Kyrie Eleison...

I can sum up my first two days at Xavier High School in a few words but I will elaborate a bit. My first observation is how many people have families. I don't know if that is actually strange but I couldn't believe that nearly every teacher had a husband or wife and most had or wanted children. Slightly off the topic of teaching but it does make for an interesting school environment especially when the teachers talk about it all the time. Also, it became abundantly clear that I was at a Catholic school very quickly. I felt very out of the loop because I am not Catholic. Christian, yes. Catholic, no. So when it came to Mass and prayer meetings in the chapel, I had no idea what to say or do. It was very helpful to sight read all the Mass music so I could be the leader and I'm sure by the end of these eight weeks I will catch on to how these things run. Perhaps the most relevant thing I noticed was the department set up. Since the school is not overly large, the music department is only three people. While all the other academic departments were allowed to talk with teachers who taught the same subjects they did, the music, art, and drama teachers were forced to become a fine arts "department". This is not altogether bad as the departments do function in similar ways and do work together often with musicals, however, it was difficult to form department goals when there are three subjects. The teachers in the department also get along interestingly. Often, some teachers really want to focus and get a lot of work done while some of the others would rather goof off and work later. This caused some distress within the group and by the second day part of the group simply left halfway through and one member never came. This will be interesting to watch over the coming weeks to see how these relationships affect the work in the department. The final thought I have for this post is that my cooperating teacher has often left me in a place where I don't know what to do. He has arrived late both days and has left group time in the middle never to return and making me have to come find him. I assume this is simply him being busy but if not then I will have to either address the problem or develop independence very quickly. Altogether, the week was a bit rough but manageable. I look forward to continuing to learn from this school and to become a better teacher for it.