Further Thoughts On Going Back To School

A few short weeks ago, I found myself standing in front of a classroom of high school students, teaching a pre-reading lesson I’d prepared on the Shakespearean play Julius Caesar. After almost eight years out of the classroom, the moment, complete with new students, a new locale, and new educators evaluating me, initially felt surreal. People say that once you learn to ride a bike, you can stop for years and then one day get on again, and it’s as if you never stopped riding. When I walked in that classroom and started teaching, after that first moment of hesitation, it felt as natural as breathing, as if I’d never left.

But what does this have to do with An Island Mom, you rightly ask? Let me explain.

First, though, let me state that, while I have covered many topics on An Island Mom, first and foremost, this blog is about living on an island, framed by my experience of moving from a big city (Chicago), first to one small island in Carolina and now to another. This perspective, and my love for this place and the life that it offers is what inspired me to start this blog, and it will remain my overriding theme.

When I was preparing for the lesson I taught, however, I ended up spending several hours going through old teaching materials, as much out of nostalgia as anything else. This exercise made me think about how much the internet has continued to influence education during my eight-year teaching hiatus. It only makes sense to me, then, since I will soon apparently be a blogging educator, to incorporate some aspects of my teaching into this blog. In particular, I’d like to share some ideas and lesson plans. I know some of you are professional educators, and some of you are homeschooling educators, so I’m hoping to include some practical ideas and lessons that you can actually use in your teaching. I am, after all, a firm believer in sharing ideas as much as possible, so that we all can work toward providing the best possible education for the students in our charge.

As it stands, I’ll be teaching three high school English classes, classes that will include literature, writing, reading, and etymology, among other things. I’m in the midst of acquiring curriculum for my new classes, so I still have yet to uncover most of the particulars. I’m reasonably sure, for instance, that I will be teaching some etymology, the research paper, and two of my favorite works, Julius Caesar and To Kill a Mockingbird, but beyond this, I’ve yet to determine much.

I imagine, too, that teaching by the beach will present its own unique stories. Snow days hopefully won’t be replaced with hurricane days, but we shall see. Instead of the mouse that dropped through the ceiling tile of my suburban Chicago classroom one day those many years ago, this time around it might be a gecko. I might even catch a student ditching my class to head to the beach instead of ditching my class to head downtown. We’ll see.

Here, also, is where I’d love to hear from you. If you have any specific requests or suggestions about educational posts (or any posts, for that matter), I would absolutely love to hear them. And once I get going, please feel free to use any of the materials you’ll find on An Island Mom with your students. You don’t know the thrill I’ll get if some of you end up using some of my ideas and lessons in your classrooms. Seriously. All I ask is that you tell people you found it on anislandmom.com.

Class dismissed. 🙂