The new deal

I started a new gig on Jan. 17th. Basically, so far, it's my dream job. I get to teach both remedial reading and ESL.

I teach reading in a small classroom with around 10-15 students (some days it's more, others, it's less) on a residential campus working with at-risk youth. In a typical day, it's a fluctuating mix of mostly academic/vocational instruction, but I do an equal amount of life skills and social skills training (as needed by certain individuals).

It's a pretty awesome gig. It's quite different from working in a public school in several key ways. For starters, the schedule isn't based on a standard academic year, so it's more like working with a high mobility population (people come and go all the time, depending on where they are in the program). Then there's the fact that, you're called upon to do a lot more things that school counselors usually does because the "home factor" is absent, and like it or not, you are sort of in a quasi-parental role (albeit with "kids" who are for the most part over 18). For another, it's a vocational program, so the emphasis is quite different from a typical high school, where the de facto mission is college prep. And the students are quite an interesting mix. Many come from rural areas, but some are from large cities, and most, at least in my subject, have learning disabilities. So most days it's kind of a cross between doing Resource and ESL, with an occasional behavior class thrown into the mix (depending on who's in the room).