Launching into Week 4

As I've launched into week 4, I was just about into a nice routine, when our entire school schedule was changed yesterday. We were never told why. But there it was: daily 70 min classes of Grammar, shortened lunch breaks, and an after school class between 3pm to 4pm.

I tried my best to adjust to the new schedule, but it was quite hard today. It will probably be okay in the end, but I don't know any teachers who likes to have a totally new schedule 4 weeks into the year!

Today was also kind of like a perfect storm during Math class. We've been copying ALL our Math, Bible, History, and Grammar texts and worksheets out of a real book, and this morning the copier ran out of ink before my math lesson was ready. On top of this, we have brought in a new teacher-- "Teacher Natalie"-- who is quite a animated and intense teacher in her 40s to do our upper Math and Bahamian social studies. It was her first day of being in the classroom. She was supposed to do a little introduction for the students, but when the copies of our text never came, she ended up improvising for a 20 minutes with songs, clapping, and rapid questions and answers. It was impressive that she could just jump into a new situation like that and go for it, but she was kind of like an avalanche once she started and I had to interrupt her to get the class back on track. The copies finally came in the 11th hour. So I got up in the final 7 minutes, taught the rest of the math lesson in 5 minutes, and gave the homework out. It was a bit too chaotic for me...and I think my students felt the same way.

I've volunteered to teach 4th grade Math (more in my comfort zone. Some of you know the story of when I was substitute teaching in a 10th grade math class last year, and I couldn't read the answers!). But they haven't exactly told me when I begin, what I should be prepared to teach, and where my class is. So while all the school's disorganization is a bit frustrating, I'm trying to not to let it bother me.

Nevertheless, teaching continues to be a joy. The day passes very quickly.  I'm inundated all day with questions like, "What page was that?", "Can I get my binder out of my locker?", "How do you spell that?", "Mr. Moore, what do you think about iphones?", "Mr. Moore, she is annoying me...". Honestly half my day is like baby sitting, but then the other half I feel like I'm actually teaching them about more significant things like John the Baptist, the Apostles Creed, Vivaldi, hymns, Magellan and Cortes, the Alaska gold rush, and sentence structure. Bible class is probably my favorite because it's one of the few classes where we aren't being pressed to meet a bunch of content objectives, and we have time to have great discussions about temple priests, what the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is like, and if they drive cars in Israel now.

I introduced the 'Drama Club' today to the play we will be doing: A Midsummer Night's Dream. I directed the same play when I was in Kenya 5 years ago, but I'm sure it will be totally different. I was exhausted after today so I showed them a video off of YouTube, so they could get a sense of the plot and characters of the play. Then I went around and wrote down a 'wish list' of which part each students would prefer to get. It will be the school's first theatrical venture, and the first time for most of the students to be part of anything thespian-like. But I already have seen some great raw talent!