Seventh Grade Mathematics, Again

courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

Yesterday I received an email from my Principal announcing the teaching assignments for Seventh Grade. The email went out to all seven teachers who will be teaching Seventh Grade next year, at least as things stand now. We will be formed into a four teacher team and a three teacher team. I will be on the four teacher team.

My assignment for next year is Math. I chuckled when I read my Principal’s email and she’d written Mathematics. I can’t remember the last time any of us at my school used the word Mathematics to describe out Math classes.

This coming school year will be the sixth year in a row I’ve taught something different than I did the year before. Teaching Seventh Grade Math shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, but it will be fun and interesting because the curriculum has changed since I last taught it five years ago, and we have a new Math textbook to work with. The new book replaced the previous book that we’d used since the 2003-2004 school year. We were fortunate to get the new books, considering the State only budgets 65 cents per student per year for replacement text books. They don’t budget 65 cents per student per subject per year, they budget 65 cents per year per student for all subjects.

We didn’t acquire enough Math textbooks to be able to issue one to each student. We received one classroom set for each team. The students are given a web site they can visit to access an online copy of the book. No one gave us any advice about what to do for the students who don’t have an internet connection. Workbooks do accompany the new Math textbook, but our district didn’t buy any. Instead, each Math teacher was given a CD with the workbooks in pdf format and told to print out what was needed.

Of course, they limit the amount of paper each teacher receives each quarter so if the teacher needs more paper than his or her allotment they are expected to go down to the office supply store and buy it themselves. I’ve don’t just that often enough in the past.

Still, I’m looking forward to teaching Math again, now that I’ve had a couple years off from it. As soon as my wife and I get back from our vacation I am going to start preparing my lessons for next year.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator