Sleep now, read later

It's back to life as a student, which isn't nearly as bad as I thought. I guess 16 years of schooling kicks in pretty quickly & eases the transition from teacher to student. However, I feel like we keep revisiting the same issues, only through the perspective of our student teaching internships. A useful exercise, I suppose.

Hearing from a panel of teachers was instructive - they seemed to give good insight & helpful info, but I felt like they represented prototypical schools. Two were from a nationally ranked high school, and the other came from a well known magnet school, and all were females. I think it would have been helpful to include a male teacher, and at least one teacher from a school in a lower SES neighborhood. As 1st year teachers, most of us won't be heading into ideal situations like the ones these teachers represent.

I did find myself disagreeing somewhat with one of their comments. In her advice for the 1st day of school, one teacher highly recommends asking for a handwriting sample, claiming that this can easily help you identify your LD students right away. While that may be true in some cases, I thought it was shaky advice. Two of my students who could barely read had beautiful penmanship. On the other hand, one of my best students had atrocious handwriting. If I had judged these students' academic levels on the basis of their handwriting alone, I would have completely misidentified them. I can understand how a writing sample might help a teacher to recognize learning disabilities, but handwriting is not always so indicative, at least from what I have experienced so far. Which, granted, isn't much, but... Anyhoo...

I'm not sure when to freak out concerning a job. Everyone has told me, "Oh, you'll definitely find a job; science teachers are so needed." And yet, ... nothing so far. What more do they want? I have a a science degree, lab/research experience, and (almost) a Master's degree. I don't know if I'm being impatient, not assertive enough, too picky, or a combination of all three. I even branched out and decided to consider middle school as well, since I haven't had much success finding high schools that want Bio teachers. I'd even settle for Chem (ugh) or Physical (bleh) or Earth Science (yawn) at this point, but Physics - no thanks. I think I'd rather sub or work at Ann Taylor before attempting to teach Physics.

I was happy to discover that tonight is not the season finale of Alias ... I get to enjoy it another week. I probably should have been reading, but I find "homework" mildly insufferable after enduring 6 hours of class. I should sleep now ~ otherwise, I'll never get E. to the airport in time for her flight.