Diary of a Wom'n

This school year took off with a good start.  I have wonderful groups of kids that I see for Literacy and Social Studies.  Because classes have been arranged by a teacher's specialty, teachers at my school have to teach two or three subjects only to about two sets of classes.  So for me that means: I teach three literacy classes, and 2 social studies classes.  My "core" class is a grade 7 class but I only teach them literacy.  I prefer this arrangement because it means teachers can focus on a few particular subjects and teach it several times to different classes instead of teaching everything once.

I'm also liking my classroom.  *I should take a picture of it and put it up here*  It's got lots of board space and bulletin space.  I have one little window in which its ledge doubles as my bookshelf (because I can't ever have enough bookshelves).  There's lots of purple, green, and blue in the room.  The colours of calmness and serenity.  The effect is a little for my benefit too.  You see, I have my NTIP (new teacher's induction program) this year, kind of like probation.  And new teachers are so lucky because they get to do 2 in their first year!  So being a nervous person as it is, it's going to be a very stressful period.  I hope it goes well.  It's the kids that scare me really.  The way they behave can make it more difficult or easier on me.  But we'll see how it goes.

Over the past few weeks, I've had this strong desire to teach in another country.  I really want to try teaching in Eritrea or Ethiopia even.  I want to appreciate the educational spectrum and pedagogy and practices of another totally different school system in an entirely different social atmosphere.  Once I build my seniority in the TDSB and I get more financially settled, this is definitely something I'm going to do.

For now, I'll just take vacations every summer and add posts to my online travelogue!

GW