Fall 2009
Going into my final year at Hampshire I thought I'd leave an update as I will be very busy for a while.
Today is my last day at home before I/we move out to NoHo one last time. Danner is currently job searching in both Boston and Northampton, so it is not clear where he will be this year, but I need to be in the valley completing my degree and licensure. Depending on where he finds a job we will be moving to Boston or looking for a nicer apartment in NoHo for next year. I am open to living in either location.
This summer was crazy with 7 of us living at my parents house (Jeff and his wife Julia, Alice, Mum, Dad, Danner, and myself). We were also all working, Danner and I at camps, Alice at a doctor's office, and everyone else at their regular jobs.
It was a lovely summer, though, and I gained a lot of classroom experience.
This fall I am only taking two classes, both at Mount Holyoke, because I am going into my division III. I was planning on having a relaxing semester with 3 empty days a week to write my div III and get a lot of work done, but as the semester nears this is clearly not the case.
One of me classes requires a 4 hour/week pre-practicum at a local school. My original placement was a five minute walk from the apartment, but it fell through at the beginning of the summer. The licensure coordinator found me another placement, but it is a one-hour bus ride from the apartment. This means that the pre-practicum will take 4 hours of classroom time and 4 hours of travel time per week.
I also have a new work study job. My previous job was working at the Hampshire college bookstore. The bookstore has been sold to an outside company and is no longer a work study job. I was told I would have to reapply for my job. I decided I did not like my job that much anyway so I found a new work study job. I will be teaching/tutoring at Northstar, a learning community for teens. Most of the community members and homeschoolers or unschoolers. I have been asked to teach sewing and physics, so I am nervous and excited to start there. I have a meeting with the director in less than a week.
This will be my last semester of taking classes as the spring semester will be my practicum. I will be in the classroom full time with a seminar one evening a week. So I am gearing up for that.
Hampshire has changed the way division III's combine licensure with regular division III requirements and expectations which will make my life much easier. I am not expected to complete a full division III as well as my other requirements. Instead my teaching portfolio and classroom work count for a significant portion of my division III work. The remaining work will be my internship at the Museum of Science, which I have already complete, and some sort of paper, which I have started. I am writing about my internship experience, but I have gotten stuck and I am waiting to talk to my adviser for some guidance.
So the end of college is in sight and I am thinking about life after college. I plan to look for a classroom teaching position in pre-K-2nd grade, but I am already worried about how the job shortage will affect me.
Time to finish packing for tomorrow.
Today is my last day at home before I/we move out to NoHo one last time. Danner is currently job searching in both Boston and Northampton, so it is not clear where he will be this year, but I need to be in the valley completing my degree and licensure. Depending on where he finds a job we will be moving to Boston or looking for a nicer apartment in NoHo for next year. I am open to living in either location.
This summer was crazy with 7 of us living at my parents house (Jeff and his wife Julia, Alice, Mum, Dad, Danner, and myself). We were also all working, Danner and I at camps, Alice at a doctor's office, and everyone else at their regular jobs.
It was a lovely summer, though, and I gained a lot of classroom experience.
This fall I am only taking two classes, both at Mount Holyoke, because I am going into my division III. I was planning on having a relaxing semester with 3 empty days a week to write my div III and get a lot of work done, but as the semester nears this is clearly not the case.
One of me classes requires a 4 hour/week pre-practicum at a local school. My original placement was a five minute walk from the apartment, but it fell through at the beginning of the summer. The licensure coordinator found me another placement, but it is a one-hour bus ride from the apartment. This means that the pre-practicum will take 4 hours of classroom time and 4 hours of travel time per week.
I also have a new work study job. My previous job was working at the Hampshire college bookstore. The bookstore has been sold to an outside company and is no longer a work study job. I was told I would have to reapply for my job. I decided I did not like my job that much anyway so I found a new work study job. I will be teaching/tutoring at Northstar, a learning community for teens. Most of the community members and homeschoolers or unschoolers. I have been asked to teach sewing and physics, so I am nervous and excited to start there. I have a meeting with the director in less than a week.
This will be my last semester of taking classes as the spring semester will be my practicum. I will be in the classroom full time with a seminar one evening a week. So I am gearing up for that.
Hampshire has changed the way division III's combine licensure with regular division III requirements and expectations which will make my life much easier. I am not expected to complete a full division III as well as my other requirements. Instead my teaching portfolio and classroom work count for a significant portion of my division III work. The remaining work will be my internship at the Museum of Science, which I have already complete, and some sort of paper, which I have started. I am writing about my internship experience, but I have gotten stuck and I am waiting to talk to my adviser for some guidance.
So the end of college is in sight and I am thinking about life after college. I plan to look for a classroom teaching position in pre-K-2nd grade, but I am already worried about how the job shortage will affect me.
Time to finish packing for tomorrow.