Notes From The Education Underground: The TeachWonk Diaries

Hello Everyone,

I am a classroom teacher that works in a junior high school. Our particular school is one of thousands that may be found throughout California, and can be thought of as "typical." (If there is a such thing as typical.) It could be said that our school's precise location is, "6 miles north of Tedium, 12 miles west of Nowhere, 3 miles south of Boredom, and very near the town of Lunacy."

We have two grades at this school, 7 and 8. As an institution, we are better than some, and not as good as others. But of course, we can't tell the parents that.

For the sake of these diaries, let's call the school Howard Taft Junior High. It is located in Middletown.

As I said before, the school that I work in is typical of those found throughout southern California. We have about 950 students. As with all my teaching colleagues, I am responsible for the effective teaching of some 175 students per day. The way that breaks down is that I have 35 kids per period.

Many of my students have only an acquaintance with the English Language. Others write and read the language better than most adults. Both are usually found within the same classroom.

Parental involvement ranges from apathetic through supportive to annoying. Working with children is but one challenge of the job. It is the adults that can cause a person to want to tear his or her hair out in clumps.

If future installments, learn what working in a school is really about.