I've got that tingly feeling of adventure as I start setting out on the road to full-time teaching. It's funny how even if something is good excitement, I will get that anxious tension all over my body waiting for every part of me to adjust to the change.
This summer, I've gotten three of my Master of Arts classes under my belt with 4.0 GPAs. At the start of every class, I get my stomach in knots worrying over assimilating all of the information and being able to apply it. By the end of the class, I've gotten into a groove of learning, knowing, doing and I don't stress about it anymore.
So far I've been on two teaching interviews, both of them were this week. Both wound up being panel interviews. The first one knew they wouldn't meet the deadline for the school board meeting so they weren't stressing over speedy hiring. It seemed to go super well - I found myself over-analyzing the handshakes. The principal gave me a double-handing long handshake with patting of the top hand. Ha ha. Anyhow I was forewarned that it would take a few days to hear about that one. "Phone calls are good, letters are bad" I was told. Meanwhile, I had played phone tag with a principal who wanted to talk to me about a middle school technology teacher position. She got a hold of me this morning and wanted to interview me - today if possible. I went out there this afternoon and I believe I have the job. They said they hoped they would be working with me soon; since the process involved them emailing the district and asking for them to hire me. They told me I should hear back on Monday.
The real meat-and-potatoes adventure may be beginning very soon!
Friday, August 7, 2015
Thursday, June 25, 2015
There was a fork in the road and I chose...
Since I wrote the last posting - with the greatest intentions of keeping up my once habitual blogging - I made a definitive choice in roads.
I became contracted to substitute teach with multiple school districts. I spent the 2014-2015 school year in high demand, working daily. The year flew by with the only work days missed due to snow days, the birth of a baby, the death of a nephew, and a doctor's appointment. I worked typical and special needs classrooms, preschool to post high school.
My secret fear that subbing would mean waking up in the morning waiting for the phone to ring proved false. At first I was scheduled roughly a week ahead of time. It gradually turned out to having most days of each month filled a month prior and picking up any unscheduled days a few days or week before the vacant day on the calendar hit. I found myself building a reputation and being personally requested. The last two months of the school year were scheduled by early March.
I also discovered that teaching was where my heart was and decided to follow my heart. I researched how to obtain my teacher's license. The state I live in offers a process to obtain a resident educator's license first by paying a fee to have your transcripts evaluating, then by (paying another fee) taking an gut-twisting standardized test for your field that was determined by the evaluator, upon passing that paying yet another fee, being accepted in and enrolling in an "intensive pedagogy training" program. While considering that process, I also investigated pursuing my Master of Arts in secondary education.
The result - I enrolled in a graduate program and will be finished in fall 2016. So far, I am maintaining my 4.0 GPA. I also went through all the steps in the process of obtaining my alternative pathway educator licensure and I just completed the program today (with an A+). Field experience was required but every one of the school districts that I substitute for kindly corresponded with the State Department of Education and my field experience requirement was waived.
So here I am - at 51 - ready to begin a career as a public school teacher. The program has been completed, the job search has begun. My goal is to be in a classroom for the 2015-2016 school year teaching business education. By fall 2016 I hope to also be endorsed in middle school and high school English and reading. Praying for the opportunities to arise and for a district to pick me up and let me prove myself!
Meanwhile, I'm still teaching exercise classes at the gym AND I started a Christian-music boot camp at my church for the summer.
I've been living up to my life motto of "filling the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run." I've made SMART goals, I've identified action steps....and I have some goals I am formulating for when those goals have been met.
"If" by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man my son!
I became contracted to substitute teach with multiple school districts. I spent the 2014-2015 school year in high demand, working daily. The year flew by with the only work days missed due to snow days, the birth of a baby, the death of a nephew, and a doctor's appointment. I worked typical and special needs classrooms, preschool to post high school.
My secret fear that subbing would mean waking up in the morning waiting for the phone to ring proved false. At first I was scheduled roughly a week ahead of time. It gradually turned out to having most days of each month filled a month prior and picking up any unscheduled days a few days or week before the vacant day on the calendar hit. I found myself building a reputation and being personally requested. The last two months of the school year were scheduled by early March.
