Five Men and a Baby

For the second straight year, I'll be teaching on a team that will have four male teachers.

Just within the Guilford County Schools, I'd be curious to know how many such teams have existed within the system's middle schools during the last ten years.

My guess is that it's not very common.

Even last year, my team didn't start out that way.

We began the school year with three men and one woman. (That gender configuration isn't too common either.)

Our female teammate was from Denmark, and she decided to return home before the end of the first semester.

It wasn't until late January that a replacement was hired, and he--Adam Duncan--ended up being the fourth male on our team.

Adam Duncan (math), Steve Russillo (science), and I (language arts) are the three Midnight Riders team teachers who will be returning to Southwest Guilford Middle School for the 2007-2008 school year.

Drew Sparks (social studies) won't be back.

Drew and I lasted a full decade as teammates.

In teaching years, I think that represents at least one lifetime.

Anyone who knows Drew and me knows that we are completely different in just about every way that two people can be.

Working with him on the same team for ten years, I think we've balanced each other's contrasting personalities, and that that has been one of the strengths to our working relationship.

I have loved working with Drew and regret that he's decided to leave our school.

I don't take for granted how lucky I was to have had the opportunity to work with him these past 1o years.

He's a great teacher and a great person.

I know that many of our students have appreciated social studies for the very first time during their eighth-grade year, and the reason for that has been that they've had Drew as their teacher.

Southwest Guilford Middle School will be a very different place without him.

The Midnight Riders team will be different without him.

I just met Drew's replacement.

His name is Scott Pugh, and he comes to our school from Randleman High School.

On August 1st, Scott met Adam, Steve, and me at the Ham's in front of High Point's Palladium Theatre.

We had lunch there and got to know each other a little bit.

My first impression of Scott is very positive, and even though I'll miss working with Drew, I'm excited about working with Scott.

Though some people will never believe me, I promise that I wasn't the one to bring Prince up in our first team meeting.

Yes, the subject did come up.

And yes, I'm a pretty big Prince fan. To put it mildly.

But Steve's actually the one who brought it up. (Steve made mention of the video of me singing a Prince song. It's actually a video of me lip-syncing "When Doves Cry" with one of my old friends from high school. I did sing "Purple Rain" one time before a live audience of my students. If that happened today, I'm sure it'd be preserved on video. Back then though, it wasn't.)

Anyway, by Steve bringing Prince up, that led to us finding out that Scott's also a pretty big Prince fan. (Like me, he's also been to three Prince concerts. And he's even familiar with his more obscure songs.)

Welcome to the Midnight Riders team, Scott!

(Oh, and before I forget, Scott and his wife are expecting a baby. Congratulations!)