New Students

Continuing with my all things new, I have a new job. I am teaching 10th grade English at Bryant Alternative High School in Fairfax County. Did you go "Ooooooh! An Alternative Schoooool" and envision Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds or the actress from Freedom Writers (whose name I'm too lazy to look up)? I hope so, because that is always the response I go for. Yes. Cute, little me is shaping young troubled youth. Changing lives. Making a difference.

Probably not.

But hopefully, I'll do some good.

Fairfax County is hardly any scene from Dangerous Minds, which truth be told, I have never even seen and don't know that I care to. Nor is Fairfax County a scene from Freedom Writers, and unlike the star of that show, I am not about to give up everything for my job--especially a marriage (or prospective marriage rather, if one happens to come my way).  Though my school and my "kids" aren't the toughest, meanest, baddest bunch, many of them have had a pretty rough bout and there isn't exactly a light at the end of the tunnel.

So what exactly is "Alternative"? Well, I have a pretty eclectic mix of kids--whom I really shouldn't refer to as kids because a handful of them are my age. Not to fret, I am still older than all of them, but there are a couple with whom I could have graduated from high school. I have a handful of immigrant students who have finished ESL classes, never had the opportunity for a high school education and are getting theirs now. These are my very motivated students who all do awesome. Then I have a handful of girls who got pregnant and couldn't continue at a regular high school. Most of these girls are very motivated as well--even more so because they want to take care of their wee ones. And then I have a handful of kids (mostly rowdy boys) who got kicked out of their high schools for behavioral issues (truancy, etc, etc). I got a new student last week who is even on parol. He's very open about it. So my friends from SLC, think Horizonte. Remember how we had friends who went there? Isn't that crazy?

Crazier still is that I am teaching at this school. But surprising to even myself, I absolutely love it. I Love my kids students. I have 25 students TOTAL! Unbelievable. Remember how when I started teaching at Lehi High School I had over 35 students in each class? Well now I teach three sections of English 10 and I have 25 students total. Granted they are all needy, but still. I also have my very own classroom, with my very own projector, and hopefully soon I will even have my very own mobile lab. Plus, I love the other English department teachers. And the other teachers at the school are all super friendly too.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all peaches and cream. I have a few punk kids that push my limits: one of whom consistently yells out in the middle of class that my lesson "is so lame! No one cares about this. I'm just gonna tell it to you straight, Miss Thackeray." Why, thank you. And then there are attendance issues (so what do I do with the student who missed 2 weeks of school and is now back? I have yet to figure that one out). But for the most part my students love me (I mean how could they not--especially when I bribe them with candy and baked oatmeal and cookies and chocolate-covered caramel-dipped pretzels for their birthdays). Hey, I have always believed Mary Poppins: A spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down indeed.