High School Land

High school is a completely different place. Nothing in all of my educational past has prepared me for this experience. First they introduce over 140 faculty members and expect me to remember them all. Fat chance. And then there is the major difference. There is no teaming. While my teaming experience was not the best in the world...it was still a team. I didn't realize how much I enjoy the middle school concept of teams until now. I think it will be very easy to get lost and feel isolated in the high school environment. The focus is on content and each teacher teaches his or her thing. I don't know how much I will enjoy high school.

I am still excited about teaching though. We got our new science textbooks today. The only problem is that the company shipped the wrong teacher materials...so we don't have teacher books or any of the other useful things that we are supposed to have. At this point we are told that we will have them "sometime"....which in the world of education means anytime between today and next year. Oh well...it isn't too big of a deal...I taught for 3 years without a teacher manual!

We received our duty assignments today. We are required to do 30 minutes of duty a day. (Which I think is quite alot!) Since I tend to be a morning person I asked to have the very early morning duty. It starts at 7:20am. That is no big deal...the big deal is that they gave me gym duty. Now anyone that knows schools, knows that the gym is one of the major places for kids to wait in the morning before school. So here...the brand new person...never been in the school...never taught high school...was given the absolute worst and hardest duty in the building. All of the others that have early morning duty (which is very few...another major problem) were shocked and worried about this. Fortunately there is a nice coach that will be right outside in case of emergencies...which will be quite often from the sound of things. However, I am not really worried. I have a "heads-up"....I can start being mean on the very first day....Basically I am in charge of crowd control...a very very large crowd. I feel confident in my ablities...and if not then...well...I am great at observing what is going on so I can tell them who to arrest!

Overall it was a fairly uneventful day. Tomorrow we have a science department meeting at 8am and then lap top training at 10:30....but then we are free the rest of the day to work in our rooms. It is good getting to know some other people. I think that I will be working with some great people.

So tomorrow...it is back to the land of high school...for more fun!