Yay for Fall Break!!

Right now is when it pays to be a teacher... well, sort of :) These two days off have been more than deserved, and while I'll likely spend most of the time either planning for next week or doing the chores around the house that I've been neglecting because of our busy schedule, it's nice to simply get away from school for a while. With any luck I might even squeeze in some time to go for a bike ride (something I haven't done much of lately, which is mildly depressing!)

The past couple of months of teaching have been interesting to say the least. Making the transition from teaching elementary one year to high school the next is challenging enough for anyone - however, switching from teaching in an upper middle-class, predominantly white neighborhood (with helicopter parents to boot!) to an inner-city high school full of pubescent teenagers of so many different races that I undoubtedly fall into the category of 'minority', has made things even more interesting! However, now that I've gotten over the culture shock I'm really starting to enjoy my job. Sure, it requires A LOT of extra hours each week (I'm teaching 6 classes when 5 is the norm), but it's been amazing to see how much these students are able to understand and produce after such a short amount of time - and that's why this job can be so rewarding.

Our foreign language program in the district has a very supportive network which I like to refer to as a cult. I fell into this cutting edge way of teaching which is very different than how I first learned the language. We do a lot of storytelling (with the kids being at the center of the story lines and adding in all of their personal details) and reading to build proficiency rather than learning vocabulary lists and taking chapter tests over material that will quickly be forgotten. I could go on for hours about this method, suffice to say it has been a very interesting journey learning the ropes and watching some of the masters of this teaching method show me how it's done.

Enough about me and teaching... Amanda is participating in a retreat this weekend for her nutrition class. She's very excited about it as she has been learning a lot and making some new friends too. She'll be here in Denver the whole time, but at classes each day. We're also hosting another student from out of town, so I'll be playing house-husband as she will be busy all weekend! Her homework load for the class is becoming more and more difficult to manage; thankfully, she will soon be getting some extra help at work so that her case load will be lessened.

Last weekend we took a quick trip out to Glenwood Springs, about 3 hours west of Denver. It's a quaint little mountain town, not far from Aspen, that has natural hot springs. We stayed at a Swiss-style motel and visited some vapor caves too. It was a short mini-vacation, with an afternoon study date too, but it's always nice to just get away for a few days.

Anyway, I need to get working on my To-do list for the day.