A Note from my Career before today's installment

I got some rather wonderful news this morning about my job. Since I am not sure who is reading at this point, a little background knowledge is in order. I teach general level biology at CE Byrd High School in Shreveport LA. Our school population is 2200 kids; of which 600 are science magnet students who tested into a rather competitive program.

I don't teach those kids.

If you have ever seen the fourth season of The Wire, or Dangerous Minds, those are my average students. And while that doesn't particularly bother me (I find being immersed in a radically different culture at least stimulating, if not low-stress), they are not particularly inquisitive or drawn to academic pursuits, by and large (with some exceptions).

So next year this school goes to a block scheduling format, and to save you a tedious lecture about education formats in secondary schools, I will just say that this allows kids the opportunity to take more electives. And being a useless liberal arts snowflake, I wholeheartedly endorse this development.

So we have to offer a large number of electives next year. And in talking with our principal, the first boss I have really admired in years, it sounds like I will be picking up an elective to teach next year as well.

Philosophy, for high school students.

I'll pause for laughter.

So now I get to teach something I really like, that is really worthless, to a completely different group of students from what I am used to.

I will report back once I have figured out if Louisiana has a prescribed curriculum for philosophy in high schools. That alone ought to be pretty entertaining.