Back to school

My summer is officially over. I started work again yesterday (Monday). These first couple of days are training days. It's been great to hear about the history of the church and school that I now work for. I have also been meeting some new people (since I have the opportunity to teach at a different school this year...different school...same school system). First thing Monday morning I met another new teacher at the school and within five minutes we discovered that we both moved to Washington from South Carolina. As a matter of fact, we lived within just a few minutes of each other several years ago. Small world, huh?

We still have a couple of training days and then finally into our class rooms to prepare. I'm excited and anxious to get in there and start getting ready for the kids. I am teaching 4 classes of Seniors (Current World Issues) and 2 classes of Sophomores (World History). I really love the CWI class because there are SO MANY world issues to discuss and I learn almost as much as I teach. I love the opportunity to get into discussions with the Seniors. They are on the verge of a whole new life and it is challenging, as well as rewarding, to have the privilege of seeing them start to realize that a whole new world is getting ready to open up for them.

It brings back a lot of memories too. (Yes, I still do remember back that far.) I remember my Government class. Our teacher kept a bottle of vodka in her desk drawer. I guess she didn't think we knew this. She kept a coffee cup on her desk and just enough coffee in the cup to make sure the liquid was brown, but she wasn't too careful about sticking the cup in her drawer and refilling it. By the end of class, she was well on her way to being sloshed...sad thing is, I had her first period. There was a presidential election my senior year and so we learned a lot about the election process. My best friend and I had to be "campaign managers" for the candidate that Mrs. S was NOT endorsing. Our whole group got nothing higher than D's...no matter what we did... because she hated our candidate so much. The principal had to step in and make her change our grades. She was also in charge of measuring us for caps and gowns. I don't think one of us had the right sized cap...so there was a lot of exchanging on graduation day to find one that actually fit our heads.

Thank goodness we are more careful about teachers these days.