*Sigh*
It's been a busy year. It seems that since September both Erin and I have been going non-stop, but now that school is out we finally have a chance to look back and reflect.
After 3 years being PT then FT then PT teaching at a high school, sometimes really teaching sometimes just internet teaching and finally being at two buildings, this was my first year FT at McLoughlin Middle School (Go Pioneers!). I taught two sections of 7th grade Humanities (WA State History)/ Language Arts and one of Intensive Reading (students more than 2 grade levels behind in reading level). It was quite a challenging year and I learned a ton about the curriculum (thanks Erin for sharing all your lessons with me), about building relationships with 7th graders (it's really important), and just dealing with all the other challenges in today's education system.
It was great to be part one school community and to be able to embrace everything that goes with that. We had a brand new principal this year and so conversations about technique and climate and culture were abundant and frequent and it was nice to be a part of that. It was great to know that I am not the only teacher who struggles with motivating 7th graders to focus on learning rather than hormones.
One thing that made life busy this year was coaching. Being in one building and in a middle school made coaching possible. I coached both boys basketball and track this year. It was a ton of fun and they paid me to do it.
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Coaching basketball is something I've always been interested in, and have a little experience doing. I helped coach a few rec league teams back in college and even helped as a JV assistant for a year at my alma mater. I love the sport and coaching is a great way to stay involved and close to the game. I almost coached girls basketball too, but didn't have my first aid/ CPR card up to date so I missed out on that job. Luckily I got that taken care of and was able to coach boys basketball.
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I coached a 7th grade JV basketball team at Erin's school. It was a blast. It was a lot of work, but a ton of fun. My team was one of 3 JV teams and I had one player who had played organized basketball of some sort before. It was quite a challenge and I learned a lot about coaching, but in the end we had a good season. We went 3-5 and lost two games in the final minute that we could have won. In the end the team learned how to work hard and have fun. They learned quite a bit about the game of basketball and hopefully a little something about life as well. Next year I am hoping to be able to coach at my own school and am really exited to do so. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the competitiveness of coaching along with just being closer to the sport of basketball and passing along some knowledge to the players.
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| Picture day was the one practice I missed since Nathan was sick. |
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I also coached track at MAC. It was a last second deal and despite being hesitant at first I was glad I did it. I was one of the last coaches brought on after enough students turned out. I ended up coaching discus, which was interesting (thank you youtube). Track was so different than basketball, it was much less competitive and really just about students getting exposure to sports and improving individually. It was great fostering relationships with students outside the classroom and being a positive influence on them. I hope to be able to coach track again next year.
Coaching was not just hard work for me, it was also hard work for Erin. Coaching had me come home about an hour or more later than normal. This lead Erin to have to occupy both Nathan and Andrew when they came home along with making dinner getting them fed and often getting them to bed all on her own. An understatement would be to say the boys are hungry when they get home. They are usually hungry and demanding food immediately. It can be quite the challenge to occupy or distract them while trying to prepare some sort of healthy meal at the same time. Erin may have done more work than I did coaching because I wasn't home on time.
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As the year progressed it just got harder and harder. Students that would do a little work started refusing any work come spring break and were there solely to disrupt the class. Coaching was a bright spot. State testing and test prep dominated the curriculum and struggling students began giving up rather than trying harder. Looking to next year I am excited. I am getting a bunch of training this summer in English Language Lerner strategies which should be immensely helpful considering close to 1/3 of our students are classified as ELL. I'm also trading my struggling reader class for an honors block which is very exciting. This will be the first year I get to repeat and teach something from start to finish again in the same school. I am excited to improve upon what I did this year and be a better teacher and coach next year.
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