Reflecting

(Don't you just love Aiden mugging for the mirror? He likes to make silly faces when he sees himself.)

This year I'm taking part in the process to earn my National Board Certification for Professional Teaching Standards. It's been on my teaching bucket list for quite a few years, but I put it on the back burner when we focused on starting our family. One of the reasons why I wanted to work part time this year was because last year I was so overwhelmed by grading (which truly is torture), that I barely had time to focus on the rewarding parts of teaching, which is pretty much everything else. I still had it my mind that I wanted to go for the certification at some point in the future. I received an email this summer letting Colorado teachers know that there is state and federal scholarship money available this year, possibly for the last time, so I decided now would be the perfect time to go for it.

The process involves a lot of reflecting on your teaching. I think all teachers are constantly reflecting, but I'm excited to go through a process which will make me probe a little deeper and really think about what is working well and what I need to let go of and change completely. A couple of board certified teachers are offering a class which meets eight times throughout the school year. This morning was our first meeting. The building we met in was right across the street from the state capital.


There were about 30 teachers taking this course and they said overall 211 teachers are going for the certification in Colorado this year. I may have heard wrong, but I think they said there are only about 200 teachers in Colorado who currently have their certification, so I guess their big push to offer scholarships was a good insentive this year. It costs about $2500 to go through the process, so I'm thankful I was able to get some help paying for part of the costs. There are two other teachers doing the Mathematics / Adolescence and Young Adulthood certification in my class. One teaches in a neighboring school distict and the other teaches up in the mountains.

Besides helping us break down the process, our teachers were very helpful today with suggestions on how to organizes the hundreds of pages of instructions and standards. They said that about one-third of teachers earn their certification if they go at it by themselves (gulp) and about two-thirds earn it if they work with a support group. I would like to see a higher success rate, but I'm going to work my tail off and hope for the best.

The boys and I hit Office Depot after supper so I could buy binders, dividers, page protectors, highlighters, etc. I love school supplies. Helps to calm the nerves after the first day of class.

I've been meaning to document this for a while- here's how to push a double stroller and pull a shopping cart at the same time:


The boys were good, although they were understandably tired. I rotated various school supplies through their hands to keep them occupied:


Wish me luck!