The glory of .75

I finally started my new job this week and so far it's going great. I am enjoying working with middle schoolers more than I ever thought possible! I always pictured hormonal, mumbling, stinky, sarcastic teens with attitude problems and resentment towards school and teachers, but I am very pleased with the kids that I have been assigned to. They are very nice and fun to be around. I work in one 7th grade English class and I was floored by the comments these kids made. I was almost intimidated (ok, I was totally intimidated) by their worldly knowledge and literature to life connections. In that class the students are going to read Tuck Everlasting and they had to think about whether or not they would want to live forever. The kid who began his sentence, "Well, I presume...." will always have a special place in my heart. :0)

I am also enjoying a little blast from the past with an 8th grade Algebra class. As long as they keep me away from Physics I can handle anything!

On Monday, which was my very first day in the new position, the support services team sat down and planned my schedule. That involved shuffling some students from other caseloads onto mine so the other teachers are no longer exceeding their required number of lessons per week. I teach 20 45-minute lessons a week and I have to be available to sub one period a week as well. The department head insisted that my schedule should leave Friday open so I can have three day weekends because I am young and I am living in Europe. Don't you love her? I am done working at 11:45 on Thursdays so essentially have 3.5 days weekends every week!

Sometimes I sit with students in their classes and help them as the teacher does the lesson (we call that "push-in") and sometimes I take a student to another room to work 1:1 (which we call "pull-out"). It is really cool to have the opportunity to sit in on classes at various grade levels because it is great to see how other teachers teach. It is especially interesting to observe other teachers who are not American. It's also really nice to have the chance to focus on 1 student at a time and really do everything necessary to make sure he/she gets it and is successful.

I have one favorite little guy in the third grade. I would describe him as genius with behavior problems. I am really excited to help make school a better experience for him.

We have a German class tonight. Didn't do our homework. Again. I blame John. If I do it and he doesn't, I make him look bad. He does not do homework. I don't want him to look bad, therefore, we just don't do homework. Hopefully we have some chance of getting beyond numbers, greetings, and letters!