Well, it was a rather eventful first week. Lets just say that my original teacher and I have very different teaching styles. I talked to my professor and he was able to help me get a new teacher at the same school. So, as of Thursday, I am now with Mr. Donovan. Mr. Donovan teachers 4 sections of honors world history and one section of college prep world history. Its basically the same class for all 5. Then, during 6th period and after school, he is the head mens basketball coach for the school. He is super nice and has been teaching for 19 years. He encouraged me to go and check out the swim team. He is very knowledgeable and easy to get a long with.
As for my teaching experience, I am having a good time so far. Last week I just observed, which was a good thing because I needed to get back to the feel of things in the classroom. Then today, I taught my first lesson. I would say it went okay. Its difficult because I'm only teaching one period a day this week. So, I have to keep things the same for 4th period that Mr. Donovan does with all the other periods. Its weird doing someone elses lecture. The impression I got from him was that he wanted me to do something different than what he does. So, tomorrow I'm going to try. After I write this, I'm going to write up my lesson plan for tomorrow. Tomorrow is also my first observation from my supervisor from La Verne. I'm not very nervous for that because I know that she is there to help me and give me feedback and she doesn't expect me to be perfect. The thing about teaching is that you improve with experience. And obviously, I don't have much experience so I must not be very good.
And then there's swimming. Coach Mount has been coaching swimming for 33 years. He is also a history teacher. The Ayala swim team has almost 200 swimmers. I was thinking that since now I am unemployed and all, I could offer my services. So now, I am a volunteer coach. It's cool to be a part of a big team and to see how organized everything has to be. Coach Mount does a really good job at keeping things in line. I have to work some things out with the district but then I should be good to go. Duncan thinks I'm crazy for volunteering but, its something to add to my resume. Plus, Ayala really seems to like to hire their coaches as teachers or vice versa. It wasn't like that at Santiago. But now I really see the advantage of being a teacher/coach. I think I'm going to enjoy it.
So today, I got up at 515am, left for school at 620, talked with Mr. D until 730, had a department meeting until 830, observed/taught until 120, coached until 4, went to the gym at 530, and got home at 645. Phew. Long day. But at least I have my nights free and will be able to lesson plan and get things organized at night.
Tomorrow Ayala has its first swim meet against Rancho Cucamonga. Won't get home from that until 7 or so but will start updating close to daily.