LRTT and X-ray Crystallography

My Dad said to me this week, “Another busy summer then?”

I kind of agree with him. I would not cope if I had a plan-free summer. My life is a series of plans; most of my days are spent minute-by-minute planning lessons or teaching those lessons. I look at my watch a few times an hour and get time-anxious just as often.

This summer the first LRTT Guyana is going to happen. The only barriers are my organisation and recruitment. LRTT have teamed me up with another guy to lead the course in the summer and together, we are hoping to recruit 20 teachers. I have spammed most of Facebook and probably drowned hundreds of news feeds with posts about LRTT. I hope that it pays off.

We will be working with the training college in Georgetown to run the course with their teachers as well as teaching remedial classes for students in Georgetown. Then we are off into the bush to work with the teachers in two remote and beautiful towns.

At the moment though, most of my life is filled with chemistry. I really love chemistry at the moment. It is worrying me that I am starting to like it more than biology. It is definitely harder but I like a challenge. And getting students to understand mole ratios is definitely more rewarding than teaching them about food chains.

Hopefully Rob is going to get involved with my A-Level class this week. He is doing a PHd/PhD/pHD in Sweden and is going to be Skyping the class to talk about his work in X-Ray crystallography.

A day in the life of (today):

6am- woke up and got ready

7am- arrived at school and started marking/planning/preparing resources for the day/following day

8.30- Took form time, stole a few bracelets/ear rings to keep in line with the current push on uniform. Spoke to a few students and took the register

8.40-1500- Taught chemistry to Forms 3 and 5. Taught A-Level and AS-Level chemistry

1500-1530- Discussed some calculations with a student, marked a few homeworks from form 5. Debated for a few minutes whether to mark 2 pieces that were done late and parts done during my lesson. Marked them anyway.

1540-1800- Arrived home, planned tomorrow’s form 3 and 4 chemistry lessons. Planned tomorrow’s AS lesson on alkenes.

1900-1930- Ate dinner, listened to radio 1 on iplayer and found them discussing gang violence (reminded myself I am happy to have left inner city London school)

1930-2100- Planned A-Level chemistry and geography lesson for tomorrow. AL is about NMR spectroscopy whilst in geography we are doing types of agriculture. Wished I had two different heads.

2100- Wrote blog and reflected on day to see where I can find more space for planning that isn’t evening. Realised I can’t and just accepted life this year will be like first year on Teach First minus the hours spent worrying/crying/ being angry about behaviour issues.