Summer School: The husband and wife teaching duo(ish)

My husband, Jon, and I decided we were going to teach summer school this year. When I first signed up for summer school, I was scheduled to teach math. But, I told the principal that I would teach wherever he needed me.

Here I go, opening my big mouth again. This is probably a blessing and a curse for me, and as you will read, my husband.

You see, Jon is a Language Arts teacher. He knows his "stuff." He can break down data and tell you where the student’s deficit is. He creates activities that keep even the most uninterested 8th grade boys engaged into Language Arts.

So, when the numbers came back, I was reassigned to teach 8th grade Reading—which means my hubby and I are teaching in the same classroom. We will have a group of 17 8th graders….who have failed the TAKS test twice. Sounds like a dream come true, right?

Luckily, we are teaching with another person—a young Language Arts teacher from another school in the district. We joked with her the other day that if things get ugly between us, she will have to be the referee. She laughed nervously…she doesn’t know Jon and I yet.

Jon and I have worked together before. Not in the same classroom, but we have been at the same school. He always used to tell his kids, I was the nice one. When we were at the same school, I taught the kids 7th grade Science and then he got to meet them the next year when they were 8th graders. It worked out pretty well.

The kids came to us today, and I was so excited to meet them. I could hardly sleep last night, I know, its dorky, but I really do love working with new students.

During the last school year, I had the pleasure of working with 30 kids who were absolutely awesome. Probably the smartest kids, I will ever teach. 100% of them passed their science and reading TAKS tests the first time, with only one having to do a retake in math. (He passed the second time.) They were an impressive group. I did not have any modifications; I did not have any true behavior problems (besides the fact that we were too comfortable with each other by the end of the school year).

So, today I get to meet these 8th graders—who are very different from my 5th graders. We started out by introducing ourselves and tossing a ball to each other to learn names, schools and something they are interested in/do in their spare time. We had a variety of responses, ranging from kids who were interested in shopping, watching movies—-to, my personal favorite, a boy who said he likes to “sell stuff.”

(Oh, lord, I am not in 5th grade any more.) This was the same boy who, when Jon tried to shake his hand—brushed past him without even a look. He was also wearing an "I love boobies" bracelet and a "WWJD" bracelet on the other wrist. Nice.

Our summer school kids were too quiet today. They worked hard and read a ton of TAKS passages, even the “Seller,” did a good job. We are going to change some things, but it was a good day.

They have a long way to go, but, I am very optimistic we are going to have quite a bit of success this summer!

Oh, and if it helps any—I bought some candy for tomorrow. No one said anything about bribery being a bad thing in the summer.