Doing the impossible is harder than I imagined!

I stopped writing here because this thing about getting a credential has become much more difficult than it was when I got the idea to do so. Neither the school I have studied at Claremont Graduate University, or EncorpsTeachers, who have also been supporting me through all of this past year with workshops, study guides, and good advice, had imagined what school administrators already suspected, that they would be hiring very few teachers. In many districts, classes are being filled up to 40 students, even in Middle School, eliminating the need to hire a new teacher, and making life difficult for both teachers and students at the same time. That means that secondary teachers have to get to know 200 students (and their families) and that classrooms built for 25 have desks squeezed in, with no space for separate activity areas, or a way to even access the walls of the classroom.

In the meantime, however, I have completed all the coursework expected of me, except for one course I'll take this Fall (in Statistics) and a concluding course next summer -- if I manage to find a job to complete the Internship training this year. I am hoping that the new government money will open up a job here or there, which may provide me a job (as well as this year's interns) and make classes a little smaller, so that it will be easier to use more creative methods for students to learn as well.

I also took a series of courses at UC Riverside Extension this summer on Science Education to supplement the Teaching Skills tests in Science (CSET) I've been taking this year to expand what I can teach.

So far I've applied for over 30 jobs this spring. I'm hoping that all the credentialed candidates have landed a position by now, as school is starting, and that schools will be more open to taking an Intern as they discover a need for just one more teacher.

Please wish me luck!

Time

Another quote from my Daily Ray of Hope:

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
-- Evan Esar

I think I am definitely expanding the width and depth of my life with my math teacher training, but I could sure use more time to expand into these days. For about 4 weeks this summer I am practice teaching summer school Algebra I with 2 other fellow students, with classes from 7:30 and to about 1:15 pm and at least an hour of consultation and planning afterward. (The verdict so far: I really need to understand classroom management better. For some reason I seem to be tolerating a louder level of murmuring, but the kids in the back of the class aren't necessarily being able to follow along.) Add to that 3 hours of classes every night from 4:30 to 7:30 through next Wednesday plus any group work (see The Adolescent Dilemma) for our project (.) The following week week it will be from 3-7 pm. And then we have many books to read, reports to write, a portfolio to create, and a long "ethnography" which starts now with about 25 pages and will continue through the next 3 semesters. In the Fall, we'll be teaching our own classes (have to learn that classroom management before then!) and having Saturday classes.

So time is important. But otherwise, I'm enjoying it, and definitely broadening my experience of this place I now live, math, and the young people who will be our future, but don't really understand that yet.

Busy...

If you wonder where I've been all this time, I've been right here, typing away at homework assignments for my very concentrated class at Claremont Graduate University, whose motto is:

Commitment to Social Justice and Accountability

We have a 3-week course called Teaching & Learning Principles (T/PL) which covers all the basics with thousands of pages of reading assignments, written reading responses, modeling of teaching methods, writing the first part of our "Ethnography" - our MA thesis - which will be about some of our students. But part I is about us. As well as preparing a variety of other deliverables (business word, sorry.)

Among these is a blog The Adolescent Dilemma, which we hope to have live tonight. Please visit it and comment on our questions when you see it. If you Follow it, you'll be able to read all the comments, and recomment as well.