Gainful Employment

Since I haven't updated in over four months, I thought I'd start with the reason why we're in Virginia to begin with... my new job.

From the first day I walked into the building (which also my first day of work - I never visited before accepting the position), I've been treated better than well.  Whether support staff, teacher, or administrator, most everyone is quick to converse and are warmly inviting.  From teaching in a public school in New York to a private Christian school in Virgina, there is so much contrast, that it's impossible to not recognize it.  Beyond the change in climate, its a change in demographics, approach to learning, classroom capabilities, and student culture; almost all of these changes have been for the better.

The Carmel School is small by most standards - there's roughly 25 teachers from PreK-12 and we all fit snugly in one(ish) building.  (Technically, it's two buildings that is connected by an open-air breezeway.  But the second building only houses the gym, cafeteria, two classrooms for art, music, drama, and Spanish, and a handful of offices.)  The school has a 135 student enrollment, and I am responsible for about 60 of them.  Our schedule varies from day-to-day: three days a week, we run an 8-period schedule, and the other two days are 4-periods block schedule format.  Twice a week, all students participate in clubs and a Chapel service, which is open for any staff member to speak as God leads, although we do have a Chaplin and Bible teacher who speaks the majority of the time.

My favorite part of the whole change is the curriculum.  Goodbye Common Core and hello freedom!  Virginia never bought in to the Common Core from the get-go, but Carmel is an independent school anyway.  So that means the teachers ultimately get to decide the scope, sequence, and pacing of all the material.  At mid-year and end-year, I write my own mid-term and final exam respectively.  Apart from the ACT, PSAT, and SAT, we don't offer or mandate any standardized test.  And this is still a very hard reality for me to grasp.  I certainly like it, but its just taking me awhile to adjust to the idea.  Since I teach sixth grade all the way through Algebra 2, it's also been enlightening and inspiring to control the progression of the math courses from "simple arithmetic" to characteristics of functions.

However, every teacher knows that it's the students that make the job worthwhile and it's no different here in Carmel.  The openness to speak about God and religion and church as a whole certainly has an interesting dynamic in the classroom, but for the most part, students act pretty much the same at Carmel as they did in Vestal.  I remember when my friend Tom started teaching at a school in South Korea, and when I asked him about the students there compared to his job in New York, he pretty much observed the same.  There are the handful of very bright and insightful students, another small cohort of students who struggle for a variety of reasons, and a lot of students who fall in the middle.  As a whole, the students have been very graceful with me as I am getting acclimated.  The first few weeks in particular were rough, but at this point, I have better handle and pulse on the student culture.  Most importantly, I see them as their own selves.  They aren't a bunch of kids that replaced the ones at Vestal, but rather a unique bunch of pre-teens and teens that formed their own place in my heart.

Lastly, the administration isn't even comparable.  It's nice to finally have found a place where teachers and administrators support each other; I've been encouraged professionally and spiritually by them on a regular basis.  During observations, I've been confirmed in my teaching and choices, and also gently spurred to try different techniques and approaches.  And even though there hasn't been any hint of malice or frustration between us, I'm still learning to trust administrators again.  Considering I spent the last two years of my career avoiding and building mistrust, the ability to treat my administrators as a new set of people has proven more difficult than I anticipated.  As my time at Carmel continues, I do pray the hurts and pains of the past heal and that I can work all my peers in a way that merits a more deserved respect.

That's enough for now.  I'll be updating much more often I promise.