Back to School 09

While I know there are several places in this country still enjoying a few precious weeks of summer vacation, here in Louisiana we’re sharpening our pencils and getting out the books. I return to work on Wednesday after far too short a summer, and my kids come back on Friday. (Yeah, Friday. I know, I didn’t make the schedule.)

Once again, I’ve got an honors class this year, and I’m really happy about that. Not to say I don’t enjoy my other classes, but I learned last year there’s a distinct challenge a classroom of honors students presents, and it’s a challenge I like meeting. This is also the year we’re going to begin our team teaching experiment that I wrote about back in April. I really believe that giving teachers a common planning period and a common pool of students will help us get to know the kids better and — more importantly — get to know how to deal with problems better. With teachers all having the same kids, we can share observations. Be the problems behavioral, academic, or personal, four different teachers who all know the kids can work better than one to help.

This is also going to be the semester in which I finally finish my alternative certification program and become a fully-certified teacher, which brings with it a bit of job security. It’ll feel good to have that, let me tell you.

But for now, I’ve still got three more precious days off, and I intend to enjoy them to the fullest.