Week 21: Changes, Changes (August 22-28)

I like change, I like change a lot. I like time to process change, I like LOTS of time to process change.

This week was a tough week for my school, 5 days before school began 5 teachers (about 20% of the staff) were laid off due to islandwide budget cuts. My heart breaks for the loss of these teachers and the impact this is having on thier lives. If I were in the shoes, I would be at a loss for what my next step would be. The 5 teachers that were impacted have had thier worlds turned upside down and are slowly beginning to put the pieces of thier lives back together.


This has left the rest of the staff reeling and at the same jumping into action to get ready for the school year. My school admin in light of the need to cut $$ moved people to new jobs, myself being one of them. After 8 years of teaching third grade, I am now a halftime computer teacher and halftime third grade teacher. While I have a wide personal knowledge of computers and technology (see last week's post), I have NEVER taught computers before. The learning curve is proving to be big and time consuming. Planning for computers is eating up huge amounts of time before, during, and after school, with a side of evenings. I know that it will get easier, but I am still processing that I am not a full time third grade teacher with a class of my own and at the same time working out how I am going to manage this new role. I know that I will be successful and it will be a good year, but it takes me time to accept things.

My new experience for the week is teaching computers to grades K-6.