'always greener'

sickness at home day #3 has allowed me to finally get to doing some reserach -homework, if you will - on NY public schools. and damn, i'm overwhelmed. coming from a county in which all students are funneled into one high school and going top an area in which just one burough has these offerings is an entirely different league ballpark world. tripp thinks HS shouldn't be so specialized, but when i think about what a difference having these choices could make to any of my students this year…man. when you give an individual more choice and allow him to self his own challenges, isn't he automatically going to invest more into the experience? wouldn't it be more taking advantage of the opportunities he has selected and earned, and less of a countdown of how many days he has left to serve of his high school 'sentence'?

the fact that i will be living and teaching in NY in 6 months is still entirely surreal. i can't imagine that i'll be in one of these schools. i'm excited, but with butterflies and lots of question marks.

next week is my spring break, and i hope to get back up there to do some observing at different schools. i want to make everything feel less foreign. and i need to get over feeling like i am really lucky to be there and start realizing -in as ego-free a way as possible- that they are lucky to have me.