Freshy Freshman!

I have been assigned 5 class periods of freshman.  Two of the periods are advanced and three of them are mainstream.  I am both nervous to have this age and relieved to not have the older students.  Each class can have up to 30 students in it.  So far my smallest class is 14 and my largest is 30.  My department head has requested that I review grammar, writing, and reading comprehension during the first semester and not get into literature until January. The textbook is the same textbook that Roanoke County Schools use.  I was flipping through the book and remembered some of the stories from my freshman year.  If I use the book I will be teaching Romeo and Juliet!  However, I may not use the book much because the department head is trying to purchase novels by Samoan authors.  She says it will help the kids relate more to the story.  I guess that is true and that means I need to start ordering Samoan books.

I was able to see my classroom yesterday.  It isn’t as bad as I feared.  There are 33 student desks and my desk (one side is being held up by math textbooks), a closet of literature books (I have not been able to count them or evaluate the condition, a printer (who knows if it works), and an empty bookcase.  I was suppose to be able to get into my room today and clean, but…the key is M.I.A.  Hopefully, on Friday I can get in there and assess what needs to be done.  I know that I am going to have to make some posters to brighten the room and do some cleaning.  I also found out that I will be getting a school issued MacBook.  (It may be a while before I get it though).

What has been going on in Samoa????  I picked up my puletasi this afternoon and the skirt to my school uniform (I just bought the fabric for the top), I’ve seen the start of a cock fight in my neighbors’ yard, and drum roll please…I’ve heard horror stories of what happens at my school.  Apparently over the summer students broke into the school multiple times.  Once they took the math textbooks and used them to set a bonfire, once they partied in the social studies department, and they stolen electronics from the science and English departments.  You will never guess how the teachers responded when the administration told them what happened.  They laughed and thought it was no big deal.

The school has SmartBoards and new copiers/printers in a room waiting to be set up, but because of the students horrid behavior and the schools lack of security the principal will not set up the new equipment.  It is sad that there are those resources sitting and collecting dust when they could be used to enhance the classroom, but I completely agree with the principal’s logic. 

I started my lesson planning for next week tonight (then I got distracted and decided to talk to all of you).  It is hard planning for the first week.  The school wants me to do assessments, but not all the students are going to be there and their schedules can still be switched around.  However, here is what I think I’m going to do.

Monday (only 30 min long classes)

Attendance

Rules

Give supply list

Tuesday (50 min classes)

Complete contact info pages

Seating chart

Overview of class

Anything not finished on Monday

Wednesday-Friday (50 min classes)

Writing Assessment (essay)

Grammar Assessment (multiple choice)

Reading Assessment (individually with me)

If you have any ideas I would love suggestions.