Did I say I would let you know...

Hmmm, I'll get you some photos in a few days. In the mean time, here are some highlights:

I teach 24 senior IB Biology students (IB Bio II), about 33 juniors (IB Bio I), and approximately 90 Environmental Science students of various ages but who are primarily juniors. I also have juniors in my homeroom...a school phenomenon which, based on having attended high school, I should have anticipated, but didn't. Other things I should have anticipated but didn't include 17-year-olds throwing scissors around a room, approximately 15 mold-growth on bread summer experiments, and a classroom full of unlabelled chemistry experiments from about 5 years' worth of teachers who stayed in my classroom for only a year.

Despite these unanticipated phenomena, things really are going great. I could work for 24 hours a day, but, based on my 6:45 am arrival time, I've set 4:45 pm as my going home time, which I stick to every day. I take papers home to grade but I have left my classroom at 4:45 every day and still gotten my classes planned, despite some days when it seemed highly unlikely. I pick up my baby boy and spend about 2 hours with him each night, which is sub-optimal, but I also get weekends with him and, in the future, long uninterrupted periods of time that would be out of the question in any other job.

I'm enjoying my regular-level Environmental Science class more than I anticipated because there's less pressure to perform and I think that the IB curriculum may actually be easier to tackle than I feared. We'll see how my scores turn out but there seems to be adequate time to practice the test inside of the prescribed curriculum. I enjoy reminding myself about the science I don't remember so well and I find that I learn things more quickly now than I did when I was in high school. Turns out all that "learning to learn" business isn't totally made up. Anyway, as I said, pictures will follow. The only pictures I've taken lately are of my boy, who can stand up (assisted) but otherwise refuses to meet milestones.