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Oh, an update -- school's started
Aug. 29th, 2006 10:07 pmA friend pointed out that she hadn't even known that I'd started teaching. I guess it's time to update.
I don't think I wrote about it in here (did I?) although I've talked to friends about it a fair amount. While I was in Chicago, my principal called -- it was early August, like, the third or fourth of August. She told me that she needed to change my teaching assignment. Now, this is absolutely fucking routine in Oakland proper, where one cannot count on one's teaching assignment remaining stable even once the school year has started. Mine was shifted as late as November one year, and fairly often in October. It's all nonsense, there. And chaos, and ill management, and just general instability in the school population, too: it's very hard to predict how many students who are projected to show up will actually arrive. But that's not true here in this new district.
Anyway, my new teaching assignment... I didn't feel like I could refuse to switch, because I'd used up all my outrage and fury and just... bald, balking refusal when she asked me to teach math/science, in the Spring. So I accepted. The new assignment is to teach English Language Learners, or English Language Development. With the population my school serves, this is really mostly Spanish speakers, although there is sometimes a Chinese speaker or a Punjabi speaker or the like.
That's what I knew then. What I found out last Friday is that it's not just being an ELL teacher, rather than a plain old 7th grade Language Arts/Social Studies Core teacher, but the ELL Coordinator for my site. I am not sure why I am not collapsing from being overwhelmed and stressed out by that. But I don't seem to be. So far, after two days, I feel like maybe I'll be able to do this and rise to the challenge and blah blah blah. I tend to feel very competent in questions of being organized about paperwork and tracking data and testing stuff. Doing that AND planning lessons... well, there is a curriculum and textbooks, at least, and it's even one I'm familiar with -- I taught it in Oakland for three years, where I was kind of ambivalent about the fact that I somewhat liked the program, even though it's scripted.
So, anyway, school started Monday, and I like my students very much. The composition of my classes will change a lot as the testing results start accumulating -- I'm supposed to have the students who have the least English. But they seem very, very nice. That's actually the part I'm least sure of: teaching English as a Second Language to kids who've just arrived. Especially if there are only a few and the rest of the class is orally fluent. I'm not sure how to balance it. But I also sort of feel like... like maybe I could become good at this.
PS. this icon has nothing to do with this entry, but I love it -- it's a Bollywood hero brandishing a hammer and sickle at his enemies, because, well, coolies/porters are the workers of the world, innit?
I don't think I wrote about it in here (did I?) although I've talked to friends about it a fair amount. While I was in Chicago, my principal called -- it was early August, like, the third or fourth of August. She told me that she needed to change my teaching assignment. Now, this is absolutely fucking routine in Oakland proper, where one cannot count on one's teaching assignment remaining stable even once the school year has started. Mine was shifted as late as November one year, and fairly often in October. It's all nonsense, there. And chaos, and ill management, and just general instability in the school population, too: it's very hard to predict how many students who are projected to show up will actually arrive. But that's not true here in this new district.
Anyway, my new teaching assignment... I didn't feel like I could refuse to switch, because I'd used up all my outrage and fury and just... bald, balking refusal when she asked me to teach math/science, in the Spring. So I accepted. The new assignment is to teach English Language Learners, or English Language Development. With the population my school serves, this is really mostly Spanish speakers, although there is sometimes a Chinese speaker or a Punjabi speaker or the like.
That's what I knew then. What I found out last Friday is that it's not just being an ELL teacher, rather than a plain old 7th grade Language Arts/Social Studies Core teacher, but the ELL Coordinator for my site. I am not sure why I am not collapsing from being overwhelmed and stressed out by that. But I don't seem to be. So far, after two days, I feel like maybe I'll be able to do this and rise to the challenge and blah blah blah. I tend to feel very competent in questions of being organized about paperwork and tracking data and testing stuff. Doing that AND planning lessons... well, there is a curriculum and textbooks, at least, and it's even one I'm familiar with -- I taught it in Oakland for three years, where I was kind of ambivalent about the fact that I somewhat liked the program, even though it's scripted.
So, anyway, school started Monday, and I like my students very much. The composition of my classes will change a lot as the testing results start accumulating -- I'm supposed to have the students who have the least English. But they seem very, very nice. That's actually the part I'm least sure of: teaching English as a Second Language to kids who've just arrived. Especially if there are only a few and the rest of the class is orally fluent. I'm not sure how to balance it. But I also sort of feel like... like maybe I could become good at this.
PS. this icon has nothing to do with this entry, but I love it -- it's a Bollywood hero brandishing a hammer and sickle at his enemies, because, well, coolies/porters are the workers of the world, innit?
