Moving on...sucessfully?

Well, I have finished a trimester and failed miserably. That being said, I am okay with it. Ten weeks of wasting my students valuable education time and thinking about how dauntingly difficult this job is and then, I still sleep at night. It's really a great combination. It probably comes from the results of a comparison between myself and my colleagues. They don't set the bar very high.

But I had a week break from teaching spent with Ali P., taught for a week and finally spent a three day weekend on the beach with Patrick and Cameron, and now I feel ready. This last week of teaching was organized and accompanied with a sense of direction and light at the end of the tunnel as opposed to stumbling through a rock field in a dense fog (hell on the toes). I have broken down the trimester into themes and divided the themes into units and now I know when the tests will be and...wait, sounds a little like curriculum planning. Okay, so I didn't invent or innovate anything but I feel accomplished. As far as history class goes I am getting caught up and even a little ahead with writing, what is more or less, my students' textbook. However, this last week the chair of the history department asked me to give a seminar on the American history, from Jamestown to independence, to the entire second year class. You could say I am a little worried about that.

So all and all, I feel organized and on the right track but the task of teaching English to students in a time frame that amounts to sixty hours in one school year (or thirty, for my third year students) is as daunting as ever and I am coping with the fact that there will only be a select few that will truly learn a marketable amount of English from me. But it is important to note that the relationships outside of the class as well as the exchange of experiences and lifestyles negates any concerns I have about teaching, or the lack there of.

Thanks for all of the support and keep in touch. I love to hear from everybody.