The Job...

The high school has students from grade 7 to grade 12.  I work with two classes, one from grade 7 and one from grade 8 when they have Language and Math.  If I'm not team teaching with the other teacher in the classroom, I'm working with a select few of students that need extra support in my office.  The students that I mainly work with are extremely challenging for many reasons.  These kids can show up hungry because they haven't eaten since yesterday morning.  MTV has turned all these young high school kids into 'thugs'.  They all wear hats or toques in school.  Most of the hats are very flashy with money symbols and say "hustler" across the front and they all give props to one another as they walk through the halls.  They speak quite slowly and we have gotten used to a lot of their slang.  Part of my job is that I spend time working on the Individual Education Plans (IEP's) for identified students.  So I take part in some extra meetings to figure out those details.  Apart from school, I coach the girl's volleyball team at the school with the help of my girlfriend Lori.  So far, things are going great and I'm really starting to get a feel for where I stand at the school and how to get through this year without a whole lot of trouble.