taught at st jospehs today

Hej. I did a practice teaching at st josephs. i thought i might be observed by the principal and the deans and the chair of the department but it was only the teacher I would replace.

I taught the Age of Exploration: the spanish conquest of america.
i think it went really well, i got the girls involved (its an all girls high school) and got several of them standing and writing of the boards. they were very involved. We did the who/what/when/where/how/why methodology. this way, we went point by point so it was pretty simple to follow.

the hardest thing wasn't the girls but the changing the lecture from a 75 min to 40 min lesson. I had to drop some details and watch the clock closely. i finished but not a lot of time was left at the end for review. but i think it went well and i heard the gossip from another teacher ( a nun, so i don't think she'd lie) who said some of the girls said "it was the best history class ever!") it was a nice compliment.

the reason for the class teach was to see if i could bring it down a notch from college. i taught the class, more or less, the same way as i do in the intro-non major classes. Jim, the teacher who is leaving, said I brought it down really well and he thinks the girls really understood. if i was to have them tomorrow I would start with a jeopardy style review.

the real question becomes pay and time. it seems like a really nice place to work. but everyone (from the chair, to the sisters, to other teachers) say that the school doesn't pay. you have to be able to "afford to work there". but if i could continue to teach nights at farmingdale and suffolk, that would bring in 7500 - 10,000$ more per semester. it would mean teaching 3-4 night classes. it would be a brutal year. now, I'm lucky enough that the college classes are on autopilot at this point. I've taught the same class for the last 6 years. so I know how it goes.

what would really take a beating would be scholarship. conferences. publications. the dissertation. It means the dissertation has to be done during the summer. i want it done by 1 july, so i'm still on schedule. but it has to be done. the kermit culture paper, the photo archive publication and the deadliest catch article would all have to be written early in the summer.

the scholarship i would do during the next year would be in translating parts of my dissertation into articles and maybe into a book. i would then present chapters at different conferences.