Back to School

School started last Monday. I found out what I was supposed to be teaching when I walked in that morning and checked the online grading system. 1st Period: General US History, 2nd Period: AP US History, and 3rd Period: AP US History. The AP classes are year-long, but I will only have the general US class until Christmas. This schedule will be a lot of work, since 11th grade History is a highly-tested subject in Georgia, but it is a lot more interesting to me than the other social studies classes.

The school is just as unorganized and out-of-touch as ever, but there were a few pleasant surprises as I started the year. My room is awesome. I love having a place to work, a board that I can write lessons on, walls that I can decorate, and a phone that I can use to call parents. It is right across from the discipline office, so hopefully that will give the students a little extra incentive to behave.



With all the last minute schedule-changing that went on, I somehow ended up with 4th period planning. My 3rd period class leaves for the last lunch wave at 12:50, which means I am done teaching each day by 12:50. I still have hall duty from 1:20-1:40, but 4th period is the longest period of the day and I am SO thankful that I don't have to teach through it again this year. Also, I was one of the few fortunate teachers who wasn't assigned a homeroom class. So, every other Wednesday morning, I'll get 30 minutes free while everyone else is in homeroom. (except when a homeroom teacher is late for school and they come find me and make me cover... which has already happened)

In fact, I am so excited about the way my schedule is set up that I am not even going to complain in this post about how every teacher had to give multiple intelligence tests to our students and then break down and post the data. I also won't complain about the fact that my Advanced Placement students wouldn't be considered AP at any other school (one of them didn't know what a "European" was). And I won't mention the fact that every day this week my 2nd period class is being pulled out to take a practice GA High School Graduation Test and that I have to help proctor 150 students who would rather text, curse, and laugh than do anything that could help their academic future. I'll save the negatives for the next post :)