Awesome Teacher on Rotation

It's been two years since I've written a blog.  Since I am now officially in the ATR pool, I think this would be the best time to dig this blog up.  Especially since I don't have much to do everyday.  I just kind of wander from school to school.  So this post is mostly an update on what I've done up to this point.

Started the year at High School of Fashion Industries in Chelsea, filling a maternity leave for Global History.  The leave was only 5 weeks, but I wanted good experience.  This school was amazing! I loved it.  The principal is this super nice guy who greets the kids every morning.  Most of the school is girls, though there are some boys.  Every class I had, which was mostly freshmen, I had kids ready to work every day, and some real interesting questioning and discussion with them.  Things got a little weird when the regular teacher came back, but overall I really enjoyed being there and was sad to leave.  That was September to October.

From there I was sent to Manhattan Business Academy, also in Chelsea.  This is within the Bayard Rustin building, which I knew nothing about.  It seemed...ok...  I don't know.  The principal seemed nice but the impression I got from the teachers is there is a lot of extra work and there isn't much voice.  Seems like kids were given a lot of power.  Most of my days they had me doing nothing, so I hung in the teacher's lounge with the other Social Studies ATRs as kids walked in constantly asking their regular teachers for work packets, which teachers would print out.  Rarely would these kids complete these, which I got from teachers.  Thankfully, election week was my last week there.

From there I went to Forsyth Satellite Academy.  I have never been in a transfer school before.  It's quite interesting, they do regents but they also do something called a PBAT, which is a Performance Based Assessment.  Also started later, but attendance is still very bad.  But I like the idea of starting closer to 9am.  Most of the time I had little to do but towards the end of my time there I had more and more coverages.  The staff was really cool and supportive and seemed to work well with each other.  I wouldn't mind teaching in a school like that.

Now I am East Side Community High School, on the LES.  This school is really good with a big focus on reading.  They have blocks where kids read and annotate.  I am still learning more about this school but so far everyone has been really nice.

Well I think that's all for today.  I think forthcoming posts will involve me weighing in on teaching topics and maybe doing an expose on principals you should avoid.  Because, well, got to help others out.