Keeping an Open Mind

On Monday, at our mini-orientation meeting, Kate, the program coordinator at our school, was talking to us newbies about what class we'd be teaching. I told her I didn't know what I was going to have, and she said, "Well, what's you preference? You'll probably get your preference if you asked for one." I told her I wanted to go the route of Social Studies or Literature, moving away from Science/Math (which is one class in this program) and she said she'd look at the schedule. Today, I was talking to Jed (the head of school), and asked him if he knew what I was teaching. He said, "Oh, you have experience in Science, right? You're in Science/Math. We have a need there right now." I was crushed, and had that moment of "I'm not going to cry at this. I am stronger than that," and I asked him if I could talk to him about it. We had a short meeting, and I explained to him that if I wanted to apply for Vermont licensure, I needed some Social Studies experience, and asked if I could teach a couple of Social Studies classes. He suggested that I make some of my unit interdisciplinary, and deal with some of the social studies standards within my Science/Math units. The units that we teach are really very loose and open to the kids' interests, so there is a lot of room for interdisciplinary stuff, so his suggestions are totally on par, and I can definitely do that and still deal with some of the things I'm interested in. But tomorrow, when we have our subject area meetings, I'm kind of dreading going to the Science/Math group and officially pegging myself as a Science/Math teacher, because that was exactly what I wanted to get away from this year. I wanted to actually teach what I'm interested in, as opposed to what Teach for America randomly assigned me to.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure it will be fine, and I'll work that Social Studies stuff in and address that facet of things. And I'm open to being helpful to these kids in an area of need, so if Science/Math is that area, I can be a trooper. I'm just a little disappointed, although trying to put on a happy face and remember that change and reassignment in the future is certainly possible as well. Patience, as mother reminded me today. Patience.