A Major Announcement (Day 1)

In today's post, I have a major announcement to make. I'll add the "FAQ" label and then use the rest of this post to give the announcement.

I am now officially a full-time math teacher. Starting tomorrow and lasting the rest of this year, I will be teaching at a high school in LA County.

Everything has been moving quickly since my August 4th post. I had a Zoom interview with the district last Thursday, filled out paperwork for the position on Monday, and then found out today that I will be reporting to the school tomorrow. I don't know much about the school itself, nor about which levels of math I'll be teaching. I've only been to the district office and have never set foot on the campus itself.

Anyway, here are a few things I know about the district, the school, and my new position:

• It is not in the LA County district where I've been subbing for five years, but it is next door. And because of this, my new LA County district's calendar closely resembles that of the old district.
• Today really is the first day of school in the district, and so I won't see the students until Day 2. The district did try as hard as they could to get me processed, but I still end up missing the first day.
• This is a fairly new magnet school in the district. In fact, its first year of operation was just five years ago (the same year that I taught at the old charter school).
• The school is fairly small -- perhaps around the same size as the old charter school.
• The school has a fairly typical block schedule, with all classes on Mondays, odd periods on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and even periods on Wednesdays and Fridays.
• The district uses integrated math.
• The magnet school is in trouble. In the spring, it was declared that unless a sufficient pool of incoming freshmen applied, the school would admit no freshmen. And indeed, that's exactly what happened -- all students currently at this school are in Grades 10-12.

This is a Geometry blog. But one thing I told myself is that if I ever taught full-time and had a schedule with no Geometry (for example, all Algebra I and II classes), then I would end this blog and start a new blog without Geometry in its name. But as along as I had at least one class with some geometry -- and this includes both middle school classes and integrated classes in high school -- then I would keep this blog with the name Geometry.

But do all integrated classes really have Geometry content? One thing I've noticed is that Integrated Math I tends to include half of Algebra I and half of Geometry, and then Math II includes the remaining half of Algebra I and Geometry. Thus Math III becomes almost identical to Algebra II -- indeed, perhaps calling this class "integrated" is a misnomer.

OK, so that would make it easy -- if I get my schedule tomorrow and I have at least one Math I or II class, then I keep the Geometry name, but if I have only Math III and higher, I start a new blog.

This district does provide a path to AP Calculus -- middle school students who take Honors Math 7 and 8 and excels in both can enter freshman year in Math II. Since this is a magnet school, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a requirement to enter the magnet -- so all freshmen here take Math II. But keep in mind that there are no freshmen this year. The sophomores would all be in Math III this year, thus making Math III the lowest class offered at the magnet this year.

If this is the case, then I'm guaranteed to have no class with any geometry content -- and thus I'd have to start a new blog. I'll find out tomorrow whether I'm correct.

As for how often I'll blog, my blogging schedule needs to be based on the block schedule. If I'm keeping this blog, then it means that I have at least one Math II class -- and then my posting schedule will be based on that Math II class as that one course justifies the Geometry name. So if it's an odd period, then I'll post Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

In any case, I wish to tweet on the days I don't blog. At such a small school, there might be only one other math teacher -- and it's likely that I'll have at least one prep that the other teacher doesn't. And so I'll do what I should have done at the old charter school -- post on Twitter, and treat the MTBoS as my math department, at least for the preps where I'm the only teacher.

My mind is at a blur right now. As recently as my August 4th post, I was worried that I might never become a high school math teacher, and now suddenly I have a class to teach tomorrow. I'm still making sure that I have a classroom management plan -- after my experience at the old charter school, I want a much stronger plan for this year. I'm rereading my Harry Wong and Fred Jones books on classroom management to make sure that I'm doing everything right!

The MTBoS also has some ideas on what I should do tomorrow. Over the weekend, one of my favorite MTBoS members, Fawn Nguyen, made a timely post:

https://www.fawnnguyen.com/teach/dear-new-teachers

Congratulations! Whether you’re a brand new teacher or you have a new assignment, whether you’re in a new building or you’re returning to the classroom, I wish you all the best.

Thanks Fawn -- I certainly hope to do my best this year.

