Forth Classroom…

Certification Pending...

This is such a depressing thing to see when you have studied for what essentially amounts to three months straight.

Sadly, I only have myself to blame considering I let my background check slip. Now I have to get in touch with people to have my work email unlocked.

It has been a long and winding road already…

No one at grad school said anything about additional certification…

The program was geared towards preparing student to teach adults, not kids.

Then again, when I asked the ‘teaching career’ guru if I should get certified in general education or special education…she said ‘no’.

Do yourself a favor, if you are going to specialize in ESL, special education, or any other area…go for additional certification in general education. There are more special education jobs than there are ESL (in my State, anyway) and there is WAY more general education jobs than there are both ESL and special education combined.

Get it while you are still in college!

It will open up three times as many doors for you!

Start in general education, get that experience, then work towards the subject or kinds of students you actually want to teach.

Get your foot in the door!

White Cherry Blossoms...

White petals flutter

Warm sun, gentle breeze, sunny

Spring has come at last

Swearing...

Sub psychotic rage

Blood pouring from sacred place

The pain of betrayal.

Contaminated Gifts...

Booger cookies are

A very thoughtful gift, dear

I think I’ll pass.

Nothing ever changes...

Bureaucracy is a tumor on society’s ass that will never go away…

Government…fueled by greed and money…one of the worst necessary evils…

All I wanted from Biden was student loan forgiveness for my admittedly incomplete education.  Did I get my diploma?  Yes.

Did I graduate feeling confident and ready?  No.

My student teaching was interrupted by Corona.

This may not seem like such a big thing to you…

But when you have anxiety and are faced with a new experience, a new challenge, a new career…  It is terrifying to feel ill prepared.

Teaching well behaved adults who want to learn English is one thing but teaching children who are a million times more hyper, sociable, and sneaky than you are is an entirely different matter.  I am happy to say that I am finally on the right track to becoming a teacher…hopefully a GOOD teacher.  But at the same time, I am very disheartened that it took so long and I had to jump through so many rings of fire to do so.  You’d think that someone at some point in the educational food chain would know how to organize things better…streamline the process.  Make things easier.

No.

First I get told that I need to have three different certifications…

Then I’m told that the school district that just hired me needs me to do yet another background check…

I’m working in the same State!  Why do I need to get another background check when I just got one done last month?!

I’m Trying...

Class Rules

 1.      Stay quiet.

2.      Look at the teacher.

3.      Listen to the teacher.

4.      Stay in your seat.

5.      Answer questions.

  Prizes

 1.      One good day gets you one sticker.

2.      A whole week of stickers gets you a small prize.

3.      A whole month of stickers gets you a bigger prize.

  Punishments

 1.      Verbal warning and no sticker.

2.      Five minutes off of recess.

3.      A call home.

  Signals

 1.      Finger to lips – Quiet!

2.      Teacher points to eye – Look at teacher.

3.      Teacher touches ear – Listen to teacher.

4.      Push down with palm – Sit.

5.      Hand up – Raise your hand to answer.

6.      X with arms – STOP!

Life Changing Moments…

In teaching there are sometimes life changing moments…

One such moment for me was when I first got sucked into teaching ESL.

Another such moment was when I sat in on an ESL kindergarten class…

I met my first little autistic student.

He was non-verbal and hated colors and loud noises.

His fixation was a car…but it was also me…oddly enough.

Direct eye contact and then a hug…

His teacher discouraged it…  It was my first day there and she did not know me.

But I did not mind the hug…

From then on, every time he saw me, he’d rush over to hug me or show me something he worked on in class…

This is how I decided that my next Master’s degree will be in Special Education, one sweet boy who changed my life…

Looking up...

Breakthrough finally

Happiness can be real now

I have a new job.

Oops!

Background check needed before certification can go through…

Guess what I forgot to do during winter break?

Yup.

So my K-6 general education certification is pending until the background check I had done last week is cleared.

This, sadly, has cost me a couple of job opportunities…

But hey, as long as parents continue to act worse than their children in my state, I should be in a position in no time!  Seriously.  ‘I can’t stand to see my kid in my mask’ is just code for ‘I’m tired of hearing my kid whine about masks and I don’t want to wear one myself so here I am protesting my family’s right to get terminally ill.

The fact that America ever made it to become a first-world country much less a world power is still a mystery to me…

I love my country but I hate the spineless, cowardly, selfish, greedy people who run it.

Background Check...

I passed both Praxises

Yet I am so forgetful…

My brain has a fog.