After finishing my Master's Degree in June Chris and I decided to "test the waters" by submitting applications to various school districts. Low and behold I got a call five days before school started asking to interview. They hired me the day I interviewed and I was officially back to work.
I really enjoy teaching again even though I've been struggling with time-management. I'm not sure how working moms pull everything together!
I am actually only part-time (yet I'm out of the house at least five hours every day...) so I get to be with the boys in the morning before heading to school. I can be home as soon as a half hour after Jonathan is done with kindergarten. My mom has graciously agreed to keep Drew when he is not in school and Chris is working.
I think we are all adjusting well to our new schedules.
These pictures were taken while Andrea and I were busy getting the room ready. As you can tell the building is really old!
There were countless bookshelves full of old textbooks and other unuseable items. I had file cabinets full of broken calculators, spare change, coffee mugs, and enough push pins to pin up my pi poster to the nth place value...(that one was for you Amber...)
My room formerly housed the same math teacher for all (or most) of his teaching career. Over the years he collected many (at that time) useful items. I can say with confidence that he was definitely a pack rat and doubt highly whether he ever threw anything away. No worries! I did it for him!
After two full days of purging and cleaning I finally felt better about my room. Granted, I only spend two periods teaching here but I wanted a place to call my own. I feel very fortunate to have been given my own room!
Besides the room pictured here, which is my high school room, I also teach for one period at the Jr. High building. I have not yet taken any pictures of that room because I haven't personalized it...unless putting mints in the top desk drawer counts.
In case you are wondering:
1. No, neither building has air conditioning.
2. Yes, I think graphing calculators are cool.
3. Yes, my students drive me crazy...but at the same time I'm really enjoying what I'm doing.
4. I leave my house between 9:30 and 10:00 each morning. My duty day starts at the Jr. High where I teach Algebra I to 8th graders. I arrive between 10 or 10:30 and that allows me between a half hour and an hour of prep time before I start class at 11:00. The class is over by around 12:10 and I have until 12:55 before I am expected to teach again at the High School. I teach two periods at the High School (Algebra II and I) that span between 1:00 and 2:30. My duty day is over at 2:45. There are times that I stay later but those are rare. By the afternoon I'm ready to go home and see my boys. I'm tired and I constantly wonder how I would do it if I were expected to teach full time. What a wimp.
5. Yes, the curtains in the pictures are old and crusty. My windows don't open properly, and my chair seems to be from the school's inaugural year.
6. In spite of all of my previous jabs it seems to be a great district with quality teachers and administrators.
This was the RIP cabinet. I found lots of old and outdated textbooks here, stickers from various collages (I'm assuming his students would come back and visit him and give him a sticker,) and other crappy things...
This picture shows a nice view of the broken windows and more crap.
More crap and empty bulletin boards. I ended up having Chris cover the front left board with white board and we took down a bulletin board that was covering a chalk board on the far left wall. The back wall was covered with yucky bulletin board space so we also covered that and divided it up into three separate spaces.
In order to work at my computer I have to have my back to the students...very wise...
I ended up making the board behind the computer bulletin board space as well.
The infamous curtains.
Every good teacher posts the standards in his or her room! Mine are above the back bulletin board.
One of the coolest things about my room is the clock. You can't see it from the picture but it's a unit circle. The kids say they can't read it...
I owe Andrea a huge thanks for helping me. I would never have been able to be ready in time without her! Thanks to Chris for being the handy man that he is, and thanks to the boys for being patient and spending lots of time in the room while I worked...