Take attendance each day out loud. I wish I could take back the days when I just looked at the empty desks to mark down the absentees. I thought I was being efficient. Greet students each day by saying their names and acknowledging their presence:

Notice that this completely contradicts what Harry Wong and Fred Jones write in their books. To them, taking attendance out loud invites misbehavior and leads to comments such as "He isn't absent -- he's just in the office," as well as arguments.

But since the pandemic, I've read of more teachers leaning towards Nguyen's suggestion here. They believe that after having spent most of last year on Zoom, what students need more than anything else is a sense of belonging. And one way to provide that sense of belonging is to call out their names.

What Nguyen is telling teachers to do is have a conversation with their students. I admit that I often struggle to converse with high school students, and for a simple reason -- when I was a young high school student myself, I had trouble conversing with my classmates! As I've mentioned on the blog, I moved to a different district during my freshman year -- and as so often happens to students in that situation, I struggled to make friends at my new school after leaving my old ones behind. (Once again, to this day I still consider my eighth grade graduation to be my "real" graduation -- one reason is that it's the last graduation where I saw most of my friends.)

One of Nguyen's suggested conversations is:

How was your game yesterday?

My new magnet school apparently has only three sports. One of them is Cross Country -- which, of course, was my sport as well. I can definitely connect to my new students who happen to be distance runners (and once again, as a young XC runner I was at least able to bond with my teammates).

Do math every day, especially on the first day. The kind of math where your students talk in groups for at least 75% of the time. If your principal tells you not to, they are wrong.

Well, I do want to do some math tomorrow, but how can I when I don't even know what grade level of math level my classes are yet?

Oh, that's easy! Instead of Nguyen, I need to look at some other famous bloggers -- the Sara(h)s. The first week projects on the Sarah Carter and Sara Vanderwerf blogs are perfect for any level. I'll certainly do at least one of the Sara(h) activities tomorrow. Afterward, I'll blog and tweet about those activities.

Even though Tina Cardone's challenge is over, I'll continue to post "A Day in the Life" on special days, including tomorrow for the "first" day of school (even though it's really Day 2). I'll also have a monthly posting day for "A Day in the Life." The schedule mentions monthly minimum days similar to the ones I had at my long-term school from last year -- if this is accurate, then I'll continue to use those as monthly posting days.

Oh, and speaking of blogging challenges, now that I'm a real teacher and a full member of the MTBoS, it means that I'm officially a Blaugust participant. Wait -- so Shelli isn't doing Blaugust this year? I'm sorry, but I've been waiting five years to rejoin Blaugust, and no one -- not even Shelli -- can tell me anything else.

In fact, there really is a Blaugust challenge this year, but it has nothing to do with MTBoS or math. But still, I'm taking their logo and declaring this to be a Blaugust post. Here is the source of the logo:

http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/blog/2021/8/10/blaugust-2021-getting-to-know-you

Let's get to today's Blaugust topic. Since today's date is the eleventh, we'll just take the eleventh topic from Shelli's old list from 2019.

• How do you handle homework / daily practice?

This is a tricky one. During my long-term assignment, daily homework was completed on APEX, which included quizzes after each lesson. But now that there's more in-person learning this year, it might be time to return to traditional written homework. Things that I'll take into consideration include what other teachers at my new school are doing (including non-math teachers) and whether there is an online grading system with predetermined weights for homework, such as 10% or 15%. My old charter school weighted homework at 15%.

In fact, I like the topic I found at the above Blaugust link even more -- "getting to know you." This post was all about getting to know me -- I'm a teacher with a brand-new job. And tomorrow's post will be even more "getting to know you," as I get to know what classes -- and what students -- I'm teaching.

What I do know is this -- five years ago, I taught at an old charter middle school. That year didn't go as well as I'd hoped. And so this year, I've been granted a second chance to start a teaching career at a new high school.

And I will do a better job this time around. Notice that I didn't say that I may do a better job, or that I might do a better job. There's no "may" or "might" about it -- I will do a better job this year;. After all, Fawn Nguyen writes:

For the longest time I had only two rules to tell my students on the first day of school: 1) never give up, and 2) never tell an answer.

And that first rule applies to me. When it comes to being a better teacher, I will never give up.