Students hard at work (well, most of them!); yeah, those are uniforms...
So I done made it to the new school. It's mighty fine overall. I teach 10th grade Humanities and 9th grade ESL. I 'push in' to a math class and a science class. (Push in is when you go into a 'content' class and help the ESL kids follow the lessons and pass the class, the idea being they need help with English to get the content.) I've never done push in before and I find it interesting. For one, I don't have to prep (yeah, baby!) and, two, I get to see a side of the ESL kids' academic life that I don't normally get to see. I think half the benefit of my pushing in is that the kids are quieter and harder working. Since there's a lot of group work and 'workshop' lessons, having two teachers in the classroom is really handy. Today, for instance, the math teacher I visited for the first time said it was her best lesson since she started teaching that class. The bottom line seems to be that two teachers are able to keep the kids on task a lot more than one could.
The staff and all are friendly enough and helpful. There's a positive atmosphere that was lacking in the old school.
More later...I've planning to do and papers to grade. Go figure. Having just two preps is awesome but as I have not taught Humanities before there's a lot to learn. There's a World History book for the class that is pretty densely packed.