Mmm, physics

[danaeris]

So the principal and I are starting to talk about what I'm going to teach next year.

Subjects I could teach:
Algebra I (8th and 9th grade)
Algebra II (9th and 11th grade)
Pre Calculus (11th and 12th grade)
Calculus (12th grade)
Chemistry (10th grade)
9th Grade Physics
12th Grade Physics

Now, I don't know which subjects will be reserved for teachers who have been teaching there longer. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be offered PreCalc or Calc.

Originally, I wanted to ditch the Chemistry as soon as possible. But the longer I teach it the more I like it. And I sometimes get really frustrated teaching math, because algebra is just SO obvious to me.

Anyway, teaching some combination of 12th Grade Physics, Chemistry, and Calculus would probably be ideal for me, but the truth is, I'm not really sure what I want to teach.

Comments

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

If you teach again a subject that you have all ready taught, will that possibly cut down on the time that you need to put into lesson plans, thus freeing you up more for your writing or other stuff?

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Theoretically, but there are a few factors here.

First, I've only taught half of each course I'm teaching, so I'll still have a semester of lesson plans to work out.

Second, strangely I've found that my students respond best to my teaching when I don't have a lesson plan. Maybe a few example problems planned out, yeah. And review of the material being taught to remind me of it. In Algebra II, the Teacher's Edition gives me examples, other examples can often be made up on the fly, and review will have to be done no matter how many times I've taught the class (and usually only takes five minutes). The main outside class time I spend, honestly, is on writing tests, grading homeworks, grading tests. The tests I've written will come in handy, but I also can't use the same test over and over again because of cheating issues.

There's also the fact that I've taught Physics at close to the 12th grade level for about 2-3 years. I've covered the material likely covered in the class 3 years as a student and 2-3 as a teacher. And now I'm working on stuff for a textbook covering that material. I know it Really Well, but it isn't patently obvious to me the way Algebra is, so I won't get as frustrated with the students, hopefully. And finally, no matter whether I teach 9th grade or 12th grade physics, I will have more passion about it. It will give me an excuse to monitor the news for interesting physics stories and print them out for my students (thus keeping abreast of stuff for writing).

Then again, even if I have two sections of physics somehow, I still would have to choose classes for the other two sections. The calculus class is tempting because the material is easy for me but not obvious. But for the reasons you point out, the Chemistry or Algebra may make more sense. And one of the more senior teachers wants to stop teaching Chemistry.