summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2014-05-15 01:30 pm
summercomfort) wrote2014-05-15 01:30 pm
I can't believe I'm leaving
So last month at around this time I told my principal that I needed to leave the school for the next few years. Basically Chinese School is at a juncture where I think I can really do some good by applying myself to it full time for a few years, mom definitely needs me more now that dad has taken a back seat, and the school I work at has been undergoing some administrative transitions that have been ... unsettling. (See my previous ruminations here.)
That last post was from 4/16, which was my mom's birthday and also in the middle of the Spring Break Where I Discovered All My Captain America Feels. The month since has been really a blur. At school people keep coming up to me to say "I heard this terrible rumor that you're leaving us," but I've still been doing all the things I would regularly do -- going to all the optional meetings discussing things for the next year. At the same time, the wheels have been cranking towards finding my replacement, and I think they finally settled on someone today. Then I'd go home and spend HOURS on tumblr with my Captain America feels, blatantly ignoring pretty much everything else that wasn't mandatory. Basically this last month I felt like I was walking through a haze.
But yesterday I think things started crystallizing. (Typical that it happens 3 days into being left alone in the apartment.) I finally got over the Captain America feels (in a "I'm done" sort of way, and not just a "I must stop" sort of way), and I think I'm ready to think about what's coming next.
In this post I'll put some of the "what's next," and I'll follow it with a friends-locked post about my current school (because obvious reasons.)
Related to current Chinese School:
- Managing the transition of our current material to an online platform
- Streamlining school administration (to make sure we're using people the best way, and to make sure teachers feel appreciated and also energized, but are also appropriately teaching the content)
- Fixing up all the problems with current school website and database (either by hiring someone or doing it myself)
- Helping condense grades 8/9, improve grades 6/7, and add the possibility of a post-AP grade
- Get WASC accreditation
Other stuff:
- Writing a high school Mandarin textbook and testing it out in MJ's classroom, and maybe promoting it at conferences.
- I'll still show up to school on Thursdays lunch for anime club, and maybe also for the Day 5 advos
- Possibly working with the school in other capacities (guest speaker, professional development, tech assistance, etc)
- Finishing Tisquantum (!!!)
... Yeah, that sounds like plenty of things to do. I won't be teaching every day, but maybe it's time to exercise my other muscles (managerial, coding, creative).
That last post was from 4/16, which was my mom's birthday and also in the middle of the Spring Break Where I Discovered All My Captain America Feels. The month since has been really a blur. At school people keep coming up to me to say "I heard this terrible rumor that you're leaving us," but I've still been doing all the things I would regularly do -- going to all the optional meetings discussing things for the next year. At the same time, the wheels have been cranking towards finding my replacement, and I think they finally settled on someone today. Then I'd go home and spend HOURS on tumblr with my Captain America feels, blatantly ignoring pretty much everything else that wasn't mandatory. Basically this last month I felt like I was walking through a haze.
But yesterday I think things started crystallizing. (Typical that it happens 3 days into being left alone in the apartment.) I finally got over the Captain America feels (in a "I'm done" sort of way, and not just a "I must stop" sort of way), and I think I'm ready to think about what's coming next.
In this post I'll put some of the "what's next," and I'll follow it with a friends-locked post about my current school (because obvious reasons.)
Related to current Chinese School:
- Managing the transition of our current material to an online platform
- Streamlining school administration (to make sure we're using people the best way, and to make sure teachers feel appreciated and also energized, but are also appropriately teaching the content)
- Fixing up all the problems with current school website and database (either by hiring someone or doing it myself)
- Helping condense grades 8/9, improve grades 6/7, and add the possibility of a post-AP grade
- Get WASC accreditation
Other stuff:
- Writing a high school Mandarin textbook and testing it out in MJ's classroom, and maybe promoting it at conferences.
- I'll still show up to school on Thursdays lunch for anime club, and maybe also for the Day 5 advos
- Possibly working with the school in other capacities (guest speaker, professional development, tech assistance, etc)
- Finishing Tisquantum (!!!)
... Yeah, that sounds like plenty of things to do. I won't be teaching every day, but maybe it's time to exercise my other muscles (managerial, coding, creative).