which may seem a little premature. After all, I do not see students until next week. This was teacher planning week, full of meetings, setting up the classroom, making copies, and even planning.
I am back in my role as a classroom teacher.
I will have 6 classes, each of which will meet alternate days for 90 minutes, a new pattern for me, one requiring me to totally rethink even lessons which have always been successful, because you cannot simply put 2 45 minute lessons together.
I will be teaching 3 sections of AP Government, with a new book and a defined syllabus, within which I will have to operate.
And I am also in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) program, with courses in STEM Policy (semester), Environmental Media, and Research and Data Analysis.
I have 88 students in AP gov, and a total this semester as of right now ofI think 38 (it could be up to 48) in STEM - these classes are all project based learning.
I also have an advisory of 9th grade students, all in the STEM program, with whom I will meet every day this forthcoming week, and then roughly weekly thereafter. Assuming I continue at the school, I will keep them as they progress through all four grades. And I have 31 of them.
Come along as I share some of what I consider as I prepare to embark on a new teaching adventure.
I know I am a good teacher, but feel a little unsettled, because of the three STEM courses, none of which have I taught before. I find it difficult right now to plan in any detail until I get to know the students. I will meet them on either Tuesday or Wednesday. I need two days of lessons this week, which because of daily advisories will only be 70 or 75 minutes long. The first day is largely administrative, and getting acquainted. But I have to have activities which immediately begin the academic learning process. Later today I will probably take a long walk as I attempt to work out some details for the two days.
I am also unsettled because the expectations on me are so high. I was hired by the previous principal, with the approval of the administrator responsible for the STEM program and the program director. None of them are still at the school. Last Monday, when the new principal (who had been an assistant principal at the school) introduced the new staff, she added to my introduction that they were really looking forward to me teach. I have been told by several teachers in other departments that they have heard such good things about my teaching. That does create a certain amount of tension or pressure - I do not want to disappoint.
I know that I have the full support of the administration within the school and in the central office. I have been told so directly by people up to the level of assistant superintendent and I have seen it in actions taken to ensure I am not overburdened - when one class wound up with 40 students the principal insisted upon splitting it so that I did not have too many students to function effectively.
The expectations make me feel a little insecure, which has kept me from moving as quickly in my planning. On the other hand, the expectations motivate me to put in the effort and energy.
I face a 45 mile commute each way. As one teaching on matters of the environment, I have some guilt at the carbon footprint that represents, even as I drive a hybrid and try to hyper- mile. There is no chance of moving, and I very much wanted to work in this setting, so I will try to make up for it by finally minimizing my carbon footprint in other areas of my life. The drive to work is a time to listen to music that inspires and calms me. Coming home? I suspect it will often be a time of reflection on what has happened during the day.
My wife has expressed some worry about whether at 67 I am up for this. My department chair in Social Studies is around my age, perhaps a year or so younger, and he plans to retire I believe the year after this. Leaves (wife) wants me to be a teacher, because I am so much easier to be with when I am functioning in this my real vocation. But she saw me collapse on Friday night, getting 9.5 hours sleep. I know that I will have to pace myself in a way I did not a few years ago. Because I do not have the other responsibilities I had at my last high school - being lead union rep at a time of some serious conflict between faculty and administration - and because I am going in to this aware of my lower levels of energy, I do not thing it will be a problem, but if I find difficulties it will be other things, for example the time spent here or in reviewing books on education, on which I will cut back. The teaching remains essential.
U have already basically withdrawn from active politicking in Virginia, even with three statewide races where I know all three Democratic candidates, and competitive races in a number of House of Delegates districts. As important as some of those races are, other than occasionally writing or perhaps offering some advice behind the scenes, I will have to leave that to others.
In part it is because as I wrote here some years ago, Teaching is my essential political action. It is how I make the greatest difference, by interacting with young people, and through them with a larger community.
Teaching is also what fuels the best of my writing, not merely on education, because it forces me to consider things through the eyes of the young people for whom I assume a shared responsibility of co-learning.
So I expect that my reflecting on teaching and school and students will continue not only as a major part of my teaching practice, but as something I will regularly share here as well.
I hope people don't mind.
And I look forward to their feedback.
I cannot wait to again be with students.
Peace.