Another while we wait post

Still no word on either job, and with the Independence Day holiday upon us, I don't expect to hear anything, either. So while we're waiting, here's something I've been meaning to do for a while now: The Year in Review.

Okay, no, I won't be going over all of the ins and outs of the entire school year. This will just be a few observations.

First off, I got quite a few math jobs, for once. Okay, many of them were giving out worksheets or other reviews, or adminstering a test. Not terribly taxing, but it's something. When I did get a chance to actually teach some math, I enjoyed myself, and I hope my students got something out of it as well.

I also had a few PE jobs, but not as many as in the past. I like teaching PE once in a while, but I know I'm not cut out to do it full time. It's fun playing games with the kids in elementary PE, but it's also fun to just tell junior high and high school kids, "Okay, we're playing this, you know what to do," and turn them loose. They're usually pretty good. One PE job was unusual: It was about a week before school let out at the junior high up the street, and the students had already cleared out their lockers. So they just showed The Incredibles while the teachers went through and cleaned up, checked in the locks, and stuff like that. I got to be the cetificated warm body in charge of over one hundred students each period! Fortunately, The Incredibles is a very engaging movie that they all got into, and I had very little to do. After the first period, I took my book out with me, and got a lot of reading done that day!

Despite having more available days to do it, I got very few elementary jobs of any sort this year, and I think I had regular elementary classes about a half dozen times. Usually, it would be PE or music, with a library or two thrown in. Odd, that, since I originally trained as an elementary teacher, and substituted almost entirely at that level for nearly a decade. I don't know if that means I'm better suited to secondary anyway, or if that's just where the jobs are. But I do enjoy working with the older kids, and that's where I'm doing my job hunting.

And finally, of the two districts I've been working in regularly, I think this is the first year I subbed more in the local one than the one further out. Fine with me, as my commutes were shorter and I got paid more! If I end up having to sub again next year, I hope that pattern stays.

Looking ahead, I have a few personal things I'm working on, and I'll be going out of town next weekend. Once I get back, I hope to know either what's going on with the two jobs I interviewed for, or it's time to get back to work on the job hunt. I'm at least encouraged by having had two interviews already. That's twice as many as I had last year!

To wrap things up, here are two new math links: How to multiply with Roman numberals (funny, I learned this as the Russian peasant multiplication algorithm, not Roman), and Dartmouth is giving away a popular introductory probability book as a .pdf file.