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Karma

My journey to be a FT teacher has been filled with many ups and downs over the past four years.  I'll let you read all about that journey here, here and here.  But I wanted to share great news with all our readers.  I already know where and what I will be teaching next year!  This is the earliest point in the year that I have ever had official confirmation that I have a job, let alone what I will be teaching.

Next year I will be teaching full time at McLoughlin Middle School (Mac).  It is the same school that I taught one class at this year.  I'll be teaching two "Hula" blocks, Humanities and Language Arts, and an Intensive Literature class.  The Hula class is Ancient Civilizations along with Language Arts, and the Intensive Lit class is a reading, writing and SS class for students 2-3 grades behind grade level; it is the same class I taught this year at the Mac.

I am quite excited about this change.  For the first time I will have my own classroom.  The downside is that now I will have my own classroom.  This means I'll have to make it pretty with posters and decorations and all sorts of helpful things to help students learn.  Most teachers are packrats and have all sorts of supplies and junk in their classroom.  Since I've always shared space, I've never had to worry about making a classroom pretty, or having many resources or supplies.  That will change this next year.

The one part of the change that is bitter sweet is that I will be going from mostly teaching high school, to teaching middle school full time.  There are parts of middle school I definitely enjoy.  Students are fun, most of my jokes go right over their heads, they are gullible and believe anything a teacher tells them.   In middle school as long as I say something with confidence, they'll believe it, even if I am only halfway sure it is true.  Believe it or not middle school students are more compliant than high school students, and discipline is much easier.  I think they are still just a bit scared of authority still unlike high school students.

Of course with that I will miss many things about being a high school teacher.  Seeing students grow into young men and women who are just on the cusp of their future and the real world is extraordinarily rewarding.  I also love being involved in the process of students figuring out what they think about the world and history and how the world works.  At least attempting higher level conversation with students is challenge and a privilege.

Much of my job at Fort Vancouver High School revolves around credit recovery and helping students graduate on time who otherwise would not have that opportunity.  This has been an incredible blessing while also being extremely frustrating.  Three years ago when I started at FVHS myself and two colleagues with little direction started the Success Academy program and in the last three years we have helped somewhere between 75-100 students graduate on time.  These students had to overcome immense challenges to graduate.  Some had to be pushed and pulled across the stage to get their diploma.  At times this job seemed impossible, but I worked hard to make the program the best possible, putting in place a solid structure that should endure in the years to come.  I  am a bit possessive of the program and want it to continue to have the success it has going forward.  Letting go of that will be hard.

Moving to middle school also may allow me to do some coaching, which due to the alternative schedule of my previous position was not possible at FVHS.  I am hopeful I will be able to coach either girls or boys basketball next year.  This should be lots of fun.  It's been quite a few years since I coached, but it is something I always wanted to do while teaching and middle school coaching really is just about teaching the kids new skills and having some fun.  Of course, I will want to win every single game no matter the skill level of my team or the opponent.

I did leave one small detail out of my move to middle school, and that is that I will be teaching all 6th grade classes.  Oy vey!  6th grade is definitely not my first choice assignment at a middle school.  First off they are so small, students seem to just sprout from 6th to 7th grade.  I certainly will tower over them, but then again, muahaha, that might work to my advantage.

Anyway, this brings me to the title of this blog post, "Karma."  My mom recently was so kind to bring over the last of my childhood trinkets, which just happened to include all my report cards.  I glanced through just a few, but as you can see below the comment from my 6th grade teacher Mr. Tharp stood out above all the rest.  There are only a few classmates that I still keep in touch with that know all the embarrassing details about my antics and awkwardness in 6th grade, but Jon Moor loves to share stories if he has the chance.  Erin of course upon reading the comment simply responded with, "Some things never change."  Whatever antics and annoying behaviors I endure next year at the hands of my 6th graders I will certainly deserve.


Update:  I found out this week that I will actually be teaching 7th grade.  This is awesome considering I have more experience teaching 7th grade than any other middle school grade.  It is also the same class that Erin teaches, and the Social Studies content is WA State History, meaning we'll have way too many local history nerd talks over the next year.  I am so much more excited about 7th grade vs. 6th grade.

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