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THATS MY NEW CELL #. USE IT!

I just want to put out there that I know I suck at updating my blog and I apologize. As many bloggers know it is hard to keep a blog updated regularly for some reason. So without further ado let me update you on what has been going on in my life. Warning: This may not be logically ordered and random.

Here is a short update on what I am teaching. I am still teaching two different subjects, Algebra 1 and Geometry, but I will only have 4 sets of students instead of 6 as I originally thought. Let me explain our daily school schedule to give you a better idea of what I am talking about. We have periods and blocks. On Mondays we have all 8 periods of class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have double periods, also called blocks, with 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th period classes. On Wednesdays and Fridays we have double periods with 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th period classes.
I will be teaching 2 Algebra classes and 2 Geometry classes. My 2 Algebra classes are double period classes everyday so I have those students everyday for 90 mins, even on Monday. My Geometry classes are single period classes so I have them on Monday for 45 min and every other day for 90 min. So I see my Geometry students 3 days a week and my Algebra students 5 days week. I know its complicated isnt it. This leaves me 90 min a day for personal planning or group planning with my learning community. This explanation turned out to be longer than I originally planned. BUT the one nice thing about having my Algebra classes double blocked is that I have less students, which will be helpful for grading, contacting parents, and getting to know my students more deeply. Instead of having 150 or so I will hopefully only have ~100.

My school is broken into 7 learning communities each having their own Assistant principal (AP). I have been told by many people that know my AP that he is a great AP and person. One thing that really excites me is that I found out that he is a Christian and started up a Bible study/Prayer group that meets on Wednesdays at 7:30 before school. I feel so blessed to have been placed in a community that has Christian leadership and so many people praising the work of my AP. God is definitely looking out for me. My learning community is called Health and Human Services (H&H) and has approximately 300 students enrolled. Im very excited to be a part of the H&H community.

General information about my school Lee High School. The school dropped the Robert E. in front of the school name about 5 years ago despite the outrage from certain alumni. The teacher dress code is very lax and requires that you wear at least jeans and a collared shirt or an LHS or any university T-shirt. This is a step up from last year when they didn't really have a dress code and you could come into work in sweats if you wanted to. I am guessing that was strongly discouraged though. We are the Lee High School Generals and our colors are Black and Gold. We do not have a football team but we have a killer soccer team. Our homecoming is in the Winter during the soccer season. Our other relatively big sports are wrestling (men's & women's) and basketball. There are not many extracurriculars, especially academic, and I hope to be a part of starting up a Math team sometime this year. There are roughly 40 different languages spoken at my school and apparently we are dubbed the UN school because we get most of the students that move to Houston from other countries. I would say this is also the biggest reason soccer is the biggest sport at our school. 95% of the students that go to Lee are eligible for Free or Reduced lunch and a majority of the students speak English as a second language.

The week of July 23rd - 27th I had TFA orientation everyday from 8 - 5:30. At this orientation we sat through sessions that taught us how to unpack our standards, set a Big Goal for our class, develop Long-Term plans, Unit Plans, Assessment Plans, and methods for tracking my students progress. So the past couple weeks I have been looking at the State standards for Algebra and Geometry and trying to figure out EXACTLY what they mean and what my students need to know to master them. I have also been thinking about what the Big Goals of my classes will be and how to word them just right so that I can motivate my students with them. This is really really hard to do as a first year teacher because you have no idea what to expect from your students and you have a hard time figuring out how all the standards fit together so you can plan your year so that it flows coherently from one topic to another.

I had my new employee orientation yesterday, August 3rd, with my new employer the Houston Independent School District (HISD). A lot of the stuff was pretty informative but there were some boring parts. The most pertinent information was the Benefits information. I now think I have most of my benefits figured out and they seem to be pretty good. It's good to understand that stuff now that I am finally moving into the real world. My mom also informed me that I must find car insurance down here so that I can get off of theirs. Im almost fully independent now. Actually I have just gotten a new phone with VERIZON and now have a HOUSTON number. This was the last thing that my mom was paying for me. So I think I am now officially an INDEPENDENT adult.

As you may or may not know, my girlfriend Danielle Hickle has been doing some amazing work in Mexico the past 2 months and we have not seen each other since I left exactly 2 months ago. We have only been able to talk about once a week as well for the past 2 months. Well she is coming back to the U.S. today and has a 4 hour layover in Houston. So I am about to get ready to go see her and it's exciting. What is crazy is that she planned this long layover in Houston before we even met. Tell me God doesn't work in mysterious ways!!

Take care!

Peace,
MO