I got a Job!

So yesterday was an amazing day. I was offered a position at I.S. 258 Community Action School. It's located on 154 W 93rd Street in Manhattan. It's on the west side of Central Park. The school is reviewed on a site called Inside Schools. here is the link

http://www.insideschools.org/fs/school_profile.php?id=96

I'll be teaching both 6th and 7th grade math. I am mostly excited about teaching students as they begin learning about algebra. I find introduction to the topic to be so important, and I think I'll be a really good bridge between elementary and middle school mathematics. I am especially excited that the students in this school seem to have some real connections to the staff and faculty. The homeroom students are with the homeroom teacher 4 times per day.

They have recess, which I'm so happy about. After recess they go back to the homeroom to settle back down before the classes in the afternoon. I also will have an advisory group. I look forward to that quite a bit. We meet one time per week to discuss life in general. There is a curriculum guide, but it isn't dictated. I like the idea of having some free form time with the students.

Also in this school, there are not parent-teacher conferences. There are Family-Conferences in which the students also participate in the discussions. They orally share with their parents, their personal reflections on each of their courses. I like this idea.

I also have acquired an apartment in Queens. It's in the Ridgewood neighborhood and the bakery downstairs is a Polish bakery, where I can't even read the awning sign because it's in Polish. It reminds me of my Aunt Charlotte and my Uncle Ed. I like the European feel of the neighborhood. I am also really close to the M train. I won't have to walk far in the winter. Of course I will have three trains to take to get to work. That won't be fun, but I think the right school and the right apartment didn't talk with each other before they came to me.

As for my summer school experience, I am going to miss the students. I want them to succeed on their exam next week, and I hope I prepared them enough to do just that. I loved them. I had good relationships with them and they were a bit sad that I was leaving. I found students to not know their multiplication tables, not understand that "solve for x" meant that we could find a value for x to make the equation true. They struggled with the idea of adding a negative number. It was interesting.

Student's do NOT want to be bored and given low expectations. The higher I set the bar, the higher they reached. I will be looking forward to the fall and having my own students and my own classroom.

Enough for this post. Enjoy the read.
D