Friday, April 24, 2015

Teaching at an alternative high school

So there are things I really like about teaching at Polaris and some I don’t. I think I would like teaching there if I started at the beginning of the year instead of taking over for the last term. Most of the classes have adjusted to how I run a class and are starting to encourage the other students to behave. I have had students tell me that I teach way better than the teacher I took over for and I have had students tell me that I’m worse. Most of the students that have decided I’m worse never really gave me a chance in the first place. I feel like I’m modifying behavior more than I teach math. I usually plan about 20 minutes of a lesson to teach each day and it usually takes me 40 minutes to get through it. I teach a class that I wasn’t ever taught how to teach, so it’s an adventure everyday to make a lesson. There also isn’t a book to teach this class so I just have a list of standards that I need to teach for the week. Most of the time I have to learn about what I need to teach before I can make a lesson plan.
 I teach at Polaris until May 18th then summer break!!!