Look closely and you may find me among those 73 public policy journals that I grade over most weekends to stay on top of grading during the weeknight. P is for PARTY (not really, it's for PUBLIC POLICY!) It's also for the essays AP Gov't writes during the week to be graded, the brand new US History II (Gilded Age to Obama) class I'm lead teacher to collaborate with 7 other US History teachers over this year to plan, tweak where needed, and test. It is also college rec season and with seniors in the fall, many of whom I've taught Civics, US History or even Freshman World History before coming back for AP Gov't, I've been hit up for recommendation letters frequently. I wish I could tell my 18 year old self to be so much more grateful to those teachers I asked to write for me a gazillion years ago. My guess is if they ever thought I would be teaching students one day, they would have laughed and said, nope I'm not helping you get to that profession. Needless to say I really spell check and edit what I write on behalf for student's.
This year I've also a mentor to two new, 1st year teachers both of which I wouldn't trade places for a a million dollars. I've been supplying them in candy on Fridays and discount school supplies to round out their cabinets.
In addition I've taken on a a new position as AP Dept Chair. If I had the time to convey my excitement I would. I hope it will be a great legacy to leave behind when I finally get to retire. Really, I wanted to add on some responsibility as for the last few years under "school leadership" I've gotten marked way down on not being involved enough at my school. As part of our annual review, and pay is tied to our performance evaluations, I needed to fit myself in where I'm already doing stuff like mentoring and teaching AP classes to hopefully count more fully.
Our school is one of 150 selected for a new program run by College Board that is a special honors diploma called AP Capstone. Over the next year I am helping develop and bring a Senior research methods and a Sophomore seminar class to our existing AP course load. In the spring I will be visiting all our our feeder middle schools to sell why students and their families should buy into this program as a Freshman!
Added responsibility is all good stuff and I'm honored that after interviewing to be the AP Dept Chair, they picked me among the other candidates. Add to it that I'm also in my national board certification year and I'm basically living work right now minus the couple of afternoons I'm trying to steal to work out.
Never since I started this little space other than a 30 day, self- imposed media fast back in 2009 have I ever gone this long without a post. Between the usual amount of hours in a given work week, Ben's amount of homework per night, 2 soccer weeknight practices, and 2 Saturday games I'm doing good to keep us in clean underwear.
I've also had some horrible, horrible issues with sleep related to working up to going to bed and then having insomnia. So when I can, I'm trying to get to bed as early as possible. Just know that I'm still here and doing fine and basically choosing sleep other than updating the mundane.
I hope to return again during my favorite month of the year. In the meantime, eat some candy corn and peanuts in my honor as I have banned both from my house.
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