Teachers, introduce yourself!

I teach British lit. and world lit. at an inner city high school in Chicago.

It's a huge, huge school... physically. It's the largest school in Chicago. It's practically the size of an airport! As far as the number of students, enrollment is down. I averaged about 19 students in each of my five classes. That's pretty good for Chicago Public Schools. I had at least 25 in each class at a suburban junior high.

Yes, we have metal detectors when we enter the building and security guards around the building, but I always feel safe.

The school is basically like Boston Public! Except that one's more diverse than mine. Aside from, maybe, 6 Latino kids, the students are all black.

I like it that way, because African American lit is one of my specialties!

I spent the last few years mostly subbing until I could get a job I really wanted.

I commute at least an hour each way to get to school, but it's worth it, I think.

 

I was a casuality of 9/11. I used to work in Commercial real estate and was GM of the Houston Hurricanes...then the economy, as we all saw, tanked. The Hurricanes owner folded and I got laid off.
I was either going to enlist and serve or take a different tour of duty. As I grew up in inner city Houston I wemt back to my old school district (HISD) and asked for the roughest, toughest inner city high school that had an opening for Spanish teacher.
I came to James Madison Sr. H.S. south of the Astrodome. The school's 70% Black and 30% Latino (half mexicano and half el salvadorenyo).
I told the district I would give them two to three years of my life to ride out the economic recovery. I did two years in one of the most hard core ghetto neighborhoods in Texas called Hiram Clarke (if you're cool "tha HC nig*@". It's the kind of area that during the day it's not too bad, police can patrol in daylight. But at night its pretty f'ed up.
I had everything from kids selling weed in the bathroom next to my classroom up to kids born in the mid 80's when crack blew thru southwest Houston. Thus, some of my students are screwed for life even before they get to the 9th grade.
I was asked to coach the varsity soccer or freshman basketball team and that was hardest of all. Coaching ghetto teenagers will add ten years to your life. They thought just showing up to practice on time was "hard work". I also had some of my mexican soccer boys fail Spanish! Laziness!!!
Getting Panchos and Guanacos to form a cohesive futbol team is damn near impossible. They don't get along down here in Texas and literaly don't pass to each other. Needless to say I had the worst H.S. soccer team know to mankind. I did have some of the gridiron brothers there that followed my ability to play both forms of football. One black kid was a decent tight end but was a natural goalie. Soccer's in the winter down here as to not go head to head with the religion known as Texas High School Football.
Hellava ride to say the least amigos. I left after two years. On my last day I had some young ghetto brothers in my class that I never knew were listening to me come up and hug me. They told me, "Coach you changed my life man!"
That I will remember forever.

 

Hearing these teacher stories makes my way seem the easy way out. I teach at a K-8 Catholic school. I teach computers to all grades, so I do have to know every kid's name (250.)

I don't think I'd last in a public school. It's not that I can't handle an unruly child, I just don't don't think the administrators would allow me to discipline the children the way I think they need to be straightened out. The public school teachers I know put up with way more crap from their students than I would permit. When I ask them why they put up with it they always seem fearful of retribution from the administration.

 

My name's Dave and I'm a recovering academic. However, to help knock off our mortgage payments, I'll teach 2 college classes this fall, one a comp class, the other an intro to lit class. I've taught, though never full time, at Louisiana State, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, University of Illinois-Chicago, and St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA, and one memorable summer in Yellowstone, paid by Northwest (community) College of Powell, Wyoming.

Props and thanks to those of you teaching high school and younger.

 

To all you teaching high school and lower, I admire how incredibly hard you work. My wife taught high school social studies for 3 years and it permanently cured me from ever complaining about my university level teaching load (it's amazing how people teaching a 2 course a semester load can complain about how miserable their teaching is).

I'm finishing up my PhD at UM in history and teaching at Bard College in the fall. I'm teaching 3 US history seminars (1890-1940, US-Mexico Border, and Environmental History in the fall). It's a lot of work putting the courses together but I realize how totally cushy I have it in the grand scheme.

