EOY 2023-24

Thus the 2023-24 school year comes to a close.

This has probably been the most challenging year of my teaching career. I took on two new subjects this year and dealt with a completely different student population. It's been exhausting.

It all started last spring when registration numbers came in. We had lots and lots of kids sign up for biology and Earth science. (Chemistry and physics enrollments have dropped precipitously since the Regents Scholarship, which required both, went away.) We lost two biology teachers to other schools last spring, so we hired two new ones to replace them. Even so, the two new biology teachers plus the one who was still here was not enough to cover all of the sections required. So our earth science teacher switched over to biology. 

So that took care of biology, but we still had eight sections of Earth science to fill. We hired someone from another school teach four of the sections, plus a couple of ELL sections. I know, strange combination of assignments. I had the content knowledge to teach Earth science, but I didn't have the endorsement. So to get the endorsement, I took a science methods course at the beginning of the summer last year. And two Praxis exams. Which means this school year really started for me last June. 

So I ended up taking on the other four sections of earth science—my first experience teaching freshman. It was all that I had anticipated, and less. I taught primarily sophomores for the first 8 or 9 years of my career, and they brought plenty of Middle School crap to the table. But it was nothing like these guys. In fairness, there were a few really good students. But there were a whole lot more that brought previously unforeseen levels of apathy, entitlement, and general dysfunction to the table. I don't know how my Mom did it for almost 30 years. 

This was also my first year teaching concurrent enrollment astronomy. I'd been to the training, and I had talked to the liaison at SLCC. They already had a syllabus in place, with the schedule for lessons and exams and chapter assignments and all of that jazz. All I needed to do was direct my students to the SLCC Canvas site. But then the shoe dropped. All the assignments on SLCC's Canvas, including the quizzes and exams, we're administered through a third-party software package that students have to pay extra for. So SLCC told me not to have our students use it. Now, all of a sudden, I'm having to come up with all of the assignments. Oh, and the new gradebook software we use wasn't set up to emulate their grading categories, standards, and requirements. On the other hand, these students were, for the most part, unusually dedicated and conscientious about learning the material and getting stuff done. That was enormously refreshing.

So by second semester, five of the seven class periods I was teaching were subjects I had never taught before. I'd anticipated that there was going to be a learning curve. I did not anticipate that it was going to feel like Mount Everest. 

But I made it through. Today was graduation, and a lot of kids that I've got to known over the past few years became grown-ups today. There is much to be said for the satisfaction of seeing someone that you have taught move on to the next level. 

Before graduation we had our end of year teacher celebration at school. We said goodbye to about 10 different teachers today, some retiring, some moving on to other positions, and one taking a job as a college professor on the East Coast. Three of the people who retired today are people that I have leaned on heavily since my first day of teaching fifteen years ago. Veterans, friends, mentors. It's going to be hard not seeing them from now on. 

One of the other people we're losing is one of our chemistry teachers, who's taking a position as the district science curriculum specialist. It's kind of funny. When we moved into the new building in 2013, I was in one of the two chemistry classrooms. When the honors physics teacher retired 6 years ago, I had just earned an endorsement to teach physics. I was offered his position as well as his room, so I moved. Since then, no teacher has stayed in my old room for more than two years. Now this latest teacher is gone after one academic year. My room is like our version of Defense Against the Dark Arts. 

So all in all, it's been a crazy end to a crazy year. You hear athletes after a big game talk about leaving everything on the field. Well, that's how I feel right now. I've left it all in the classroom this year. I am physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually exhausted. I want nothing more right now than to crawl into bed and stay there for 3 or 4 days. It's not realistic, of course, because I have kids. Still, it's nice to think about.

But hey, only 10½ weeks until next school year starts!