starts and stops

Ok, so I’ve decided to take a different track. I may as well write about some personal things as well teaching, considering I am a person, and do tend try to have a life.

I moved to New York on July 31 from Dallas. Prior to that I had been in Austin where I was desperately trying to sell all of my furniture in order to move up here. Craigslist proved to be a godsend in that front. Just as I was getting scared of having to dump a couch, desk, and several chairs, a nice couple from up in Round Rock came to collect everything from me. They came prepared: trailer, hitch, boots – the whole shebang.

Gab and I packed up all of my stuff, having thrown away most everything I owned. I managed to pack my entire life into 2 suitcases – pretty impressive I thought. Once I got on the plane from Dallas to New York, I had a strange unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t seem right to be moving. And, once I moved into my new place in Harlem, that feeling only grew stronger. From the moment I stepped into my apartment I felt out of sorts. The place was fine; in fact, it was clean, new, pretty – all things one could ask for in a place. I just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, and to top it off, I probably sweated away 5lbs due to the humidity while I shlepped my bags up and down two different fourth floor walkups.

After several days of going crazy, I decided to move out of the place. I went on craiglist, quickly found a new apartment (double the rent mind you), and moved out. The landlady was pissed- but I really could care less. After 2 weeks I found someone to take over the lease – and that’s that.

Now school is about to start (on my birthday) and I couldn’t be more nervous. I haven’t been able to pull myself together until now. Planning an entire year seems a daunting task to say the least. I’ve got about 4000 years of history to cover, and 180 to do it in. It amazes me that Texas only gives ONE YEAR to cover this stuff. We have 2 here in New York, and it still seems crazy.

Introductions: New Teacher Staff Development

Clearly it has been several months since the last time I sat down to write anything. Since March, many things have happened. First of all, I graduated. And secondly, I got a job teaching at SoBro, a small 6-12 grade in Mott Haven, New York.

Mott Haven is a notoriously difficult area in which to teach. The population which we serve is one of the poorest in the nation, heavily populated by immigrants, and comes along with all of the baggage associated with poverty: low academic ability, limited English proficiency, broken and/or dysfunctional homes etc. Our school has made a concerted effort to provide the children of this neighborhood with as rigorous and as challenging an education possible, with the stated goal of ensuring that our students enter and succeed in college.

The building in which our school is located used to belong to a particularly frightening high school, until this school was fazed out and replaced by two smaller schools. SoBro is the result of several years’ work in partnership with a national non-profit agency that tries to grow opportunities for college entrance. We have a small staff, and a small population of students which will allow us to provide much more focused attention to our students.

Today was the first day of new teacher staff development. The majority of the new teachers are young, between the ages of 22 and 28. However, there are a smattering of older teachers. While this has the potential to be a fairly frightening situation, the atmosphere provided by all the older teachers and the administrators has proven (so far) to be one of cooperation and kindness. From the moment we stepped into school, I felt comfortable.

In our staff development session, we focused on several key issues. The key idea which I learned today was the importance of protocol. This provides a framework in which we as teachers and as colleagues can create dialog and discussion without getting caught up in the swirling and twirling of circular jargon and BS.

Overall, today was a successful and enlightening experience. Hopefully tomorrow will prove similar