We are still alive...

School has been hectic the last few weeks. We are still trying to settle into a routine balancing work and home life. I feel like all I do is grade papers and talk and eat...

All the kids I am teaching are great people, on a personal level. I have definitely had my fair share of frustrating days with them, but they never cease to humor me. About 80% of them are lacking in the mathematics department, meaning they don't know how to multiply as juniors and seniors. Fractions, let's not go there... Plotting points on a graph, that's been another fiasco in all my classes. It's rough starting into a lesson thinking, "Oh yeah, this is Pre-Algebra or Algebra I, they should have this stuff down pat, we'll breeze right on through..." Nope!! But besides not knowing basic math, they're great people. I'll have some funny stories about them soon.

Josh is just getting into the meat of his position as a counselor. The second week of school they made a drastic change to the entire bell schedule. They shortened all the classes and took all the prep periods from the teachers to help with the over crowding. All that means they've sent the last couple of weeks dealing with student schedules, making sure seniors were enrolled in all the classes they needed to graduate and that no one was taking a class they have either already taken or aren't qualified to take. He seems to really be enjoying what he's doing.

We both work with some pretty interesting people. People from all over the world and from all walks of life; young and old, new teachers and veterans to the field we all collaborate together to frame out what we feel is the best education for our students. There are many teachers who are new to the island, so we are surrounded by people in very similar situations to our own. My school has several of their own graduates returning to teach this year which it's been neat to gain their prospective of the island and the student's learning ability.

The school year is flying by, we're already into our 4th week of school, progress report grades are due next week, which means we are 1/8 of the way through the school year. YEAH!