So, What’s Next?

The last few weeks of school have been an intense experience, mostly because the idea of leaving a school that I love to teach at has become a reality. My emotions are, as one says, “mixed.” It seems that for me each school year that I have taught has gone by faster and faster, and I can only attribute this to the amount of enjoyment I get out of teaching my students, while being supported by strong teachers and dedicated parents. Now, after concluding a year that went by ever so quickly, I find myself boxing up the last of my classroom, and trying to decide what I want to bring with me, what to leave behind, and what to relocate to my memory box for safe keeping. I guess that in “teacher years” four is not that many, however as I dig through my old files, and as I reflect on my first year when I barely had a clue about what effective teaching was, I have come to realize that Mira Loma has been the place where almost all of my professional development as an educator has occurred; Mira Loma has also, more importantly, become my home. And, as Mr. Roberts eloquently put it, “It’s hard to leave home.”

But I wanted to provide some links to my new school (which feels funny typing), The International School of Stavanger, situated in the town of Stavanger, in Norway. This year is a particularly exciting time to travel to Stavanger, since it was designated as one of the two European Capitals of Culture 2008 by the European Union (along with Liverpool). The MrQuale.com offices are also looking to relocate as well, and it will be hard to “upgrade” from our current World Headquarters, however I think we found it.

While I’m not boxing and organizing, I have been slowly reading through my Class Evaluations, which I am once again so glad that I assigned, since I am getting all sorts of ideas for how to better organize my class, teaching strategies and methods, and content.

There was a lot of positive feedback for my website, which is encouraging because I devoted a lot of time and energy to it this last year. I also have my Editing Staff to thank for helping me to edit and post a lot of the student-generated content (as well as pointing out embarrassing typos that I make before too many people read my writing and scoff at the idea of this man teaching English).

In still other news, Mr. Thomas-Glass has some new “e-poems,” which can be found here, and are part of William James Austin’s “Winter Collisions” on BLACKBOX. My favorite fragment:

. . . we tussle
for facts & breathe gone adjectives, all beautiful. I could narrate a
deeper voice, oh living.

As you might have noticed, we have also added some more Book Reviews. My favorite review title, you might ask? Karina’s Hendrix homage, of course: “I Stand Up Next to a Mountain and I Chop It Down With the Edge of My Hand” for Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Just to throw it out there, I would be glad to publish movie, book or even music reviews that writers want to send me over the summer. I know, I know, why would one do that if not for the points and credit? Well, I hope that some of us are coming to realize that writing and sharing ideas does not always need compensation–I have a suspicion that this attitude is partially behind the blogging phenomenon.

Lastly, have you checked out our Cuckoo’s Nest Documentaries? What about the “Human Sperit” Website?

Tagged as: Norway