summer

Yesterday was my last day of summer school.  I am now official experiencing my summer break.  It's amazing, but there are always things to fill a day.  As for summer school, I had only eight students, all passed, and we had a pretty good time of it.  I won't say that I will remember this time as fondly as I do my first summer school teaching experience, but it was still quite a bit better than the normal semester was.  I love that I had every quiz and test graded just minutes after the class was done and it was handed back to them immediately with immediate feedback, as well.  I love that I knew exactly where each student was on the worksheets.  I love that I didn't have to take anything home, and I didn't have to make them do homework, either.  I love that they had no other subjects to worry about other than this one.  I love that we only worked for four hours at most per school day.  I love that a full semester's worth of material was completed in less than four weeks time.  I love that I've been able to be home with my family more.  I really love that summer has now started and I can be here to help Amy with tons more (like potty training Aidan: next week!).  I'm sure I'll have much more to post over the next few weeks.

summer school

I've been teaching summer school at DVHS for the last 3 1/2 weeks. I've found a way to fit an entire semester's worth of material in that amount of time: craziness. I had 17 students to start, one found out she'd passed the class, so she left, and two more dropped for absences. 14 students for the past week: not bad. All of these students were given the shot to retake this class after they just failed it this past semester during the normal schedule. I think this set up works better for these students, though: less time from lesson to quiz, from quiz to test, and so on. I do four things each day: any mixture of lessons, reviews, quizzes, and tests. For instance, the first day of summer school, the students had 4 lessons in the same day, but yesterday they had a test first thing, and then three lessons after that. It was a lot of material in a short amount of time, but these students seemed to enjoy it and did well. Other than the two that dropped for absences (they were allowed 2 at most, they both had three and then were dropped), I now have no students with Fs in the class as they enter the final exam (which they are taking right now). I have liked this setup, as it was more like college. We had four hour sessions each day, each with two 15 minute breaks evenly spaced in the day. It gave a sense of trust and freedom that the students normally don't get throughout the regular semester. I am now really looking forward to possibly teaching at a community college one day. We'll see what the LORD brings our way.