Teaching

I have enjoyed having this week off of school.  In Cobb County, they have one week off after every 6 weeks in.  The school year goes from August 1- May 31 and they get an entire week off in September, in November for Thanksgiving, Christmas, February, and then Spring Break in April.  This is the first year they have used this schedule, and it has already been overturned for next year by the School Board (although I'm not sure why because the teachers and kids LOVE it!)  At the beginning of the week I had thoughts of "uh-oh...I need to be working.  Being on that consistent schedule has really been good for me."  By Friday now, though, I'm back to thinking not working isn't all that bad!  I mean I was able to hit FIVE gym classes this week!

It's also been a good week because Ryan is transitioning into a new job.  He has known for a while that the LandCare side of TruGreen is being sold.  Instead of waiting around to see what his fate would be when that happened, he has been job searching since early December.  Although he got many job interviews and they all went well and left him feeling very confident, none of them panned out.  We were facing the realistic situation of both of us being possibly unemployed. I mean there was even discussion of having to move back to Indiana since I actually still do have a job there.  I told him I can eat ramen noodles, but under no circumstances will I eat pork and beans!!!!  So we are very grateful for Ryan's new career that starts March 1st with HighGrove, another landscaping business.  Ryan didn't go into the office much this week since he knows he's leaving TruGreen, although he hasn't officially resigned yet.  So we got to spend some more time together than usual.

Getting back to the teaching gig... I have a lot to say about it.  I have both positive things to say, negative things to say, and indifferent things that I have observed that are neither positive nor negative, but rather just different than how things are done within the system I come from.

Let's talk about the neutral differences first:  kids can wear flip flops, kids can wear coats (which makes me nervous because weapons could be concealed in there), kids can bring bags to class (which also makes me nervous because weapons could be concealed in there), kids can chew gum, and kids can bring water bottles/juice bottles/Gatorade bottles to class and drink them at will.  These are things I have to catch myself about not reprimanding, because none of that was allowed at John Young.  Quite frankly, because these things are the norm, there really aren't any issues surrounding them.  All of the students walk on the right hand side of the hallway.  There are actually tiles down the middle of the hallways that are a different color than the rest of the tiles, and for the most part, all the kids stay on the right hand side of those tiles!  I almost feel like I'm breaking the rules if I'm walking on the left hand side of the hallway during my prep periods. 

That's all I'll say for now.  More to come!