Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work I Go!

Heya!
Can't believe I haven't written a blog in nearly a month! Sorry! Life has been NUTS! I decided to split my blogs up and write one for each part of my life so you can read about what you want to read, or you can ignore a blog that you're not interested in. So ... WORK!

I have been working like crazy. It's fantastic. I'm tired but I just love it. I got offered a job in a class last week and I had a tough decision to make. I was offered a job at an Academy near where I want to eventually move in London ... The commute from our current home is about 2 hours. Yuuuuck. So, I get up at 5, out the door by 5h45 or 6 , get to school at 7h45. Staff meeting at 8, kids come in at 8h30, classes go until 4. You do your correcting and planning for the next day, leave, and get home around 7. I'm gone from my house, for work, for 13 hours a day. Wasn't that fun, I promise.

The school itself was incredible. It's a new building that's won awards for the architecture. It's just mind-blowing. It has recording studios in the basements, big open common areas, tons of windows, big spacious classrooms, balconies, skylights, the whole 9 yards. Just incredible.

Academies are tricky because they typically host some extremely troubled kids. My 1st tip on teaching in London was to look around outside the school to figure out what kind of school it was. If it's surrounded by tons of low income housing units (massive massive apartment buildings that look really dodgy) the school probably hosts most of the kids from those apartments. This academy is literally SURROUNDED by them. The other thing about it was that it's a secondary school, not a primary school. I always swore I'd never teach high school, and here I was, stuck in the middle of teenage ignorance.

The kids were incredibly difficult. Just walking in the halls, I was forced back to high school. Once again I was getting teased and laughed at in the hallway, kids were making rude comments behind my back, etc etc ... and this time, I was a TEACHER! It wasn't really fun. My first day, some kid was just like beaking me off cos I asked him to stop hitting another student. He told me to F off and mind my own business. As a teacher, I thought this WAS my business?!

The class that I would have had was a group of 8-10 (depending on how many decided to come to school and weren't suspended) 11-12 year olds with the academic ability of 5-6 year olds. They were 12 years old and in math, I taught them shapes. Wow. They were all borderline autistic which meant they weren't able to be diagnosed aka medicated and placed in a school specific to their needs. They all had severe ADHD, as did 90% of the school population (literally - not kidding) I worked with them for a week and a half and was offered the job. In that week and a half, I had totally fallen in love with these kids. I felt like this could be one of those jobs that was really rewarding, and where I could make a difference. After a week and a half tho, I hadn't really impacted any of them. They still couldn't trust me, they didn't listen to me, they were constantly running away, out of the classroom, and finally, on Thursday, one of them started punching and clawing me and it kind of reminded me of where I was and what I was doing and that this wouldn't work. This was the type of position that would lead me to hate my career and I'm far too early into my career to hate it. I didn't come around the world to not love my job. So, I turned them down. It was the hardest decision for me. I feel guilty all the time because I know I could have at least been a constant in their lives but ... it just didn't work out.

In the meantime, however, I had been teaching at a school near Camden, which IS the neighbourhood I plan on moving to. The school is an old building with 800 flights of stairs and no lift. All the classrooms that I teach in are on the top floor so I get my excercise! Haha. The staff is young and fun and we get to wear JEANS to school! AMAZING! I worked 3 days at this school and they booked me for the rest of my time here before Christmas. I heard they had 2 jobs opening up and they said they'd love to keep me on ... so I have a job! Yay! Now I have to decide between a full time nursery (preschool) position or a 4 day a week subbing position, covering the staff's PPA time etc. I'd be the regular sub for the school, essentially. Some weeks I would get 5 days but every week is guaranteed 4. On the 5th day, if my school doesn't book me, I could call my agency and get placed somewhere, or, I could take a long weekend and jet off somewhere. It's all really exciting! I think I'll take the sub job. Seems more my thing.

So that's it for work right now ... I'm pretty happy with where I'm at! Let me know if you have any questions or comments!

xo Megs