I know what I'm doing this summer

I have a summer job! A teaching job! And I know that seems ironic or even funny from a woman who is counting down the days of the regular school year, BUT... there is always a BUT, but this is really different.

I'll be teaching at a prison school. well, that's a little harsh. There is a residential facility for kids who are court ordered there, as a foster placement, or as a day school for some kids who can't function in a public school. It's a type of "jail" without bars for juvenile offenders.

Because it's a residential facility the kids are required to take classes all summer long- no unaccounted for or unstructured time so they offer academic classes for kids who need them (like if they failed history, for example, then they have to re-take the history. Same with English, science, etc...) and then for all the other kids, they have fun programs. I get to teach the FUN stuff because they let their regular faculty teach the academics.

I get to design my very own classes! I can teach anything I want! I get a supplies reimbursement for $7 per child. I can teach 2 classes each day.

I'll only have 10-14 kids per class. The classes are gender segregated, either all boys or all girls. They wear uniforms. There are not grades; the kids just earn points toward special privileges.

There are 4 summer sessions (called modules). During each module I'm going to teach 2 different classes, a morning one and an afternoon one. The morning class is from 9-11am. The afternoon class is from 1230-230pm. That's merely 4 hours a day. Each module runs for 10 days. I can teach just 1 or 2 or 3 or all 4. I also get paid $56 (hello, $14 per hour!) per day and the school provides me a free lunch! I'll have my own classroom each 10 days, the same one in the morning and afternoon so I can decorate bulletin boards and the like if I want! Also, because these are supposed to be fun, there is no homework to assign; homework is DISCOURAGED.

I'm kicking around the following ideas for my classes:

1) School of Rock (class title)
I would pick one genre of music a day to focus on. At the beginning of each day I would play a sample of the music and let the kids journal for about 10 minutes. Then I would do a very brief 20 minute lecture on the genre. Then the last 90 minutes I would have a variety of activities, group and individual, that revolves around the music of the day. I could not only play the music but videos as well. On days 8 and 9 would be the topic 'music in film' and the last day would be a presentation by each student with music of their choice. I also thought I could give them a list of what the genre was and encourage them to bring in a sample and play those as well.

2) Read it, See it!
Example: Monday: read a piece of literature and do activities with it, then on Tuesday, watch the companion film in its entirety (like Of Mice and Men or To Kill a Mockingbird). Do this with 5 books

3) Film 101
Teach basic skills on how to "watch" a movie like history of film, canted camera angles, use of light and shadows and music in film, etc. then show examples of each, and do activities.

I have a bunch of other ideas, too. I was thinking of a creative writing class but someone else is already doing that. But it all sounds like such fun!!! I think I want to do School of Rock and Film 101.

It is just nice to think of being back in the classroom where I get to be in charge! Again, not a bad gig for summer work at all!!

Finally, good news!
Maggie Mae, teacher