A Word About Work

With the first six weeks of school behind us, I thought that now would be a good time to write a line or two (or sixty)  about work.  After two years of instructional coaching, things are completely different for me this year.  I absolutely loved working with teachers and helping with new curriculum, assessment programs, and other areas of need, but with all the financial woes and challenges that the field of education faces, those jobs are now few and far between.  I knew going into the job that it was a two-year assignment, so I was very excited last spring to know that I would be teaching at Houston Middle School.

  It's a great school with a strong administrative team and a positive and supportive group of teachers.  My assignment has been teaching resource math.  My undergraduate degree is in secondary English and generic special education, but I'm very familiar with the resource math curriculum, and the state of Texas gave me a generalist teaching license a couple of years ago that means someone in Austin thinks I'm qualified to teach grades 4-8 math, science, reading, English, and social studies.  The last sentence just blows my mind and is quite frightening at the same time (science, really?!?), but I'll just leave it at that. 

Anyway, I started this year ready to teach resource math, and that's exactly what I've been doing.  I've got rules posted (see picture above), word walls in place, seating charts in my sub folder, and students who walk in the room and automatically grab their workbooks and start on the warm-up.  I'm finding that I can run a classroom much more efficiently now than I did ten years ago, the last time I actually had a classroom of my own.  BUT...just when things get settled, watch out!  Last week my principal told me that they had officially hired someone to replace me (this is a good thing) because I'm going to return to full-time 7th grade inclusion!  I loved being an inclusion teacher, and I really have missed it.  So my replacement will be at HMS tomorrow, and after training her in, I'll officially be back in (the inclusion) saddle.  I'm so excited for this new teaching assignment and grateful to not only have a job, but to have job with a purpose.