Day 5

Meeting day today! Started the day out by meeting with my principal to talk about my scheduling issue. I would really like to re-iterate how excited I am to work with my principal. He is so enthusiastic about the school and very passionate about the school and the entire community! I am so lucky to be learning from such a positive role model. He is the biggest reason I chose to work at this school............well, that and the fact I was told I would be teaching all Biology! :)

Basically, what might have happened is over the course of the summer, they had to evaluate all students to make sure the students who passed were moved to the next level and students who failed were placed back in to repeat the same class. Over the summer, it is assumed more students failed physical science than they had teachers for so they had a higher need for physical science and not such a high need for biology. Bummer for me, but very good learning experience potential. The gentleman in the classroom next to me is the department head for physical science and he could not be more helpful. He has been so supportive providing me with teaching materials, and even making copies for me that I couldn't be luckier! I have to say also how supportive my principal was. He said he was just as surprised as I was to see my schedule, but the very next words out of his mouth were, "If worst case scenario, your schedule stays the way it is, how can I support you so you feel successful?" How much more perfect can you get?! I will never get tired of saying this but I am so lucky to have the principal I have.

Long story short, I am going to hope my schedule will include more biology classes, but prepare for physical science and put forward my best work. I have all the tools I need, and an amazing science team offering help at a moments notice.........now I just need to make it my own.

I was very overwhelmed today. Since I will be teaching both physical science and biology, I had to attend two different meetings in addition to preparing my classroom, losing my keys, getting lost trying to pick up student notebooks, try to pick up classroom textbooks to find they have to be checked in first before I can check them out, finding my keys, getting lost, pulling information from other teachers, running to a meeting, moving stuff in to my classroom, making sure I could access my teacher email, my SMART board worked properly, getting lost, losing my keys, put requests in to have extra furniture removed from my classroom, finding my keys.........and this is only a small portion of my day. My neighbor next door is so sweet - he picked up all my student notebooks for me! I came back in to my room and found them stacked very neatly on one of my desks in a box!

I am also getting used to teaching as a team. In my student teaching, my cooperating teacher just told me what to teach, and bam! I whipped out a full lesson, activity, and assessment. This is TOTALLY DIFFERENT! In both PLC's (Professional Learning C__? (need to ask on this one!)) everyone agreed on a time line to teach the material. Well, they agreed, I just sat quietly and tried to keep up! Both department chairs did an excellent job making sure I was in the loop, but there is a lot of "looping" and I didn't want to be such a pill! :) I know they will give me all information I need if I ask! :)