CSETMathGuru: THE Site for Single Subject Math
Your First Year of Teaching Math in a High School
The apocryphal Chinese curse runs "May you live in interesting times!" - fascinatingly, I read someplace that those blokes do NOT have such a saying at all, and the whole thing's quite spurious and a decidedly Western concoction! - anyway, I imagine, for an especially ambitious Math teacher [translation: one who yearns to teach upper-level classes!] the corresponding 'hope' might run: "May you teach the fun classes!", fun, here, perversely referring to the remedial Math / Algebra A or B classes.
The point of this message is to gently apprise you of the reality as it pertains to Math assignments for new teachers in High School!
There is a more than a germ of truth in the notion that it is a bit of 'wishful thinking' re instructing more advanced Math classes in one's first year. After all, new teachers not infrequently get the most challenging assignments. These miserable saps routinely get to deal with the rowdiest elements since students that still in Algebra 1 in High School aren't, sahll we gently declare, the brightest of the lot. To manage a class like that one needs to set one's expectations HIGH and follow thru on the STATED consequences of students' transgression of class rules...in the 1st year and beyond.
So, the fact remains that Department Heads customarily schedule rookies to teach more low-level Algebra classes than established teachers! [Why? Because they can!!]
Qs? Call (Jay): 951-489-7665
OR email me: [email protected].
The only exception is when school or department 'policy' (ie. traditionally) fosters 'fairness', OR a teacher - new or otherwise - is expressly hired to teach 1 or more upper-level classes: for instance, if a school NEEDS an AP Calc / Precalc / AP Stat / Algebra II teacher, then it is unlikely that he/she would be 'clubbed' with the other rookies!
On a cheery note: in general, the situation markedly ameliorates in one's 2nd year!!
But I am NOT here to rubbish the remedial / Algebra classes! Quite the contrary, to boost them. After all, we cannot wash our hands off somewhat, shall we say 'sluggish' (?!) students - yes, you have your archetyal rapscallions and scallywags, but ...- I've known several instances of teachers ABSOLUTELY adoring their kids!! [I taught 1 class of Algebra A last year, and while the chaps in there were quite a boisterous and restless bunch, this was due more to my own constitutional lenienecy than anything else! And I did have dollops of fun!]
Also, you shall discover that students in these programs to really be a diverse bunch: there are innumerable ways a fellow gets put in there and you shall shockingly find that more than a few OUGHTN'T be there in the first place, the result of simple oversight or, um, willful carelessness!
In general, the way hiring works is that, strictly speaking, assigning you to teach ANYWHERE in the district is the DISTRICT'S prerogative, not yours! You may desire to teach in a High School or at the Middle School...but based on the needs of the school district you may be assigned to a site that lies beyond your preferences.
If all this seems frightfully confusing, here's how it goes: School District policy mandates that the teacher - IF QUALIFIED ie. having the requisite credential - teach in a Middle School or High School, it doesn't matter! You are hired to teach in the school DISTRICT, NOT at a specific SCHOOL! So CONCEIVABLY, they CAN transfer you anywhere they like within the district to teach any course that you're QUALIFIED to instruct.
Qs? Call (Jay): 951-489-7665
OR email me: [email protected].
Lest you start popping Prozacs and drinking yourself to an incoherent stupor, let me hasten to add that the aforementioned information is SELDOM what transpires in practice!
In other words, what ACTUALLY happens is: while you're being hired, at the interview stage OR subsequently, the district expressly seeks your preference subject to vacancies at the Middle School and the High School level and requests by current teachers to be transferred elsewhere within the district. Otherwise, depending on their needs, they shall explicitly inform you that they would interested in you ONLY if you'd accede to teach at the Middle School / High School, as they case may be.
As suggested above, at the end of each year - actually, Feb/Mar - come the time when the district is evaluating its staffing needs for the following year, they seek each teacher's a) intention to remain b) preference if they want to move to a different school (High School OR Middle School!) in the district! They shall do their utmost to accommodate your whims - for the sake of morale, they typically don't want a cantankerous teacher on their hands!
High School is NOT deemed a PROMOTION, in any way - you choose where you want to teach - if they assign you to a place you don't want to be in, you can always WALK AWAY, and a find a job elsewhere! (You're a Math chap, remember?!!)
Finally, passing Subtest I and II enables you teach upto Algebra II at the HIGH SCHOOL - it's called a FOUNDATION CREDENTIAL, and you don't need to narraw your horizons to Middle Schools alone, if your proclivities lie at the High School Math level!
Re classroom management, I simply cannot generalize about which group of kids are more rambunctious, and who merits a robust kick on the head less (?!!). I have a friend who's starting this FALL as a Math teacher, and to gain the flavor of both experiences, he opted to do his student teaching 1 Quarter EACH at both levels - the Colton School District (in San Bernardino County) allowed him that leeway! Further, the fellow is teaching 8th grade summer school, but shall formally join a High School!
Don't get terribly apprehensive about classroom management: yes, verily, it's KEY to your flourishing as an educator (that, I believe, is the more pompous term, eh?!). But get that reliable classic The First Days of Schoolby Harry Wong, and assimilate it's precepts to the utmost, and you'll do just fine!! (I'm quite the cynical scoundrel myself who, under normal circumstances, would eschew literature of this sort, but I did find the text rather pragmatic and infinitely illuminating! At the VERY LEAST, it shall bolster your confidence, something the new teacher needs in vatfuls! ...Also, Mr. Wong pays me to plug him book shamelessly thus...!)
Then again, you can read as much as possible on discipline and classroom management and what not, and be fed that junk intravenously till your gills turn blue, but you shan't know how prepared a firefighter you are till you actually put out some fires (...awfully sorry, old chap, always had trouble with my metaphors...!)
