Done with school... onto a career in school
Career, career, career. I've never had one of those, but hope to have one very soon so I can work on getting better.
Teaching. So, I decided 10 years ago to be a teacher and here I am: certified and trying to land a teaching career. Grad school was rough, rigorous, and really, REALLY pressed the question at me "Hey. Do you still want to be a teacher?" The answer is of course. Of English? Hopefully not forever as much as I really enjoy it, but it is a great start before going toward other directions (endorsements). There's a part of me that feels like a bunch of doors just opened up, now I just need to find them and go through to whatever it is I continue to look for.
On student teaching:
There were some amazing days when it came to my student teaching, and then there were ultra shitty ones... ones that really pushed me to rethink my options. However, those were the days when I was stifled by the edTPA. Don't get me wrong, it definitely helped me to reflect on my teaching practices, but it drastically impacted what I wanted to do because I was so concerned with footage. I'm going to admit that part of it was my not reading the rubrics and directions extensively. I can't believe I scored high on the thing, even in my honesty, I felt like shit. I wish I could've done things differently. How could I expect all of the 6th graders to tackle such an intellectually rigorous task that was my summative assessment with the way in which I structured the learning segment, let alone the whole unit? This is probably what teachers feel all the time, but I feel really shitty that I did a disservice to them.
Why did I not think to do something like inference? That was BIG on the CCSS. The CCSS... you know, I like it to some extent. I think it puts kids to analytical tasks rather than rote memorization more so than what I certainly had to go through while in school. It's good to hold all of those kids to high standards. It still has a lot of obvious blind spots... I won't go into that.
I'm excited to plan field trips, I'm excited to help kids succeed, I'm excited to grow as a professional, but I am afraid of failing. Not for my sake, but for the kids that have to endure the damage of my novice abilities. I often wonder what it is like the first year? I suppose I'll know soon enough. I'm nervous... mainly because I'm not certain of how well I could manage a classroom on my own since I've always had a cooperating teacher. It's a big mystery zone/grey area. I have been getting excited to teach this upcoming year, but I wish the excitement had come sooner. Just last week I started to honestly look.
So, there are some openings (those last minute openings where administrators scramble to fill in the gaps) and this both gives me hope, while also causing me to be ready to prepare extensively for the year. Some places I have applied:
One middle school reading class in CK
Substitutes for both TPSD and PSD
One full year replacement position at my old junior high (that would be wild)
And 1.0 FTE Langauge Arts teacher for the alternative school I student taught at. Mind you, this school was unique and small and had only one actual MS LA teacher position that required only an ELA endorsement. Slim chances that that position was ever going to open up, but there it was. I would be teaching my 6th graders from last year along with some of the 8th graders I taught in the elective classes. That would be awesome. I'd still be commuting, but I've been doing that for years. And so have apparently most of the people from around here. There's a part of me that feels swanky about commuting to the city then returning to a bedroom town. It would be a fantastic opportunity and those kids would be excited.
So here's hoping. In the meanwhile, I'm motivating myself to grow my craft outside of the classroom. I just recently purchased a book on backwards planning... which I always felt was a natural way of planning anyway when developing goals/objectives throughout a unit. I also have massive amounts of papers, articles, posters, GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS, and whatnot to sort through, retouch on... especially the language and literacy material.
I'm excited to have a classroom to decorate however I like. I'm going to have so many huge post-it notes all over my classroom, I'm going to have sentence starters up the wazoo... so much stuff I want to do. Need to do. I can't wait... I can't wait to help people in a legitimate way. I dunno, helping in part is selfish... only because I think it brings a sense of success that human beings like to feel.
I can't wait to do this for real-real...
Teaching. So, I decided 10 years ago to be a teacher and here I am: certified and trying to land a teaching career. Grad school was rough, rigorous, and really, REALLY pressed the question at me "Hey. Do you still want to be a teacher?" The answer is of course. Of English? Hopefully not forever as much as I really enjoy it, but it is a great start before going toward other directions (endorsements). There's a part of me that feels like a bunch of doors just opened up, now I just need to find them and go through to whatever it is I continue to look for.
On student teaching:
There were some amazing days when it came to my student teaching, and then there were ultra shitty ones... ones that really pushed me to rethink my options. However, those were the days when I was stifled by the edTPA. Don't get me wrong, it definitely helped me to reflect on my teaching practices, but it drastically impacted what I wanted to do because I was so concerned with footage. I'm going to admit that part of it was my not reading the rubrics and directions extensively. I can't believe I scored high on the thing, even in my honesty, I felt like shit. I wish I could've done things differently. How could I expect all of the 6th graders to tackle such an intellectually rigorous task that was my summative assessment with the way in which I structured the learning segment, let alone the whole unit? This is probably what teachers feel all the time, but I feel really shitty that I did a disservice to them.
Why did I not think to do something like inference? That was BIG on the CCSS. The CCSS... you know, I like it to some extent. I think it puts kids to analytical tasks rather than rote memorization more so than what I certainly had to go through while in school. It's good to hold all of those kids to high standards. It still has a lot of obvious blind spots... I won't go into that.
I'm excited to plan field trips, I'm excited to help kids succeed, I'm excited to grow as a professional, but I am afraid of failing. Not for my sake, but for the kids that have to endure the damage of my novice abilities. I often wonder what it is like the first year? I suppose I'll know soon enough. I'm nervous... mainly because I'm not certain of how well I could manage a classroom on my own since I've always had a cooperating teacher. It's a big mystery zone/grey area. I have been getting excited to teach this upcoming year, but I wish the excitement had come sooner. Just last week I started to honestly look.
So, there are some openings (those last minute openings where administrators scramble to fill in the gaps) and this both gives me hope, while also causing me to be ready to prepare extensively for the year. Some places I have applied:
One middle school reading class in CK
Substitutes for both TPSD and PSD
One full year replacement position at my old junior high (that would be wild)
And 1.0 FTE Langauge Arts teacher for the alternative school I student taught at. Mind you, this school was unique and small and had only one actual MS LA teacher position that required only an ELA endorsement. Slim chances that that position was ever going to open up, but there it was. I would be teaching my 6th graders from last year along with some of the 8th graders I taught in the elective classes. That would be awesome. I'd still be commuting, but I've been doing that for years. And so have apparently most of the people from around here. There's a part of me that feels swanky about commuting to the city then returning to a bedroom town. It would be a fantastic opportunity and those kids would be excited.
So here's hoping. In the meanwhile, I'm motivating myself to grow my craft outside of the classroom. I just recently purchased a book on backwards planning... which I always felt was a natural way of planning anyway when developing goals/objectives throughout a unit. I also have massive amounts of papers, articles, posters, GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS, and whatnot to sort through, retouch on... especially the language and literacy material.
I'm excited to have a classroom to decorate however I like. I'm going to have so many huge post-it notes all over my classroom, I'm going to have sentence starters up the wazoo... so much stuff I want to do. Need to do. I can't wait... I can't wait to help people in a legitimate way. I dunno, helping in part is selfish... only because I think it brings a sense of success that human beings like to feel.
I can't wait to do this for real-real...