 

Hey everybody,

I'm an education student right now. '04/'05 will be my final/professional year. I'll be finishing up my last few classes (that science gen ed I've been putting off forever, one more English class, two more education classes) and doing my student teaching. I'll eventually be teaching high school English. I'd love to teach creative writing and journalism in addition to the core courses I'll be responsible for, and I plan to coach soccer as well. I'm just loving the fact that this forum is here, and I have about a gazillion thread ideas, but I'm sick right now, so those will have to wait a bit. I can't wait to see this forum turn into what I know it can be.

 

Computer engineer now entering third year teaching high school math.

I always liked solving problems and there's plenty here. However, they won't let you whack a kid up-side the head while that worked perfectly well on a flakey monitor.

 

We have different styles. When my computer is acting up... I caress it softly and say nice things to it.

Strangely, they don't let you do that in the high schools either.

 

I'm so thankful I don't have to teach any intro lectures next year. I can't imagine how hard it is to teach Anthro 111. What the hell do you focus on.

Blind panic is a pretty good description of my state right now. Better now than having it be my lecture style (which is more wandering ad-libber, I almost fell off a desk this year while lecturing. No one told me it had wheels.)

 

I'm a band director at a small school district. 5-12 band, plus 2 elementary music classes.

this will be my 8th (holy cow!) year of teaching this fall.

that explains everything about why I am like I am

 

I teach History and Arts History to our juniors and seniors. I have 6 classes of, on average, 20 students. The high school I teach at isn't that big, around 700 students. I like it that way, I think I know just about all of the kids from the 10th grade up to the seniors by name, even though I only teach to about a small third of them. I guess that would be impossible in a school with 3k+ students. This year was my first year teaching, straight out of college, and I have to say I was actually pleasantly surprised by the knowledge and commitment of the average student (if such a thing exist) in my classes. Especially if you consider that History and Arts History are hardly ever the kids favorite classes (and that's putting it lightly).

 

I will start teaching 5th grade this September, at a K-8 school in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. I'm a NYC Teaching Fellow, which means I started teacher training for the first time last week. Over the next 2 years I'll teach full time and work toward my MST. The school where I'll work is what they call "high needs," also known as under-resourced, inner-city, Title I, low-performing, etc. Fewer than 16% of the students passed the state literacy test last year.

Any other elementary teachers out there?

 

By the way, can I just say this forum is the best idea ever? I'm really going to need ideas/support/a place to vent. The timing couldn't be better.

 

I want to second that - great idea for a forum. It seems that among the regulars on these boards, there are a (disproportionately?) high number of teachers and academics, so this should be a pretty lively forum.

I've been lurking around the edges of the academic world for some time now, which is no doubt karmic revenge for the hell I put teachers through during my own schooling. Not that I was a bad student - I did fantastic on standardized tests, got into the 'gifted' programs, etc. I just wasn't interested in school and didn't try; by my senior year of high school I was dead-set against the idea of going to college, and barely even bothered going to class (I did plenty of reading and writing on my own). I know I frustrated the hell out of a bunch of teachers - ironically I'm still in touch with a few of them and get along great with them now, 10 years later.

Since then I did go to university, and after graduating I completed a course to get my CELTA for teaching English as a second language. The idea at that time was to go overseas somewhere - Eastern Europe, most probably. But I ended up staying in the US, and got a job teaching ESL at a language center in Manhattan. Great experience, even if I only lasted 4 months at it; at least I found out I enjoyed and was pretty good at teaching - at least, teaching adults. But the pay was pretty miserable for NYC, the hours were hellacious, the teachers were the lowest on the totem pole there, and there was no sign of any of that changing any time soon. I was sick of eating canned beans every night and being more or less poor, so when I got the chance to escape to a boring, decent-paying cubicle job, I took it. A year or so later I drifted back home to CT, and spent a good part of winter 02-03 substitute teaching while trying to work on a masters degree in creative writing. From there I started inquiring into things like the NYC Teaching Fellows program, while at the same time applying to grad schools. I got called in for an interview with the NYCTF, but I'd already been accepted to school out here, so that was that.

