Over

I feel like a new teacher again and it is hard. I started at a new school teaching Chemistry and Physical Science not Math at all. I miss math a little. I hardly know anyone. I travel (three different classrooms a day). I have to submit detailed daily lesson plans for the entire week every Monday by 8 am to my coach. I am having trouble with the routines and expectations (breakfast to go, daily announcements, getting to my next class, setting up (and I havent done any real labs yet). OK enough complaining, that is the bad part, except one more thing, I need a computer , it is on order but there is some sort of problem with our district and Apple's new operating system. I am a Mac Baby. I cry if I have to use a PC (not, really, I am getting better at it, but I really miss the Mac).

Here is the good part. My coworkers are helpful as can be. I like the students a lot. I am not having issues with my classroom management. I was really worried about this after working in a private school so long. I can feel how my experience is helping me through this transition. Being new is both tiring and invigorating. I am trying Interactive notebooks and I just graded a big batch and they were pretty good.

What the Heck?

I have been thinking about writing about my interviewing experience for a while. I have talked to friends and family about an injustice that I experienced. The injustice is not really directed at me but at the students in some of these schools. First of all you should know that most of my experience has been in private schools. But, I went to a Chicago Public School, I taught my first year at a suburban public school and I taught summer school in an urban setting this year. At two of the  urban, public schools where I interviewed, I felt scolded for my lack of experience with "tough" kids. I was essentially told that I was totally unprepared to teach this type of student because these students don't want to learn and their behavior is bad.

Hmm.

Do all private school kids have great behavior and want to learn?  Do all public school kids have bad behavior and hate learning? We know that is not true. This experience is still bothering me because I feel like there can be no movement of teachers from private schools to public schools and a lot of what I have learned about teaching came from my private school experiences.  Thankfully, I did get a job at a public school and I can transfer my skills but it still bugs me that these two schools couldn't see that and they have a crummy attitude about their own students behavior and desire to learn.

New Job

I finally got a job. I will be teaching Chemistry at a St. Paul Public School in the fall. I will miss teaching math but right now, I am having fun just being a math student.

Homework and Trust

During my talk today, I talked about this post by Jason Buell. I also like this response to that post from Frank Noschese. BTW, Frank Noschese also just did a TED video that was really great (you have to skip to about 45 minutes to see it, the official video hasn't been published yet).

MCTM Spring Conference 2012

I gave my second presentation today at MCTM on sbg again. I could tell I wasn't as fired up about it as I was last year, though I still feel it is important. Part of that is because I don't know what I am doing next year (see Quitting My Job post below). I saw many great presentations the last few days. On Friday, I really liked the STEM presentation I went to and Sara Vanderwerf's. I stayed for a little bit of the Rational Number Project and then the Blake teachers who are using sbg with problem solving. Today, I learned about Project Lead the Way and I really liked Chris Danielson's presentation connecting middle school Algebra with Calculus.

On Thursday, I went to the Ross Taylor Symposium on the SciMath Frameworks. I should have mentioned that during my talk because I plan to use that a lot.

Anyway, if you came to my presentation, here is a link to a pdf of my talk and an Algebra Syllabus that has a concept list and details of how I have implemented sbg. There is also a Geometry Concept list.