Catch up

Well I know I haven't written much since October of last year and that since transferring to a different school I haven't written at all. So here is a short recap.

0. Originally I posted that I received the transfer notification at the end of September. However due to delays due to inadequate notification and the number crunching after ADM week 1 (week where enrollment is verified for staffing reasons) I did not get the transfer meeting until the end of October.

My principal was wise enough to take me off the schedule and I work as a kind of building substitute teacher, helping out when needed. It was kind of hard to keep explaining why I am still at the school to the students and after a week of this I eventually just came to work and avoided interacting with the small school principal and just went to my classroom. There were three of us teachers Mrs. Korb and Mr. Lewandowski. Mrs. Korb was the most principled she helped students review for their OGTs while I just hung out. I felt like Peter in Office Space or Milton. I just came to work and sit there and well get paid to be in teacher limbo.

In fact I actually watched the movie in my classroom with the projector with Mr. Lewandowski on one of my last days at East Tech.

1. I went in to the transfer meeting with several schools in my mind namely Jane Addams or Rhodes. Both schools are high schools each school has pros and no real cons. Jane Addams was located near East Tech where I taught so my commute would be the same (mostly highway). Rhodes is my mother in law's alma mater (as well as Drew Carey's). I was ambivalent about both schools and flipped a coin. Jane Addams if heads, and I got heads. The staff at the transfer meeting was amused by the way I decided.

2. I had a day to get ready I moved my stuff and it took a better part of a day to do so. I inherited 2 Chemistry classes and a Senior OGT Science review class. The classes I inherited had many issues, the most frustrating was that the long term sub made up grades for the Chemistry classes and did not assign any grades for the OGT Science class. It was quite a struggle to overcome the long term sub's bad habits.

3. It was great to teach at Jane Addams I finally felt like I was part of a department, My department Mrs. Ammon worked with me and helped me prepare for teaching Chemistry which was a new topic for me to teach. She shared with me materials for labs and reading materials which was great. I enjoyed doing some of the chemistry labs, Mrs. Ammon was happy to see labs were being done.

4. I really enjoyed working with Mrs. Ammon she was like a mentor that I never had as a teacher, she was really pleasant to talk with and it was nice to be able to talk with her about how to teach Chemistry. I think I really learned much from her this year.

5. I really got into recycling this year. It is nice that Lakewood has plastic 1-7 recycling along with glass, metals and paper recycling. Some time after the start of the 3 quarter (late January) I started recycling in school, first in the teacher's lounge with a found can crusher for aluminum cans. Then in March I placed a recycling bin in my classroom to collect the plastic bottles and cans that students often toss into the trash. Apparently as I recycled more the more I had an aversion to seeing recyclable materials being tossed into the trash. In fact I recycled the boxes that were left behind when the school received 55 new computers. It took me several days to collapse the boxes and sort out the recyclables and several trips to the recycling center to get all the computer packaging to be recycled. I still lament that I could not find a place that would recycle the styrofoam packing materials for the computer and monitors.

By the end of the year most of my students actually recycled their papers and drink cans and bottles when they are finished with them.

6. After settling at Jane Addams I got into a very popular reality show it was called the Presidential Primaries of 2008. I had to watch CNN and MSNBC every night and checked Huffingtonpost and Realclearpolitics everyday to get last minute information on the characters presidential candidates and poll information. This pretty gobbled all free time that I have in the evenings. Ahmie and I first were rooting for John Edwards, after he dropped out of the race we rooted for Barack Obama. We went to see him talk in Youngstown, in Cleveland, and for a town hall meeting in Parma, we even went to see Michelle Obama talk at Cleveland State University. We rode the highs and lows of the campaign from Supertuesday to early June with Hillary Clinton's concession speech.

There is of course more to say about the past 8 months but that is for another night. I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I am planning a meditation on my reaction of the book.