The joy and trials of starting something new

The stereotype is that teachers do very little over the school holidays.

This six week break will be anything but lazy for me.

For, this upcoming year, I’ll be teaching something new.

New for me.

New for the school.

Since I’m teaching a brand new subject for my school, this means that there are a lot of things which are not in place.

Subject outlines.

Teaching programs for the semesters.

Assessment timetables.

Assessment tasks.

A subject specific student handbook.

Student handouts.

Currently, the subject folder for my upcoming subject is empty.

So far… I’ve created…

A 76 page student handbook.

Two 40 page teaching programs (basically outlines for the topics with teaching material)

A very colourful subject outline.

Student handouts for the entire first topic.

And I’ve still got a heap more to go over the next two-and-a-half weeks.

But, I’m also loving the task of creating something from scratch.

I’ve got freedom to find resources and choose how I’m going to use them.

I’ve got the freedom to decide what parts of the syllabus I’ll teach.

I’ve got the freedom to begin plotting assessment tasks.

Of course, I assume that I’ll still feel completely out of my depth no matter how much prep I put in during the holidays…

And that my head teacher will have a lot of useful suggestions which will significantly modify my current outlines…

But, this is the joy and toil of something new.

Late nights.

Lots of books.

Thoughts hitting you in the shower.

Ideas popping into your mind before you go to sleep.