And Yet I Claim to Be So Busy

After teaching sixth-grade math and world cultures in Lake Zurich for fifteen years, I am currently teaching eighth-grade English and U.S. history from after the Civil War to the present. I feel like a first-year teacher all over again: new school, new curriculum, no clue what I ‘m doing.

We started the year with the Age of Industrialization: railroads, steel, oil; and of course our boys Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Rockefeller.

My colleague -who teaches the other section of U.S. history and with whom I share a classroom- is from New Zeeland. And of course, almost all of my students are Chinese. This poses an interesting challenge for me. As I sift through the complex narrative that makes up American History, where I do I position our lessons on the critique-versus-boosterism spectrum.

Sure Rockefeller used spies to keep an eye on the competition, but he drove the price of kerosene from $0.58 to $0.08 per gallon. Sure Vanderbilt had a violent temper, but he made trans-atlantic travel available to the masses. I may have oversold it when I credited Rockefeller with saving the whales because his oil was cheaper –and therefore more popular- than whale oil. My Kiwi colleague was typing on her computer in the back of the room at the time. She didn’t look up, but I am pretty sure that she stopped typing there for a brief second.

Andrew Carnegie may have been a Robber Baron, but he was our Robber Baron. Hey, you don’t talk badly about the Family outside of the Family. Right?

History and English are combined to form what is called Humanities. While history and English are scheduled as two separate classes at two different points in the day, I have exactly the same group of kids for both, so I am able to blur the lines and carry over from one class to the other. Classes are 72 minutes each.

I have one section of history and one section of English each day. The next day, I cover the same material with a different set of students. Each class has 25 students. Total, I see just 50 different students each week. Suprisingly, I have most of their names memorized.

To summarize, I teach just two classes a day, 72 minutes each. Did I get lucky, or what?

Oh, I also have an Advisory group every day. Advisory (we call them FaceGroups here at ICS) is a 45-minute period first thing every morning. I meet with the same group of 16 students everyday. FaceGroup is a time to take care of administrative business, do team-building activities, and touch base with students. It is considered non-academic and students do not get a grade.

We have no FaceGroup on Tuesday because we have sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade chapel.

-Jack

Picture: My FaceGroup and I in the school's courtyard.