Tuesday, 22 April 2008

• this is totally normal

  it's been so long and xanga has changed so much that i couldn't even figure out how to add a new blog post. but here it is.
  
  you know how when you haven't talked to an old friend for a long time, you don't call them because you know that whatever conversation you'll have with them couldn't do the conversation you owe them justice? well, replace "old friend" with "xanga" and replace "call them" with "blog on it" and you'll get how i've felt about upkeeping this here thing.
  
  so first, the overall update:
  i finished my tfa commitment. two years teaching high school math in southwest baltimore. i also finished a masters degree in the art of teaching from johns hopkins. who woulda thought? the best thing i can say about the masters degree is that now i have one. the second best thing is that it was free (paid for almost entirely by baltimore city with a little bit covered by americorps). there is no third best thing to say about it.
  
  at the end of my 2nd year of teaching, for some complicated political reasons that would be too detailed to get into here and now, i was allowed/asked to transfer to another school. after looking around at a few schools, i was lucky enough to land a job teaching at a public magnet school in baltimore city. i don't want this page to come up when you google search it, so i'll spell the name backwards here: "egelloc ytic eromitlab" read the whole thing backwards. we have a sweet wikipedia page which you can check out, too. it's the third oldest public school in the country. it's 88% african american and 44% free or reduced price lunch.
  
  i teach mostly smart, somewhat well-behaved students, and it basically feels like a totally different profession than teaching at my tfa placement school. i feel very lucky and more than a little bit guilty, like i'm "abandoning" the mission of educational equality, even though i'm probably not. i teach 4 sections of precalculus and have the privilege of teaching IB high level math. this means that i'll have taught 6 different classes in 3 years, which has been a pain. IB stands for international baccalaureate and it's sort of like an alternative to AP testing, but it's a comprehensive curriculum for all subjects. the high level math class is pretty dope, and i get to teach things like vector geometry, calculus, complex roots, number and set theory and maybe some differential equations. the best part (for me) is that by teaching this, i finally REALLY understand it. i wish i could go back and tell my math212-taking self some of the stuff i've learned instead of just relying on old gao tests to get me through the semester. so anyway, i'm signed up to teach another year at the same school, which will make me a 4-year veteran. i'll have been a high school teacher for as long as i was a high school student. or a college student. blah.
  
  i'm very old now. i am closer to 30 than i am to 20. i have car payments, health insurance and a retirement account, into which i put money automatically from each paycheck. i'm so old that i really enjoy hanging out with my parents. i'm old enough that a spring break spent doing my taxes and laundry, going to the dmv, buying and assembling an ikea desk and writing lesson plans is "awesome." this doesn't scare me at all. i think i've always been pretty ready to be old.
  
  speaking of my parents, i just got back from st louis visiting them for passover. it was the first time i've been home for seders in 7 years and the first time i haven't led a seder in 6 years. i love the passover seder. it's pretty much my favorite jewish ritual and everyone is invited to any seder i happen to host in the future. it's everything you want in a religious ritual: it's full of tradition and symbolism, it's for your family and friends, there's tons of great food and wine, and the point is to discuss how its themes can be reinterpreted for all of us each year. i love it.
  
  i feel like i could post a million different things to talk about from the past 2 years or whatever it's been since i last posted, but i figured i'd just wait and see what comes up in the future and just post as i go. hope everyone's doing well.
  

  • 9:43 PM
  • 52 Views
  • 4 eProps
  • 2 Comments