I've started a new job. Like my father I am now Mr. Kessel. Overnight I moved into the school because of a last minute departure of the previous teacher. I'm teaching six sections of US history, one of which is about half special Ed, and one if which is an honors course. To describe it all in one word after my first three days, overwhelming. This is a mixed charter school. I have 11th graders, almost all black. In my first day I asked the students to talk about their own history and two kids told me they got kicked out of their old school for fighting...but it's not that type of school.
Two things that have really struck me about the first days is how tired feet my feet are. You are on your feet so much, and while you can teach sitting in a chair or from the desk, it's harder to "manage" the classroom from there (that's the lingo everybody in the industry uses, rather than control, or "discipline.") The other thing is how many tress are killed every day at schools with how much paper is printed and wasted. It's crazy, anything I do I have to make 160 copies of and often times the students barely look at the materials.
Other than that, there are interruptions every 15 minutes from the intercom (which I learned the embarrassing way is a two way speaker), students chatting every 30 seconds, sleeping every 5 minutes, grooming their hair, texting on their phones, or doing something that they aren't supposed to be doing constantly. You really do have to have eyes in the back of your head.
Students tend to remember more recent history way more than older, even if it is more important history. I suppose this is not surprising. In general, I feel like trying to teach history is like sneaking vegetables into a child's food. Most students are not very interested in the topic and you always have to find ways to make it fun and engaging while connecting back to the actual standards and material.
This is probably the most challenging thing I've done thus far in my life.
