Teaching High School

A Compliment

One of the things about teaching that I really enjoy is the unsolicited compliment. This happened to me the other day and it still thrills me.

A young man who has the pleasure of being in two classes of mine (different subjects) said to me, "I've learned more [subject area] in one semester with you than I did with the teacher I had for two years."

I'm still beaming.

Teach Overseas?

On Monster I often get a job listing for teaching English abroad. I finally took a look at one of the sites cited. What always strikes me are the perks offered: 20 hours of teaching each week, overtime pay, fully furnished and paid for apartment, health benefits. This would be great if it allowed me to put $20,000 in the bank and learn another language (or brush up on the other one aside from English I know and currently teach). Unfortunately, I think the conversion amounts to under $10,000 for most of the listings which are typically in Korea or China or other Asian places. Have any of you done this or doing this now?

Seating Arrangements

I would like to let you all in on a little secret: I seat my better students in the front of the room. Yes, against all teacher prep courses, I put in the back of the room the kids who goof off, the kids who get poor grades, the kids who have actively made it known they don't like the class. A colleague and coach at my school made a speech about what he does to promote success in his room, and promote positiveness in himself, and that is to put the kids who are positive in the front, close to him. So for the last five weeks I've had such a seating arrangement. And let me tell you, I spend much less time reprimanding and cajoling inattentive students into being on task.

As it happens I overheard a student today say, "She doesn't have any control over this class." This came fromt the middle of the room. I pointedly looked at him, told him I didn't care what he thought (even though he probably didn't think I could hear him), and went on to teach to the kids who did care and were paying attention. I think the kids in front appreciate it since I've had much more participation from any of them in the last five weeks than I did in the first twenty. I think I'll keep it this way.