This fall, I will be teaching two courses at Champlain Lennoxville. Unfortunately, this means spending 13 weeks living away from home – but the good news is I’ll be racking up experience at the CEGEP level, and that gets me that much closer to a permanent position closer to home.
The time away won’t be so bad, either – my super-fantabulous mum-in-law has offered to come stay with my boys for the duration (she was planning a two-month visit around then, anyway, and this is really just an extension). I’ll be home for weekends, and one of the teachers in the department has a room to rent, so I won’t be stuck with a year-long lease or paying for weeks that I’m not in residence.
I’ll be teaching an intensive Prep. for College English class that incorporates the Intro to Lit course requirements into a “mise-a-niveau” course, aimed at bringing students up to an acceptable level of reading and writing. For many of these students, English is a second (or third) language, so the course will feature lots of grammar (yay…) and writing.
The second course is a basic Intro to Lit course, in which I’ll actually be able to teach real literature!!! Muahaha.
All told, I’ll be teaching 11 hours a week, which is one hour short of a full load. Happy happy joy joy 🙂
Yesterday was the graduation ceremony at ACCESS, where I’ve been teaching a computer class since February. Four of my students are graduating this term – from left, they are Sandee, Mary-Lynn, Krystal and Ashley.
Sandee was class valedictorian and Ashley won the Birks Gold Medal for best academic achievement. I’m so proud!! Sandee’s valedictory address was beautiful, and I’m sure her classmates have no regrets in choosing her to represent them.
These four, and my other students, are such bright, creative people. Right now they’re working on PowerPoint presentations (despite yesterday’s ceremony, classes continue to the end of this week). I’m really impressed with their ideas – everything from Family Trees and Greek Mythology to the Best of Saturday Night Live and Customized Mountain Bikes (not together, grand total of four presentations…)
I’ve learned a lot from my students – for instance, last night I learned that if you eat peanut butter and then vomit, it still sticks to the roof of your mouth. Thankfully, I did not learn this the hard way, but rather heard about it.
More a propos, I learned that I really do want to continue teaching, and if my students can be believed, I may actually be good at it. I will miss them all tremendously. Sniff, sniff.