A Day in the Life of MJC

So like I said in my first post I work at CDI April Institute. April has the youngest students at CDI ranging from first to fifth grade. Each level is named after a plant term: Seedbed Starter, Seedbed, Seed 1 and 2, Sprout 1, 2, and 3, Sapling 1 and 2, and Junior Master (it should be green thumb or something plant related). P.S. The levels at CDI are golf terms! There are four semesters a year and last three months, so I’ll get new classes every three months. Each semester I’ll go through three books that have twelve lessons in each book. April is in addition to their regular schooling so when the students are on break, we have Intensives. Intensives are basically extra classes for the students to attend, but because of them, my schedule has been a little different than usual and goes something like this:

I wake up around 8:30 a.m… well 8:45 a.m. after pressing snooze once (or three times). Luckily, I live kiddy corner to work so I can leave my place at 9:29 a.m. (my clock is 4 minutes fast) and arrive to work at 9:30 a.m. When I get to school I print off my review tests for the day and grade homework. I don’t have a first class so I get some extra time to get organized for the day. Then on Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s I have 3 classes in the morning, each 40 or 45 min. long with five minute breaks. The nice thing about intensives is that I get a long lunch break in between my morning and afternoon classes. After lunch I teach four more classes and my last class ends at 5:35 p.m. I stay after to grade tests and put in participation grades and I’m usually out of work by 6:15. On Tuesday and Thursday’s, I get two 40 minute breaks because I don’t have a first or third class then I teach six classes straight through. My last class on Tuesday and Thursday’s is done at 5:10, and I’m out of work by 6 p.m.

Once intensives are over (this week is the last week) I will work from 1-9 p.m. and teach six classes every day. The nice thing about working at April is that we don’t have to work on the weekends. I’m looking forward to sleeping in once intensives are over, but I know I’m going to get into some pretty bad sleeping and meal eating habits.

My youngest class is Seed 2, my oldest is Sprout 3, I have a lot of Sprout 1 classes, and one Sprout 2 class. I’ve really enjoyed teaching these levels because they’re eager to learn and their English is good enough to understand me pretty well. Right now I teach reading and speaking classes and one writing intensive class. Some material is more interesting than others, but overall the lessons are pretty entertaining. The hardest part is classroom control with the younger classes and of course those are my biggest ones. My smallest class is four students and my biggest is 11. I’ve noticed when “trouble makers” are absent the whole classroom attitude is different. It’s amazing the influence one student can have on the whole class.