Decisions

Hey.

The week is over. I taught the three classes today, and they went...well, they went. The other teachers and I agreed today that this San Jose Almaden Preparatory School site is not a particularly pleasant one to be at. My Level 1 started strangely, with very few students showing up on time, which annoyed me. We read The Cat in the Hat, which believe it or not is pretty tough for entering 1st graders. I was prepared for this to be a rough lesson, but they actually didn't do too bad with the book. There was one student whose mom had decided to switch into my class rather than stay in their other one in Los Gatos (apparently my site is closer, despite the fact that they go to a Los Gatos church), and he was incredibly resistant to reading. I actually gave my first time-out of the summer with him. It mostly worked; he did a bit better by the end of the class, but it was still difficult. I don't know what I'm supposed to do regarding his BSA either, since I don't have the info for him and don't really feel like assessing him when he's that resistant. Pole and Vole cracked me up again.

Level 2 wasn't a whole lot better, having to direct the attention of some of the students over and over again. But they mostly enjoyed Simpson Snail. I did a pretty poor job with the phonics lesson, since I hadn't taught it before, but I thought it was an especially tough one for 2nd graders - changing the spelling of a word when adding an inflectional suffix (OK, that sounds more complex that it is). All of the students bowed when I gave them their BSAs in this class; they didn't at all in my Level 1. Finally, my best class of all: the Level 4. They were a bit more brash today, and I had to make sure some of the students were really doing the work they indicated they were doing. But it was pleasant overall. One of my students, during a silent reading period, told me that it was her birthday. I was excited, and told her that yesterday was my birthday. She said, "really?!" and seemed quite pleased about this. It kind of made my day.
Finally I called Adrian after my class to ask what I should plan on doing with my kits that are left over and that I leave in the room in San Jose. He mentioned that he had sent me an email earlier in the day regarding an issue that would impact what I do with my books, which is that there is some additional work they want to offer for me to do. This work would be a run to Albany starting Monday, August 27th. I would teach Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Schenectady, Loudonville, Poughkeepsie, and Poughkeepsie respectively. I would be subbing for week 5 of another teacher's 10 classes (2 on Monday night, 3 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday night, and 3 on Thursday). I told him if I did it I would probably want a rental car to make the drive, since my car is a bit older, and he said that would be fine. I asked him about how it would work with teaching at Squeaky Wheel Thursday nights, and he said we would have to look into it but I would probably just teach the first 1 or 2 classes of the 3 on Thursday before driving back to Buffalo (actually Google maps shows a roughly 6-hour drive from Poughkeepsie to Buffalo).

Anyway, I went to Denny's for dinner and read a bit while I ate mini-burgers and onion rings, and drank a FANTA! Then I came back to the hotel, changed clothes and just bummed around, talking to Jackie a while on the phone and then Jeff as well, who had called earlier to wish me a happy birthday. I'm really looking forward to coming back home tomorrow, as always, and especially looking forward to teaching the next Squeaky Wheel class, which I need to prepare a bit for (perhaps tomorrow on the plane) and also to the birthday dinner I'll have at Chef's on Friday.

...


This teaching thing in Albany would clearly be some more money, and it's closer to home. I'm only subbing, so it would just be this one week, not week after week. I would at least get to spend the preceding weekend at home, so it's more like a regular work week, and I wouldn't have to waste any additional days traveling. Also, it wouldn't be too rough, since it isn't 3 days of teaching 3 classes every day. Teaching 2 classes (even night ones) a day is quite a doable task. However, I was kind of looking forward to being done finally after next week. And I don't exactly enjoy doing the teaching for the sake of doing it itself. But I also don't want to burn any bridges with IRD by declining this offer. So, assuming I were only going to do it Monday through Wednesday, and drive back Thursday morning, with the possibility of teaching just the first class (a Level R, which is only 1:15 long and pretty easy to teach depending on the students)...what do you think I should do, readers? Should I accept or decline? If I were clever I would make a little web poll you could click on, but I'm tired and need a decent amount of sleep so I can get to the airport nice and early tomorrow, so I won't be doing that. Just leave me a comment with your thoughts on this. I read them all and appreciate them, as always.

Until then, I am the undersigned,

Conflicted-in-Cali.