Ask Me the Third Week of School

However, this may not be true for the “new guys”. For those who are starting their first year at Veritas, whether home teacher, campus teacher or new admin staff, there are a ton of new terms, new online things to figure out, new curriculum to master, and new methods to which to adjust.

Interestingly, it never seems quite so hard for the new students to adjust. Most seem able to adjust as they go and they have classmates that they see every school day to show them the ropes.

To the adults who are new, I encourage patience and flexibility. Patience and flexibility for yourselves and the same for the others around you.  To my new teachers, I know how challenging teaching at Veritas can be. In other schools you are often left to your own devices. You are given objectives, but some schools leave you on your own to work out texts and resources to use and plans to develop from scratch. Though this seems like an overwhelming task, it also gives you the freedom to use material with which you are familiar. Here at Veritas, you need to learn new systems, new protocol and policy, AND new curricula. To my new satellite teachers coming out of home schooling, you have a similar challenge as well.

For the “old hands” at Veritas, may I also ask for flexibility, patience and grace? By all means, please communicate when there is something missing. We want you to have all that you need to do your co-teaching job. But when you communicate, as always do so graciously. And do it quickly. 

I have two teachers who just discovered this weekend that the satellite teaching moms were not getting the things they needed at home! Lots and lots of communication was generated in this problem, but no one communicated with the classroom teachers. (Surely they know about this, the home teachers thought. We don’t want to trouble them at home.)  This weekend the two teachers were appalled to learn that they had been leaving their co-teachers in the lurch. Trust me, we teachers want you to get accurate info and materials.

Thank you for keeping us up to speed with problems we might be having in the office as well. The saddest thing for us is to learn at the quarterly exchange about a problem that has been ongoing for weeks. We truly would like to work out all the bugs by the third week — at the latest.

Then, when the question comes my way, “How’s it going?” I can answer with a resounding, “Great!”