Sunday, May 15, 2011

Busy, busy, busy...

Okay, yeah, this has been a very interesting couple of weeks. First off, the AP exams. Pretty simple and straightforward: Read the directions, enforce the rules (and these kids were already pretty well prepared anyway), everyone goes home when they're done. Let's just say I got a lot of reading done when I wasn't doing something else. There were a few hiccups — particularly on the Spanish test, with a bunch of kids who weren't really familiar with how to use a cassette tape recorder (yes, those are falling further and further out of style) — but for the most part it was a good experience. I had two days with two tests, so those ended up being pretty long days, but the short days the rest of the time was worth it.

While working the AP exams, I lined up another job, for a math teacher at the high school whose wife was about to give birth. I'd worked with his students before, had good experiences with them, and several of his students were even lobbying for me to take over while he was gone. Sure enough, I found the job, and lined up to sub for him for two weeks. Woo-hoo! But, it turned out, there was a wrinkle: The baby came early. And as I was AP testing, I couldn't step in early. So they had another (non-math) sub for a few days, but they're good at working on their own, so I think it went well. I had time after my last AP test to go in and see what was up, and it's a good thing I did, as that's his trigonometry class, and they were a little lost. To be sure, I was rusty, too, but we managed to figure a few things out, and it went well. Friday was my first official day in the class, so I grabbed one of the books, took it home, and got myself up to speed again. I think we're going to do all right. His two geometry classes started a mini-unit on converting measurements, and I think I gave them a good grounding. His one algebra II class had a test, so that was pretty simple. This week looks pretty simple, as trig has a few more assignments and then a test, while the other classes will have practice tests in preparation for the state-mandated year-end exams. So I am at least going to be something like a real teacher for nearly the next two weeks. After that, we'll be getting close to the end of the school year.

Still not a lot of progress on the job hunt, as districts are still waiting to see what the legislature is going to do, and therefore what kind of funding they'll have. A few districts in the area aren't even waiting and are issuing RIF notices. There was one new position that I applied for, but the position closed without my getting an interview. Since it was only a .83 FTE in a rather faraway district, I'm not terribly unhappy.

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