May 30: I just returned from my interview with the principal of Richmond Hill High School! This all happened so fast. . . the phone call from the secretary on Wednesday, my return call on Thursday, the interview on Friday. The interview seemed to go well, but the very best part was reclaiming my shredded confidence. For the first time in 10 months, I was made to feel qualified, smart, creative, and impressive. He was impressed, for instance, that I'd gotten a nearly perfect score on the Praxis test in my subject area. He seemed to like the creative classroom activities I've used, as well as my philosophy of classroom management, which is a more positive than punitive one. I don't know if he will offer me a job, or even if I can break my contract with Chatham County without being sued, but I do know that at the very least it was a valuable experience to feel as though I'm a well-qualified and talented human being after all!
Richmond Hill is a very middle-class suburb south of Savannah, and the school reflects the tax base. He said all the roons have LCD projectors. They have class sets of novels, several computer rooms, a media center, and best of all, students whose families value education, students who have high test scores, students whose philosophy is not "We real cool..we drop out of school" (Gwendolyn Brooks). Richmond Hill is just over the county line, about six or 10 miles south of our residence about the same driving distance to the south as Groves is to the north. As I've said before, the Bryan County school system usually only has about three job openings, across disciplines, because no one ever wants to leave that system, while Chatham County has to import people from India and Phillipines to fill the hundreds of vacancies.
I'm so grateful that it's Friday, and even more grateful that there are only 10 more student days left. From next Tuesday until the last day of school, they're going to send around evaluators to do the "Look fors", such as Word Walls being up and Essential Questions, and to make sure the students are "engaged" in "appropriate activities." I hope this weekend I can find inspiration on how to "engage" the two journalism classes during the next to last week of school. I've been trying to engage them all year! They're not engaged. They have porfolios due on Thursday, but I guarantee you, most of them just won't do them. They don't care. What, oh what, can I possibly do with them that will engage them? But hey, why I am worried anyway? I've already been evaluated as "Unsatisfactory" so what difference does it make? It's been a lo-o-ong year, folks.
Tomorrow is grandson N's 7th birthday!! I sent him a big gift card from Toys R Us since we couldn't make it up there this weekend. P. always insists that we buy a birthday cake on the birthday of any family member who is having a birthday, whether they're living here or not, so I know we'll be having cake tomorrow.
Love the weekends!
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