What do I think of HLC? It is REALLY complicated. I’m used to being a TA and Student Teaching with LAUSD. One curriculum for each subjet. HLC? There are at least 6 curriculums for each subject! They have it very well organized…. the student takes a pre-test, if they don’t get 100% on it then they will have to practice the problems that they got wrong. Each problem is coded. For example 540.20. So if he misses that one I would have to look up that problem in one of their huge binders. The binder would then tell me which curriculum and which page to look up similar problems.

So it is very well organized, but it is also very complicated to begin with. I’m sure once I’m there for a bit I would be okay. I’ll get the hang of it, etc. For now, though? Messed up!

I received my schedule. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday I work 10-12pm. On Thursday I work 9-10:30am. Seven hours for the first week. $90 bucks. Not great, not bad. Better than nothing. Oh! It’s $12/hour. Again, not great, not bad, better than nothing.

We shall see on Tuesday how things go. They have it set up so you either work one-on-one or 4-1. Four students per every teacher. For next week she has me working just one-on-one. The first day (Tuesday) I’ll be working with Alissa, and it will be with a brand new student. So that should be nice. To learn how it works starting at the beginning!

I arrived at HLC at 2:45pm or so, 45 minutes late. By the time I arrived they other two people (a young man, around my age, and older 30ish man) had finished filling out all the papers and began reading the training manual. Alissa, the woman who hired me and was conducting the training, showed me what to read and the quiz (multiple choice) we had to take at the end of reading. I was able to get through all the reading and the quiz before the other two finished. That was impressive for me.

Alissa had originally said I could go in early today to fill out the paperwork, but instead I finished it during the times I was waiting for the other two to finish the quiz.

We did training of two sessions yesterday and will do the last two today.

The second part of the training consisted of looking at their curriculum. I’m not impressed with it. It is mostly multiple choice. Although I think there is some value in MC questions, this is ALL MC. Barely any hands on. But, apparently, it works for them, so I will wait to make a final judgement on it. I also have to do a lot of learning about the curriculum in addition to what we did yesterday. They use at least 7-9 different books with the students. A vast difference to what I’m used to with LAUSD and Open Court.

Each student has their own notebook with a verbal/language arts book where their progress is reported and then another one for math. They also have answer sheets and other things which we will be looking at during today’s training. We’ll also be going over how the place is set up. We should also have our schedules by today. From what Alisa said we’ll be starting on Monday.

For the first week or so I would be shadowing a full-time tutor. Then I will be shadowed. I’m not particularly “nervous or scared” about this because I have worked one-on-one with students for years. It’s second nature, almost. But being watched closely is a bit scary. I should be fine, though.

Hopefully I’ll have time to update this tonight, if not tomorrow.