Day -14

So the interviews, second interviews, third interviews, and presentation lessons continue hot-n-heavy. I taught juniors a theme lesson yesterday during my planning time; I had to pack up my gear, rush over and set up, and then teach for 35 minutes, pack up, and rush back and teach last period. The juniors were cool, they were smart and engaged, and they were very kind to let me interrupt their lesson on compound complex sentences in order to teach them something they'd already learned earlier this year. The lesson was videotaped and there will be a panel discussion with the school administration after they watch and discuss the video.

I've been receiving calls and emails from an expanding charter school too. I read up on the institution, and it sounds really awesome: arts integration, project-based education using the expedtionary learning model, they are exempt from City standardized tests, their kids go out into the community and do interviews and research, and they go to the MD Historical Society for primary sources on projects. But they want a Social Studies teacher with Language Arts chops to teach "Humanities." I am the exact opposite of that, a Language Arts teacher with History chops--and I made clear I thought during an hour-long phone interview that I my learning curve would be too steep for their needs, and I thanked the principal for talking to me, and apologetically withdrew my name from consideration. But then she emailed me and said "I want to come see you teach tomorrow. I just hired a teacher who interviewed you before at Mount Royal two years ago and she said you are aces." And then she left a long phone message for me last night asking me to call out sick from my job Friday and spend the day with her kids watching the teacher planning time and the students working. And then after observing me today they gave me a letter asking me once again to come spend the day at their school, so I think I might do that.

Still no firm job offers, though I have heard that I'm likely to get offered positions at the East side diverse middle school and the alternative middle/high school in Hampden. Now I have a lot to think about. The middle/high school is a dream gig, and is right up the street, but this charter school--though it sounds like a butt load of work--might be even better, and the principal is practically stalking me. Arrgh. I wish the process was over!

Today at school? Fights, herds of students terrorizing the halls, pulling down cameras off the walls, throwing furniture, breaking computers, cussing out and attacking staff. What a mess. These kids are wild enough; now that they know the school is being re-organized next year they are wilding out in new and more inventive ways.