With the failure that came with distance learning came the inevitable reopening of schools for in-person instruction. In the process I was able to finally achieve my goal of relocating back to Orange County to teach at Dale Junior High in the Anaheim Union High School District.
Year 7 of teaching involved a new school, and a totally new set of students at a newly and freshly remodeled campus. However, whereas every other teacher on campus got a new classroom, I was delegated to be the only teacher in my own corner of the school in the portables. There were some unique pros and cons of being on the edge of the campus. I could be as loud as I wanted. I could still have students place backpacks outside of the classroom without worrying that they would be stolen. But this sadly meant I had no teacher neighbors to watch my room so I had to hold in much of my pee while I was teaching.
These students are on a 7-period schedule, so I had to adjust to teaching 6 classes (2 World History periods, and 4 US History periods). Overall, I liked the 8th graders a little bit better, but in the end I recognized how much lower these students are academically compared to their peers in Los Angeles. That could be due to the pandemic partially, but it took a lot of scaffolding and modifications of the lesson plans to ensure they could actually do some of the material. Some of the things I did in Los Angeles at Rise Kohyang when duplicated at Dale just didn’t pan out quite well. I’ll probably spend a significant amount of time in the summer further modifying the lessons to ensure they all work out a little better next year.
My lessons were interesting this year. Some notable good lessons include a “games in colonial America” stations, a fake news vs real news activity, and and a schoolwide history project where students indicted a person or organization for climate change. In the end I spent a lot of time recognizing and seeing what the students are capable of. This will help me inform my decision-making process for next year for what lessons will be enjoyable for most of the students.
The only thing I’d like to change is the discipline policy at the school, which could be improved upon, but that seems to be a pattern in all the schools I’ve worked at over the years. Restorative justice has its place in schools, but I think there needs to be more of a balance in traditional discipline policies as well. In the end, the culture of low expectations and no consequences creates more chaos and less learning. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back the other way soon.
I implemented a Pokemon theme in my classroom this year, where students got assigned Pokemon avatars early on in the year. Using the classdojo platform, students were given the opportunity to redeem points for prizes. It worked out rather well, but I’ll adjust the pricing of goods next year to reflect the inflation rate in the United States.
With a return to in-person instruction comes a return to my annual tradition of taking pictures with my classes together, as well as writing them goodbye letters at the end of the year. No matter the student, good or bad, the letters are always appreciated. These pictures will always be nice to look back later to reflect on my experiences. Every class has been uniquely different, because the reality of teaching human beings means there is endless potential (for chaos and uniqueness).
In the end, it was a good transitional year into teaching in Orange County. I hope to improve upon my experiences and level up to be an even better teacher next year.
