Okay, I have talked politics and I have discussed some other issues. But now I'd like to start to outline my time as a school teacher in the inner city. The names have been changed for many reasons, but mostly to protect the identities of students. If I get any kind of response I will continue this for a while. Maybe someone will find it interesting. I was a teacher for 10 years and still work in the profession. More recently I have been interested in working in the private sector for philosophical reasons. I am trying to keep these to less than 500 words so please stick with me. Part 2 will be up tomorrow.
I left the military in October 2003 and was pretty unsure of my direction or future. I knew I wanted to enter the teaching profession but was not quite set on whether it would be in middle, high school or even community college. I knew that further education would be required to attain my goals but without a certain destination, I was not willing to take classes that might not help me with a career choice. Understanding that I would soon be living on a military retirement, I decided to attend a job fair for a local school system to get into the substitute-teaching program. After signing up, the human resources representative encouraged me to interview with the different middle and high schools that were at the job fair. I remember interviewing with every secondary school in the system. My last interview was with Anonymous School. The principal and assistant principal both conducted the interview and we hit it off immediately. They were both military veterans and understood the challenges I faced transitioning into the civilian world.
The interview went well and lasted for well over an hour. During the course of the meeting, they told me about their school and its culture. Anonymous was a Kindergarten through Eighth grade program designed for children who were growing up subject to multiple societal risk factors. All students qualified for free or reduced lunch when entering the program. Most came from single parent households or were being raised by relatives (siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents). Some students’ parents were incarcerated and homelessness was a condition for some students. Students were brought into the program based on a score assigned by risk factors. Gifted and talented students (unless they had an older sibling who attended the school) were not allowed entrance; the reason given was those students had many programs available to them to ensure success. I was asked to visit the school the following week.
Not the most exciting start but this is an entry from my field notes. I am actually using a lot of this for a paper I am writing for school. As I go through these I will include some more personal stories, some funny and some sad. Unfortunately there is no funny memory from the early part of the story.