Well, my seventh year of teaching started off fairly boring for once. No deaths in the family or last minute rescheduled surgeries! 
Over the summer, the district restructured the middle schools, making math a daily requirement rather than an every-other-day requirement. This meant they had to hire several new teacher to assist -there was no way in hell I was gonna have classes of 35-45 hormonal teenagers! Thanks to the new teachers, my classes this year have less than 20 in each. Many of my students I had last year when they were seventh graders. We were able to forego some of the basics and get right into things. The new students fell into the course of things and went along with it (even if they didn't quite get some of my jokes).
The new teachers worried me during the inservice days, but they seemed to do fine today. A former student did come to ask if he could transfer to my class cause his new math teacher gave a 60 question test today. I like the kid, but I told him to give Mr. C a few more days on a trial run before he asked to transfer. The other teacher previously taught 3rd grade for 26 years -I was worried she wouldn't connect with middle schoolers, but she did.
A new experience for me this year is taking my class to lunch. Previously I always had the lunch period as my planning block. As I was walking my students to lunch, the other teachers were warning me that it was "mashed potato day." I didn't know what they were talking about until we got closer to the cafeteria. The line reached all the way down the hall! I guess the lunch ladies take their time when slapping serving the potatoes. Needless to say, my students were not pleased that they ended up with less than 10 minutes to actually eat their lunch. I wasn't too thrilled with the 24 minute lunch break I have either. I'll get used to it, but it's gonna play havok on my diabetes until then.
Well, it's almost 9 pm here and I still have to iron a shirt for tomorrow. Once I finish that, I think I'm off to bed. I'm pooped and my throat feels raw -the first few days of school always seem to wear everyone out.
mikey
Over the summer, the district restructured the middle schools, making math a daily requirement rather than an every-other-day requirement. This meant they had to hire several new teacher to assist -there was no way in hell I was gonna have classes of 35-45 hormonal teenagers! Thanks to the new teachers, my classes this year have less than 20 in each. Many of my students I had last year when they were seventh graders. We were able to forego some of the basics and get right into things. The new students fell into the course of things and went along with it (even if they didn't quite get some of my jokes).
The new teachers worried me during the inservice days, but they seemed to do fine today. A former student did come to ask if he could transfer to my class cause his new math teacher gave a 60 question test today. I like the kid, but I told him to give Mr. C a few more days on a trial run before he asked to transfer. The other teacher previously taught 3rd grade for 26 years -I was worried she wouldn't connect with middle schoolers, but she did.
A new experience for me this year is taking my class to lunch. Previously I always had the lunch period as my planning block. As I was walking my students to lunch, the other teachers were warning me that it was "mashed potato day." I didn't know what they were talking about until we got closer to the cafeteria. The line reached all the way down the hall! I guess the lunch ladies take their time when slapping serving the potatoes. Needless to say, my students were not pleased that they ended up with less than 10 minutes to actually eat their lunch. I wasn't too thrilled with the 24 minute lunch break I have either. I'll get used to it, but it's gonna play havok on my diabetes until then.
Well, it's almost 9 pm here and I still have to iron a shirt for tomorrow. Once I finish that, I think I'm off to bed. I'm pooped and my throat feels raw -the first few days of school always seem to wear everyone out.
mikey