Monday, June 11, 2007

Transitions


My year of taming the Mustangs is over! I've accepted a job at Montezuma Cortez High School. West End offered to renew my contract because I can teach college level composition. Unfortunately, the district needed to get rid of one English teacher due to declining student enrollment for next year, leaving just two of us. I saw the handwriting on the wall: I would have to teach all of the middle school classes. My 8th graders were a real challenge this year; I'll miss them, but I have concluded that my skills and knowledge are better spent on high school age students. I'm tired of spending so much energy on classroom management issues--the reality of teaching middle school students--when what I really want to do is teach content. Of course I have mixed feelings about leaving the district. But Nucla Junior-Senior H.S. won't really be the same school next year because half the staff is leaving anyway. I'll miss my students and friends.

Montezuma Cortez H.S. has around seven hundred students. The community it more diverse than what I'm accustomed to. The high school serves the local Ute Reservation, plus there are substantial numbers of Navajos and Hispanics. Cortez is two hours closer to Albuquerque, so I'll be closer to Jim, who still works at the VA hospital there. Cortez has a lovely setting, with mountains to the south. Even more lovely is the town of Mancos (in between Cortez and Durango), where I'm renting a cozy little house. I'm currently in the throes of confronting my materialism, moving my belongings from Naturita to Mancos. Rachel is flying out next week to help me get settled.

Rachel is also sorting and packing, selling and pitching. She is moving to Sacramento, where she'll attend Sacramento State on a rowing scholarship. We agreed that moving is stressful because it involves making hundreds of decisions large and small--from Where should I live? to Do I really need this old muffin tin? It's a good exercise to shed all this accumulated flotsam. Jim and I took ten boxes and bags to the Methodist Thrift Store in Cortez on Saturday. What a relief it will be when it's all over!

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