Class Starts Tomorrow!!

We finished a ridiculously long day on Saturday; the week-long training is over and now we have class for REAL on Monday. A typical day begins with a short staff meeting, then we greet the kids as they arrive around 8am and take them to breakfast in the cafeteria. Academic period 1 begins at 8:30 and there are four classes before lunch. After lunch they have an elective (usually artistic or performance based) then an elective that is athletic (think: recess time) then a period like Advisory where there are 12 kids and three Teachers for half an hour. Kids are dismissed at 3:30 and we have another, long staff meeting to cover all business for the day. The week is also peppered with department meetings (holla, science!) or the teams to which we each belong (special events or academics or advising). There are also going to be professional development meetings and speakers etc. Oh man oh man.

I teach period 2 and 4; I have seven in my first class and eleven in my second. This may change a bit, but unfortunately one of the science teachers quit at the last minute, so all the kids are distributed over one less class (choices are Biology, Chemistry, physics masquerading as "Force and Motion" and mine), so they are all a little bit larger than the hoped-for size of 8.

I'm preparing for my first day, but all my lesson plans for week one are complete. Tomorrow I'll lead the kids through introductions, cover expectations, rules and consequences, and a brief discussion of what they know about the brain and what they hope to learn this summer. The fun stuff starts Tuesday as we launch into vision, the eye, and the brain. YouTube has some great videos; I have some cool labs planned (include a sheep brain dissection...yesss!); I'm borrowing from CA Biology and from my introduction to neurobiology from last semester.

I feel pretty much ready, but so much is up in the air -- how will the kids (in 6th, 7th and 8th) get along, how will they respond to me, will it make sense, will they be excited or overwhelmed... and more. Well, we'll see tomorrow. Typical days will find me awaking at 6:30, off to school around 7:15 and returning "home" (aka jail-cell-like UMiami dorms and 17 fun-loving crazy but exhausted fellow Teachers) around 4:30 to then do 1-3 hours of work. Ah the joys.

Wish me luck!!
Ciao