Countdown to Launch

Tomorrow I meet and greet the incoming freshmen and transfer students at La Grande High School. On Tuesday the regular schedule begins. I'm a little anxious, but in a pleasant anticipatory way. Let the good times roll. Here's how my past week has gone:

I met my cooperating teacher, Evonne Cranford, this past Tuesday. She sounds even more excited about the upcoming school year than me; I take this to be a good sign. Though I have not yet seen her perform in front of a class, she seems quite organized, energetic, and generally 'with it.' With any luck, some of those qualities will rub off on me over the next semester.

On Wednesday morning the school district met in the middle school commons to catch up on budgeting news, introduce new faces (including me and several other EOU student teachers -- hi guys!), and preview the differentiated instruction classes that district teachers will go through this year. I won't bore you with details -- if you're teaching this year, dear reader, then I'm sure you sat through something quite similar.

On Thursday morning the high school math teachers held a department meeting. Ms. Cranford happens to be the department head; lucky me. Most of the discussion went way over my pay-grade; the veterans kicked around ideas about how to reshuffle the class progression. Our comrade Leigh Collins was stuck in there with me: she had been assigned to Pat Desjardin, who teaches math and science. Later that day I learned that she had been reassigned to a different school. Poor Leigh! She sat through that meeting for nothing! If you're reading this, Leigh, I hope you have better luck at your new station.

That left me and Evonne Thursday afternoon, Friday, and tomorrow morning to make other preparations. I have my own desk already; it sits in the front of the class, just to the left of the whiteboard. (Yes, LHS uses dry-erase markers and whiteboards. No, I will not be changing the title of my blog to Marker Jockey.) I spent most of Friday wheeling textbooks into the classroom and making copies of the syllabus. That was fine by me, as I really didn't know how else I could help to prepare. Evonne's a busy lady: she's the math department head, the union rep for the high school, and I think she wears a few other hats too. Her phone rang at least once per hour on average.

Evonne recommended that I start out by teaching her Algebra Plus class first. (It's a transitional class between Algebra I and Geometry.) I have a few ideas for some lessons, but we haven't had time to discuss exactly when and how we're going to split up the teaching duties. That discussion will probably happen this week. I aim to get my feet wet during the week after; that should give me time to learn names and get a feel for her teaching style first. I will try to match and complement her style to the extent I feel comfortable doing so. With any luck this will make the transition from her teaching to my teaching less jarring for the students. Besides, I should learn to drive the car before I try to overhaul the engine.

Wish me luck, comrades. And be sure to tell me how your own classes go! When in doubt, err on the side of posting too much to your blogs (as long as you don't compromise student confidentiality, of course). I'm sure I'll have a lot to learn from everyone.