I also discovered that teaching was where my heart was and decided to follow my heart. I researched how to obtain my teacher's license. The state I live in offers a process to obtain a resident educator's license first by paying a fee to have your transcripts evaluating, then by (paying another fee) taking an gut-twisting standardized test for your field that was determined by the evaluator, upon passing that paying yet another fee, being accepted in and enrolling in an "intensive pedagogy training" program. While considering that process, I also investigated pursuing my Master of Arts in secondary education.
The result - I enrolled in a graduate program and will be finished in fall 2016. So far, I am maintaining my 4.0 GPA. I also went through all the steps in the process of obtaining my alternative pathway educator licensure and I just completed the program today (with an A+). Field experience was required but every one of the school districts that I substitute for kindly corresponded with the State Department of Education and my field experience requirement was waived.
So here I am - at 51 - ready to begin a career as a public school teacher. The program has been completed, the job search has begun. My goal is to be in a classroom for the 2015-2016 school year teaching business education. By fall 2016 I hope to also be endorsed in middle school and high school English and reading. Praying for the opportunities to arise and for a district to pick me up and let me prove myself!
Meanwhile, I'm still teaching exercise classes at the gym AND I started a Christian-music boot camp at my church for the summer.
I've been living up to my life motto of "filling the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run." I've made SMART goals, I've identified action steps....and I have some goals I am formulating for when those goals have been met.
"If" by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man my son!
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Realizing the path ended and a new one had to be chosen...
When I was a young woman, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother and homeschool my children. My husband and I had the same vision, we worked together and we built our life. Suddenly one day I realized...yikes! The children are getting older. What will I do when we are no longer homeschooling? A series of deaths happened in our family...every 6 - 12 months someone else would pass away. Worried over my husband's health, I envisioned a life with no career to keep me afloat, eating dog food in a trailer park. I was already a personal trainer and leading a boot camp class but that was supplemental income - not what I would need to pay the bills In The Event That Something Happened.
That fear of needing a fallback in The Event That Something Happened led me to go back to school and ring up a large amount of college debt. I graduated with a degree in business, marketing focus, with a perfect 4.0. Yay, me! Right? Wrong. Finding a decent job...hahahaha. There is a whole 'nother blog to be written about THAT. Anyhow, months after graduation I found myself substitute teaching. Surprise...I like it.
So here I am at 50 needing to figure out how to take what I love and turn it into financial security. Not wealth, I've never really been into that. Just turn it into something that will put savings into our retirement account or keep me afloat should TETSH occurs. So, do I stack on some more debt to the college debt I already have? I'm going to try not to - I'm applying for my alternative pathway educator's license, hopefully be accepted and then do the intensive pedagogical study program that is required.
Reality has set in with the event of my youngest daughter graduating from high school. It would be easy to get all full of cliches and talk about "where did the time go?" The cold hard truth is that the patter of little feet doesn't wake us in the morning (unless we have a grandchild sleep over). The baby birds are flying on their own or stretching their wings. We are now basically back to being a couple again. Sure, we have four daughters and soon-t0-be nine grandchildren but we are back at the stage where we have the house to ourselves. I must learn to cook smaller meals. We can walk around naked most of the time if we so desire.It's weirdly unexpected.....sort of crept up on us. We followed our plan: I stayed home. We homeschooled our kids. That part is over. Oops! We need a new plan!
So here I am, finding myself at 50 and figuring out what to do with my life. I just got re-certified as an advanced personal trainer. I also got my primary yoga and my cycling certifications. I signed and returned my contract for substitute teaching. I've got an idea what path I'm going to set out on career-wise, but couple-wise it's an open road.
So here I am, finding myself at 50 and figuring out what to do with my life. I just got re-certified as an advanced personal trainer. I also got my primary yoga and my cycling certifications. I signed and returned my contract for substitute teaching. I've got an idea what path I'm going to set out on career-wise, but couple-wise it's an open road.
When you're busy raising kids, you tend not to envision your lives without them. Everything you do wraps around them. We're more than willing embrace the idea of our freedom yet we both have this unconscious urge to check the backseat, make sure everyone is okay...and feel like we're forgetting something when we look back and see it is empty. There is still a need for a plan - for some sort of joint effort. A destination to set sail to... My husband jokes about having another baby... lol. I think not!
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