I cannot believe how exhausted I am.

The past two days of Induction have felt like two weeks. I really can’t even believe that all the stuff that’s happened has happened in just 48 hours. I mean, it shouldn’t be physically possible. I’ll try for a quick, short recap.

Yesterday I took the CBEST. It was ridiculous. There is a reason that people who can’t pass that test can’t be teachers. One of the math questions wanted me to identify the equivalent of 72% in decimals. Seriously.

The discussions were quite interesting. I really meant to blog about them yesterday, because now I can hardly remember the important parts. I do remember that the Superintendent of San Jose Unified School District was talking about schools getting money from private companies. You’d think that they’d get a lot, being in the heart of Silicon Valley and all, but companies really aren’t interested in what’s going to educate kids. They’re interested in making money. And he said, “We’re here to educate kids. Not make widgets.” Which I thought was hilarious.

Then we went to the ball game. It literally took us an hour to get there and an hour to get back on BART. We got to the game during the 7th inning stretch. It was cool and all, but I think once is enough.

Today was very very exciting. We had our district processing, which means that I am officially hired and I will definitely have a position in Alum Rock in the fall. I found out my salary, and while I won’t post it here, I will say it was higher than what I was expecting, and we get a signing bonus supposedly so that is awesome. I drove past my school today. Every step I take towards the classroom makes this more and more real for me. My school is what used to be Shields Elementary, which has been underperforming for a number of years. They have one more year before the state shuts it down, so they are splitting it into two smaller schools in a last ditch attempt to achieve. There are 9 new corps members who will be teaching at both schools. The site is staying the same but they’re splitting it into two smaller schools. There are only 4 returning staff members from the old school and everyone else will be new- including the two principals. I am not sure of how the logistics will work yet, but I can hardly contain my excitement!

We also had “community orientation” which was a panel of 3 principals from Alum Rock talking about the achievement gap in our district. We could also ask them our own questions. It was quite possibly the most helpful and amazing hour of the entire Induction so far. I learned so much in such a short amount of time that I wish that all of Induction could be that way. Afterwards, a fellow CM (corps member) who is teaching at Russo and I talked with the middle school principal, who was awesome. I found out that second grade in California is the first time that students take the California standardized test. I didn’t know that before, and I am actually really, really, really excited about it. I feel like I have such an incredible chance to make a difference for my students in that capacity. I mean, not only will I help them all ace the test (because, yes, I AM that amazing), I will prevent them all from having chronic test anxiety. I think that a bad testing experience early on could have really detrimental effects for the students later in life, so if I can help them with testing techniques and whatnot right away, I can prevent that. I am really excited!