Can someone teach me chess?

I am now a gifted education teacher for Phoenix Elementary School District! I am so relieved, which is a horrible first thing to say after getting a new job, but I am relieved! I am also really excited, anxious, and of course, nervous! This experience is going to be so different from everything that I have learned, observed and practiced this summer. I almost feel as though I have no idea what to expect, even upon this, the eve of my graduation from the summer institute. I had fully prepared myself for a career teaching science to 12 and 13-year-olds, and now I learn that I will be teaching science and social studies and math and english to 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13-year-olds!


This is the school where I will be teaching. It's located on 3rd street between Thomas and McDowell. There is no one group of students that will be based at this school. Instead they will be bussed in one day a week depending on their grade level. For example, on Monday, all of the gifted kindergarten and 1st grade students from the district might come to Monterey Park and spend the day in gifted education. On Tuesday, all of the 2nd graders and the 3rd graders may come. I am not quite sure exactly how it works yet, but there is a possibility that I may see 360 different students in one week! I am sure this won't be the case, and that they have some other rotation system in place, but there are 360 gifted students in the district and they will all visit this school once a week.

The thing that really excites me about this job is the potential for really creative instruction. According to the program website, the students go on some really exciting field trips (Meteor Crater, the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest), as well as participate is some really cool activities (learning math strategies through games and LEGO NXT Robotics, running businesses in stimulated cities, playing chess (good god...)). Anyway, regardless of the fact that that I don't know how to play chess (and that I am taking this to mean that most of my students will be way smarter than me), I feel so lucky to have been placed at this school and cannot wait to start!

By the way, I will be starting on July 21st, which is the same day that Lee starts at Intel. It's funny how things work out. Speaking of Lee, he is still in Iowa and I have been missing him very much. My extreme codependency is not helped by the fact that we have something so exciting and momentous to do as soon as he comes home. Move in together!

As I said, my summer institute closing ceremony is tomorrow at ASU downtown. I am excited to have completed the program, but I am also sad to have to say goodbye to all of the new friends I have made (goodbye, at least, to spending what seemed like every waking second with them). Honestly, I usually hate things like this. Things where you're thrown together with new people and are expected to make them your new best friends in a matter of days (or weeks or months, it's all the same). That's why I hated college, and left with only one new friend. But this experience was different, and I feel like I have, with minimal effort, gained at least 13 new friends. And it's great because all of these new friends are, like me, going to be brand new teachers in the fall, and we will all be based in downtown Phoenix. So I will say goodbye to them for now, but am sure that they will all play a big role in my teaching career.

Other than wrapping up my student teaching and training, I have been swimming and hiking a lot. I also finally finished Atlas Shrugged and am excited to start reading something new (probably Beloved). Did I ever mention that my new house is right down the street (kind of) from Joe and Erin? I am really excited about that because it means more of this and this.