Teacher Certification
I met with a professor on Thursday about certification.
He was very...confusing. I spoke with him for almost two hours, and I still walked out confused about it all. But it seems I have three options:
1. Alternative Certification: take a few courses and then take exams and stuff at the state department.
AltCert is not really what I want, as from what I understand, it would be pretty much worthless outside of Oklahoma and I'm not really all that positive I'll be in the OK for the rest of my life. So I'd really like standard certification, please.
2. Standard Certification: take about 19 hours of course work (I think)? and then do all the stuff at the state department.
Apparently, Standard Certification means the university has to be able to recommend me to the state department for certification. I'd have to take certain classes and then also do some sort of student internship with a school. I think.
3. Standard Certification + Masters Degree: take 30 something hours of course work, do the state department stuff, and do another thesis.
The guy I spoke with was real big on this one. He didn't think Option #2 would be good, but then it was also his program that he was so keen on me taking. They don't offer any kind of education degree in foreign languages at the masters level- only in English, which is his program. But he thought they could make it work for me and that I would be better off getting the degree. At least, he was definitely of that opinion in the beginning, but I think later he changed his mind. I think.
He was just a strange guy all around. In our e-mails, he never said where to meet, so I figured his office, which online said was in a different building than it actually was. So I arrived 10 minutes late to the meeting because I went to his old office first, and then had to find someone who could tell me where his new office was, and then, of course, I had to run across campus to get to it. When I told him that, he pulled out a folder containing all of our e-mails and looked over them to make sure he hadn't told me his office location. I was like...srsly? You didn't believe what I said, so, what, do you think I'm lying or just stupid?
Anyways, it was a wonky start, but like I said, I was there for awhile, and he didn't seem like a bad guy he was just really...muddled about everything. No real definite answers. And when I tried to clarify, I got more muddled up answers and a feeling he was getting annoyed that I wasn't getting it. It was actually really frustrating. I wish there was someone else to talk to. Hopefully I'll get the chance to talk to my professor (for the teaching methods class) about it on Wednesday.
In the end, it seemed he thought Option #2 was good, though he kept saying I needed to contact the local high school and "work out a deal with them." I really had no idea what this meant. He talked about getting paid, and about selling myself to them (he said I had a lot to offer with Spanish, French, and Native American interests). I think what he meant was I needed to talk to them about internship stuff? But...I really don't know why I would talk to just that high school, when I know the university works with other high schools as well for the internships, and it didn't make sense to me to talk to the high school about certification stuff, since they have no control over it, only the state department does... ??? He also said I should look into working as a substitute teacher right now.
I dunno. I'm going to talk to some other professors before I go anywhere near that guy again.
He was very...confusing. I spoke with him for almost two hours, and I still walked out confused about it all. But it seems I have three options:
1. Alternative Certification: take a few courses and then take exams and stuff at the state department.
AltCert is not really what I want, as from what I understand, it would be pretty much worthless outside of Oklahoma and I'm not really all that positive I'll be in the OK for the rest of my life. So I'd really like standard certification, please.
2. Standard Certification: take about 19 hours of course work (I think)? and then do all the stuff at the state department.
Apparently, Standard Certification means the university has to be able to recommend me to the state department for certification. I'd have to take certain classes and then also do some sort of student internship with a school. I think.
3. Standard Certification + Masters Degree: take 30 something hours of course work, do the state department stuff, and do another thesis.
The guy I spoke with was real big on this one. He didn't think Option #2 would be good, but then it was also his program that he was so keen on me taking. They don't offer any kind of education degree in foreign languages at the masters level- only in English, which is his program. But he thought they could make it work for me and that I would be better off getting the degree. At least, he was definitely of that opinion in the beginning, but I think later he changed his mind. I think.
He was just a strange guy all around. In our e-mails, he never said where to meet, so I figured his office, which online said was in a different building than it actually was. So I arrived 10 minutes late to the meeting because I went to his old office first, and then had to find someone who could tell me where his new office was, and then, of course, I had to run across campus to get to it. When I told him that, he pulled out a folder containing all of our e-mails and looked over them to make sure he hadn't told me his office location. I was like...srsly? You didn't believe what I said, so, what, do you think I'm lying or just stupid?
Anyways, it was a wonky start, but like I said, I was there for awhile, and he didn't seem like a bad guy he was just really...muddled about everything. No real definite answers. And when I tried to clarify, I got more muddled up answers and a feeling he was getting annoyed that I wasn't getting it. It was actually really frustrating. I wish there was someone else to talk to. Hopefully I'll get the chance to talk to my professor (for the teaching methods class) about it on Wednesday.
In the end, it seemed he thought Option #2 was good, though he kept saying I needed to contact the local high school and "work out a deal with them." I really had no idea what this meant. He talked about getting paid, and about selling myself to them (he said I had a lot to offer with Spanish, French, and Native American interests). I think what he meant was I needed to talk to them about internship stuff? But...I really don't know why I would talk to just that high school, when I know the university works with other high schools as well for the internships, and it didn't make sense to me to talk to the high school about certification stuff, since they have no control over it, only the state department does... ??? He also said I should look into working as a substitute teacher right now.
I dunno. I'm going to talk to some other professors before I go anywhere near that guy again.