Qs? Call (Jay): 951-489-7665
OR email me: [email protected].
The apocryphal Chinese curse runs "May you live in interesting times!" - fascinatingly, I read someplace that those blokes do NOT have such a saying at all, and the whole thing's quite spurious and a decidedly Western concoction! - anyway, I imagine, for an especially ambitious Math teacher [translation: one who yearns to teach upper-level classes!] the corresponding 'hope' might run: "May you teach the fun classes!", fun, here, perversely referring to the remedial Math / Algebra A or B classes.
The point of this message is to gently apprise you of the reality as it pertains to Math assignments for new teachers in High School!
There is a more than a germ of truth in the notion that it is a bit of 'wishful thinking' re instructing more advanced Math classes in one's first year. After all, new teachers not infrequently get the most challenging assignments. These miserable saps routinely get to deal with the rowdiest elements since students that still in Algebra 1 in High School aren't, sahll we gently declare, the brightest of the lot. To manage a class like that one needs to set one's expectations HIGH and follow thru on the STATED consequences of students' transgression of class rules...in the 1st year and beyond.
So, the fact remains that Department Heads customarily schedule rookies to teach more low-level Algebra classes than established teachers! [Why? Because they can!!]
Qs? Call (Jay): 951-489-7665
OR email me: [email protected].
The only exception is when school or department 'policy' (ie. traditionally) fosters 'fairness', OR a teacher - new or otherwise - is expressly hired to teach 1 or more upper-level classes: for instance, if a school NEEDS an AP Calc / Precalc / AP Stat / Algebra II teacher, then it is unlikely that he/she would be 'clubbed' with the other rookies!
On a cheery note: in general, the situation markedly ameliorates in one's 2nd year!!
But I am NOT here to rubbish the remedial / Algebra classes! Quite the contrary, to boost them. After all, we cannot wash our hands off somewhat, shall we say 'sluggish' (?!) students - yes, you have your archetyal rapscallions and scallywags, but ...- I've known several instances of teachers ABSOLUTELY adoring their kids!! [I taught 1 class of Algebra A last year, and while the chaps in there were quite a boisterous and restless bunch, this was due more to my own constitutional lenienecy than anything else! And I did have dollops of fun!]
Also, you shall discover that students in these programs to really be a diverse bunch: there are innumerable ways a fellow gets put in there and you shall shockingly find that more than a few OUGHTN'T be there in the first place, the result of simple oversight or, um, willful carelessness!
In general, the way hiring works is that, strictly speaking, assigning you to teach ANYWHERE in the district is the DISTRICT'S prerogative, not yours! You may desire to teach in a High School or at the Middle School...but based on the needs of the school district you may be assigned to a site that lies beyond your preferences.
If all this seems frightfully confusing, here's how it goes: School District policy mandates that the teacher - IF QUALIFIED ie. having the requisite credential - teach in a Middle School or High School, it doesn't matter! You are hired to teach in the school DISTRICT, NOT at a specific SCHOOL! So CONCEIVABLY, they CAN transfer you anywhere they like within the district to teach any course that you're QUALIFIED to instruct.
Qs? Call (Jay): 951-489-7665
OR email me: [email protected].
Lest you start popping Prozacs and drinking yourself to an incoherent stupor, let me hasten to add that the aforementioned information is SELDOM what transpires in practice!
In other words, what ACTUALLY happens is: while you're being hired, at the interview stage OR subsequently, the district expressly seeks your preference subject to vacancies at the Middle School and the High School level and requests by current teachers to be transferred elsewhere within the district. Otherwise, depending on their needs, they shall explicitly inform you that they would interested in you ONLY if you'd accede to teach at the Middle School / High School, as they case may be.
As suggested above, at the end of each year - actually, Feb/Mar - come the time when the district is evaluating its staffing needs for the following year, they seek each teacher's a) intention to remain b) preference if they want to move to a different school (High School OR Middle School!) in the district! They shall do their utmost to accommodate your whims - for the sake of morale, they typically don't want a cantankerous teacher on their hands!
High School is NOT deemed a PROMOTION, in any way - you choose where you want to teach - if they assign you to a place you don't want to be in, you can always WALK AWAY, and a find a job elsewhere! (You're a Math chap, remember?!!)
Finally, passing Subtest I and II enables you teach upto Algebra II at the HIGH SCHOOL - it's called a FOUNDATION CREDENTIAL, and you don't need to narraw your horizons to Middle Schools alone, if your proclivities lie at the High School Math level!
Re classroom management, I simply cannot generalize about which group of kids are more rambunctious, and who merits a robust kick on the head less (?!!). I have a friend who's starting this FALL as a Math teacher, and to gain the flavor of both experiences, he opted to do his student teaching 1 Quarter EACH at both levels - the Colton School District (in San Bernardino County) allowed him that leeway! Further, the fellow is teaching 8th grade summer school, but shall formally join a High School!
Don't get terribly apprehensive about classroom management: yes, verily, it's KEY to your flourishing as an educator (that, I believe, is the more pompous term, eh?!). But get that reliable classic The First Days of Schoolby Harry Wong, and assimilate it's precepts to the utmost, and you'll do just fine!! (I'm quite the cynical scoundrel myself who, under normal circumstances, would eschew literature of this sort, but I did find the text rather pragmatic and infinitely illuminating! At the VERY LEAST, it shall bolster your confidence, something the new teacher needs in vatfuls! ...Also, Mr. Wong pays me to plug him book shamelessly thus...!)
Then again, you can read as much as possible on discipline and classroom management and what not, and be fed that junk intravenously till your gills turn blue, but you shan't know how prepared a firefighter you are till you actually put out some fires (...awfully sorry, old chap, always had trouble with my metaphors...!)
Qs? Call (Jay): 951-489-7665
OR email me: [email protected].