{"id":378,"date":"2013-01-31T19:47:21","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T23:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/2013\/01\/31\/back-to-bg\/"},"modified":"2013-01-31T19:47:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T23:47:21","slug":"back-to-bg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/2013\/01\/31\/back-to-bg\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to BG"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks I agreed to return to Bishop Guertin high school<\/a> to fill a sudden vacancy in the computer science department. I\u2019d been away for 9.5 years working in industry. I was a little nervous about the prospects though. Organizations change over time. People change over time and I know that I have changed in the intervening years. So what would happen when a changed me returned to a changed school? I\u2019ve had both good and bad experiences returning to some place or organization I had been away from for a while.<\/p>\n

Four days of classes later I\u2019m getting relaxed. Sure there are changes but in many ways it feels almost as though I had never left. There are a whole new batch of students of course. And some new faculty members and administrators. But there are a good many familiar faces among the faculty and staff. The physical plant is pretty much the same as well. That all helps.<\/p>\n

Day one was pretty stressful. Normally a teacher has a week in school for meetings, learning the changes and generally planning for the new school year. I didn\u2019t have that. The teacher I am replacing was really helpful and gave me a lot of resources to use. Unfortunately I was also trying to catch up with a contract project I was working on AND had some car trouble to take care of. I could have used a little more prep time. With help from the other computer teacher (an old friend) I was able to get though the day just fine. Mostly I ran into process issues like learning the attendance system and some hardware issues like an unfamiliar projector.<\/p>\n

Still I didn\u2019t feel like I had a minute of calm. Every second was doing something to prep for a class coming up what seemed like instantly. <\/p>\n

Day two was better. I was still working on planning out my lessons but I was focused on several days rather than just the next group of kids to come into the room.<\/p>\n

Day three better still. I even felt like I could take a short walk around the school during a prep period. The confidence was returning and I was starting to relax.<\/p>\n

Today was day four and I felt almost like I was back in the swing of things. I have gotten in the groove of the rotating schedule, getting students to and from lunch break, taking attendance, and most everything else.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still tired of course. My body is adjusting to a new reality. A reality that includes being on my feet a lot more than I am used to. A reality that means my work day starts much earlier in the day than I am used to. And not time to take a nap in the middle of the day either. I suspect that adrenaline is keeping me going much of the day.<\/p>\n

Today in the second to last block of the day (a prep period) I started to drag. One more class to teach and I wasn\u2019t sure how I\u2019d be. As the students flowed into the room I felt my energy level rise again. The tired feeling was no where to be found as I taught the class. Kids will energize one if you really enjoy teaching.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve still got some planning to do. I don\u2019t have the schedule for the semester as solid as I\u2019d like it to be. I\u2019ve seen a lot of outstanding teachers over the last few years and I worry that I can\u2019t reach those standards. Making things flow right takes planning and I haven\u2019t had the planning time I\u2019d have liked. I\u2019m hoping to get some of that planning done this weekend though. At this point I have a much better feel for where the students are at, where I am at and where I need to get them. <\/p>\n

The good thing is that I know the material cold. I don\u2019t have to spend a lot of time learning the concepts and tools I am teaching. I\u2019ve done it all before. It\u2019s mostly a matter of getting back into the rhythm of things. That and the fact that I great students. Cooperative, engaged, and interested. I\u2019ve really missed the students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks I agreed to return to Bishop Guertin high school to fill a sudden vacancy in the computer science department. I\u2019d been away for 9.5 years working in industry. I was a little nervous about the prospects though. Organizations change over time. People change over time and I know that I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/mistert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}