I have taught high school for 22 years. This is my 23rd. In April I accepted a buy-out offer from the school district and will officially retire from teaching high school in this district at least. In all of my English classes my students write in their journal for the first 10 minutes or so of class. I also write in my journal but I decided on Saturday night to write in my blog instead. Part of the reason I am writing here is to have a record of my last year of teaching. Also Donna, Kathy, Joan and I watched the film Julia and Julia on Saturday night. Briefly the film's premise is that a blogger decides to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook and paralleled with the story of Julia Child's life in France. This blogger has a goal. I suppose that I should have a goal for this blog. I have thought of several, but here are a few thoughts: To find a new job by the end of the year, to decide upon a pattern for my new life, to create a design portfolio that I can sell myself with, to promote myself musically.
As I look back on twenty two years and of course think where did it go? My first few years of teaching were at DeAnza High School in the old Richmond Unified School District. In my second year of teaching the superintendent designated our school a classical studies school. The district trained us in leading Socratic discussions on difficult topics. We followed a school model pioneered by Mortimer Adler, the philosopher. Mortimer Adler, aged 90 at that time even came to our district and gave a lecture. I remember him demonstrating the Socratic method with about 8 sixth graders. Our team, especially the young English teachers were excited about doing Socratic seminars. We had students read short but challenging passages and they discuss their value with as little teacher intervention as possible. We also made many other changes in the school- integrated social studies and English curriculum, had individualized tutorials for those having difficulty in class and many meeting discussing innovation and the value of doing what we were doing. We thought that we were the cutting edge until front page news informed us that the district was bankrupt and our superintendent was resigning.
I transferred to a small new continuation school, Delta, with a friend of mine as principal. There were about 100 students and three teachers. I taught history and English. Most of the population was African American or Hispanic. Many of our kids were gang kids but treated us with great respect at school. It seems that the most endearing in this setting are also the most likely to break hearts. Justin, 15 years old, was a kid who meant well but was heavily involved in gangs. First he got his girlfriend pregnant. Then he crashed a party and shot a rival gang member in the head. This gang member did not die but was in a permanent coma. He fled the state and landed for a while somewhere on the East Coast. It was also the year that I received the teacher of the year award in Richmond. I worked at Delta High School for three years.
So I have started this year trying to spruce up my websites. I created a new myspace page to highlight my music. My Linked In page is 80% done, I am not sure what that means, but I sent out about 50 requests for connections. I am deciding if I still want to be teaching next year and if I am at what level. I am able to teach several things at the Junior College level and I think that things like web skills might be my most employable skill. Overall it is exciting and a bit scary to have open possibilities after teaching so long.
I will try to write in this blog every teaching day that I have. You can see my life in the classroom, the place where I am now sitting and writing. Also I will not promote this page. Whoever decides to read it, can spread it by word of mouth or digitally if they like.
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