I just completed my masters degree a couple weeks ago, and got accepted very late (and very luckily) into the Ph. D program. So I'm definitely getting deeper into academia (not so deep I can never get out, hopefully). Truth be told I'd rather be teaching at the university level than anything lower; I have nothing but respect for high school/middle school/elementary school teachers, because even in the best of situations it seems like a physical grind, and I honestly don't know if I'd have the stamina for it.

 

I'll be entering my 12 year of teaching this fall. I taught 5th grade my first seven years, then three years of 4th grade, and then this last year I moved up to middle school and taught 7th.

I'm tempted to start ranting about how standardized tests have ruined education in this country, but most of you know that already.

I used to really love my job, now I'm trying to find a way out. I love my kids, but dealing with the idjits who run the schools has really beat me down the last few years.

I end each school year so angry and bitter that I swear I'll never come back. Then the blissful relaxation of summer vacation sets in, and I get all enthusiastic again, and forget how screwed up things are, and I get sucked back in (kinda like Al Pacino in Godfather III).

Ah well. I'll rant later. Right now, I'm too busy sipping my first cup of coffee after having slept in til' nearly noon; I don't wanna kill that buzz.

Thanks to whoever thought of staring this forum. Good work there.

 

Nine years as a paralegal in law firms will cure you of almost anything. Apparently, one of the things it can't cure is the desire to teach.

I'm coming full circle back into secondary teaching. I spent the last eight months subbing at Lee High School in Northern Virginia, which is about as far from white bread suburbia as you can get demographically (25% white, 25% black, 25% latino, 25% asian/middle eastern, give or take a bunch) while still being less than 3 miles from the 99% white high school I graduated from. Oddly enough, I'd love to teach at Lee, and wouldn't even consider applying at my alma mater. Go figure.

Heading back to Va Tech (hopefully) in the fall for my M.Ed. and back up to NoVa in a couple of years to teach and plant my carcass in the Barra at DCU games. I know there's a bunch of kids at Lee who'd love the chance to go to a bunch of games.

 

The book is required reading as part of my pre-service training, but thanks for the tip. It is a very useful book.

 

I did teaching stints in Compton, Watts and Downtown L.A. (Belmont High) and was a member of LA's Teaching Fellows program. I wanted to join the Peace Corps after college - but my "tour of duty" was in the inner city instead.
The kids are amazing - the administration is often the most frustratingly f-up institution ever devised.
Nothing will ever match the drama and energy of those days for me. However, I don't miss the stress.
Funny that while L.A. is known for its diversity, a lot of the schools are basically segregated - very black or very hispanic, and just a few whites and asians.
I was an assistant coach for the basketball team in Compton, which didn't even have a soccer team. I was friendly with Belmont's soccer coach - one of the the few females to coach boy's soccer. She wasn't even Hispanic, either, but she learned Spanish to better communicate with her players.

 

Wong's book can give you a lot of ideas, but you should personalize them for yourself - don't try to walk in and "be" Wong. The kids can smell fake a mile off. Be flexible enough to experiment a little with what works for you. If you're comfortable and confident in what you're doing, you'll create the security in your class that many of these students need.

 

And if any of the veteran teachers tell you "don't smile until Christmas", dope slap 'em upside the head.

 

I just graduated with my bachelors degree and will begin grad school at Oxford this fall after receiving the Rhodes Scholarship. The last 2 years I have been marking tests and papers, and this coming year I will begin running tutorials at Oxford. Should be interesting, hopefully the British students won't mind having a 20 year old Canadian teaching them their own history, lol.

I have been playing NCAA Div 1 for the past 4 years (although I wasn't a starter until my 2nd year when I was 17) and would like to continue playing, so I have been in contact with a few teams over in England, but it's turning out to be a difficult process.