All of those summer goals I had?  Forget 'em.  I'm moving again.  I found an awesome new experimental school still further out west, and let's just say Sr. Huertero is not coming this time.  Or his German girlfriend.

But on to better and brighter things!

Less than a week after deciding to move, I received a call from the Newton-Conover Health Sciences High School, a relatively new school started as part of the New Schools Project sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  They were in need of a science teacher and a debate coach.

Now some might be thinking: "How are you going to handle coaching and raising a baby by yourself?  That's just nuts!"  And my response is, I don't know, and you're right.  But I feel like it's going to work, and possibly be the best thing for Paolo and me.

Here are some things that give me hope, even thrill me about this school:

1. Part of the New Schools Project initiative--public, but not "old school" (pardon the pun)
   
2. Fewer than 150 students total, class sizes of 15-23
3. A faculty of fewer than 10, who share one small-classroom-sized-office and collaborate constantly
4. "All-School Meetings", every Monday, where students and faculty get heard and make change.
5. "Families": homeroom, but better, like we thought we were going to do at Fairmont, what, 3 years ago?
6. Projects in every class, related to the uniting purpose of health sciences
7. Lab and project time on Mondays after the ASM--no academic classes as such, but time to get extra help
8. Constant, open pedagogical dialogue with peers and principal
9. Principal said I could bring my baby on debate trips!
10. Going to a lottery instead of application process next year--true democracy!
    

Of course there are things that worry me, too, like the workday lasting until 4:15 (before any debate team meetings), and year-long, hour-long courses when I've only ever experienced high school--as teacher or student--on some form of the 90-minute block schedule.  Also, the principal said this way is way more work than he had done in his 38 years in the old way of doing it...but he'd still never go back.

Overall, this looks like it could be the chance of a lifetime!  Here's hoping!

1. Re-work Spanish I and II semester calendars in more beneficial order, with fancy new smartboard activities included, as well as worksheets and workbook pages--perhaps textbook back-up--to assign.  Oh yeah, and I think I'll go back to quiz-quiz-test instead of quiz-quiz-quiz-test after all.
   
   
2. Create culminating reading exercises based on vocabulary and concepts for each section.
   
   
3. Set up wiki research projects online: Personas Importantes, Conflictos del Mundo Hispano, and Nuestrapedia.  (The first two are cultural exercises based on lame-ish projects done this year; the last will be a writing-in-Spanish wherein students can choose any *school appropriate* topic, but they must use grammar concepts and discover vocabulary relevant to their topic of choice.)  Perhaps create a geographical wiki?
   
   
4. Add to AcademiaPop wiki, including soundbite files if possible.
   
   
5. File and order all handouts online and in a binder.
   
   
6. Create Spanish II soundbites from Spanish pop songs, and put together attractive smart-board review games and activities with them.
   
   
7. Research/invent ways to incorporate more speaking, especially in Spanish II, such as, perhaps, story re-telling (using gossip column type stuff?)
   
   
8. Organize SMART notes according to topics as well as re-designed calendar.
   
   
9. Update and organize my game stash, sorting, chucking, re-creating, printing, etc. (After all, they can't all be smart board games!)
   

And if the professional goals weren't enough, there's also the vow to sort through things shoved into dark corners in my apartment, the conviction to vacuum every week, and some things I want to do for baby since I'll be home:

1. Read a book a day together
   
2. Take a walk 2-3 times a week, swim once or twice too
3. Try a baby food recipe or two each week

Phew!  And somewhere in there I'll be visiting my folks and possibly even Paolo's abuelos!  Yep, that oughtta keep me busy...if I stay on track!

I know what you're thinking: you escaped observation until after Memorial Day?  That or: the first glimpse the administration at your "new" school got of your classroom management was almost a month after spring fever officially set in?

Actually, I'd seen a couple of administrators in the past month.  I just didn't get any feedback until yesterday's lesson.

Oh, and it was fourth period.  Beat that.

Fortunately, I've scrapped starters, since I ran out of foreign cities in the Spanish II textbook for them to answer who/what/when/where about.  This means we were already entrenched in my "ninguno" SMART game.  It wasn't much of a game, just a which-answer-is-wrong-and-why, but with interactive technologicality to reveal whether answers were right or wrong.  They did have to tell me why the answer they picked was wrong before I revealed the little x or star.

Also, we're heavy into reviewing, so there was another technologically thrilling smart board game cued up, ready to go, and old take on the old foreign language vocabulary standard, the flyswatter game.  (We don't use flyswatters on the smartboard, so they call it the smacking game, or the smack-and-delete game.)  And did I mention these were posted on the board and accomplished in the order posted?

I felt okay about it all, because, as is kids' wont, they weren't sure who was "in trouble," me or them, so they were mostly on task.  Still, I was a little nervous because of my description of "ningún" as an adjective and "ninguno" as a noun? pronoun?, a distinction I myself was somewhat fuzzy on.  I've been living with my compañera's tales of his picking on her explanation of gustar and that one word she misspelled (did I mention this AP also translates when need be?).  What would he find to pick on me for?  I was so hoping he'd be intimidated by the fact that I speak Spanish faster than he does and not try to pick on me.

The first thing he said when I walked in?  "I liked those review games you were playing!"  (I had forgotten he saw more than one.)

We talked--in English--about the uses of the smartboard in the foreign language class, and he was pleased with the koosh conjugation game I'd made, and the like.  He had to go on his little tangent about TPR, but overall, it seems I've pulled off the image of a competent, and perhaps technologically forward, educator.

It appears Sr. AP is not a man of "Above Standard" checkmarking, but there were highlights in his observation (aside from the note that some kids thought "a" was an indefinite article).  The highlights of the actual snapshot observation form?

"It was a little noisey but it was productive noise."

And ..."Ms. Huertero seemed to have the students' respect."

I can't tell you how much that ambiguously complimentary line means to me, fourth period at the end of May.