I have
recently begun the BTSA program. Technically I am still a new teacher. BTSA stands for Beginning Teacher Something
or Another. (I told you these were hard to remember) When you get your teaching credential
in California, you start with a preliminary credential and then have five years
to “clear” it. Apparently, teaching,
getting one’s masters, along with by-monthly evaluations by your administrators isn’t enough. You need to spend two more years learning
more pedagogy stuff so you may implement this stuff into your lesson plans. They (ya know, the big THEY) say that most
teachers only teach for five years and then decide they are insane and move on
to other jobs. I guess only giving the
preliminary credential weeds out the ones who want their lives back.
The BTSA
program is a two year program but because I am impatient, I have chosen to do
the accelerated program which means I am cleared in one year. I had to write a self-assessment and
reflection on the Teacher Standards of California to be approved for it, which by
the way, you can find the standards in the NBPTS, the CSTP, or the NCLB. Yep, I know, more CRAP.
Anyway, so I
was reflecting on my teaching standards; which sounds so much more romantic
than it really is. Like I should be
gazing into a magic mirror while sipping on champagne, dressed in a flowing gown. Nope.
I am writing about what things I am good at and what things I suck at as
a teacher (drinking tea, in front of my computer in my sweatpants with the big
bleach stain on them). Hmmm…what am I
good at? Creative project based lesson
planning, culturally and socially relevant stuff and making my students laugh
while actually learning, that I am good at.
Time management, trying to believe that the CST and other standardized tests do
anything but teach a child how to bubble things in, and organizing my desk, I seem
to suck at. My desk is like a waste land
where essays come to die. I need to work
on actually grading the homework I give out faster or just stop giving homework
that needs to be graded. Oooh, now that’s
a good idea. I actually have a whole
slew of stuff to grade but just realized I am giving quizzes tomorrow so I will
have oodles of time to finish grading them as the ten week progress reports are
due on Monday. I hate working on the
weekends so that will work. Oh, look, I
am good at time management.
So, I
started writing this reflection essay and I kept wanting to crack jokes about
the teaching standards. The running monologue
in my head was quite amusing but I realized I should probably write a dry and
boring or rather intelligent essay as to not freak out the school
district. But it was hard to keep it
that way. I started realizing that
writing amusing anecdotes was a whole mess easier and you all don’t mind when I
misspell things or use improper grammar.
Although, my mother sometimes likes to correct my blogs with a red pen
and send them back to me, but that’s another story.
I teach
persuasive essays, expository essays, reflective and analytical essays to my
students yet the most fun and the ones that ALL of the students seem to turn in
are the narrative essays and short stories.
Probably because they are just more fun to write. I like to think that researching a persuasive
essay on “anchor babies” or medical marijuana could be fun. But I am totally fooling myself. I wouldn’t really like to write a five
paragraph essay on dry, banal socially relevant crap either. I like to write and then embellish just
enough so my blogs are fictional. No,
really, nothing I write here actually happens.
I am really a six feet tall blonde man who is an accountant and hates
children.
When I had
to write all of those pedagogic research papers during grad school, I would
almost put myself to sleep. Still got
all A’s, but crap, they were boring. Then
when it came to my Master’s thesis, I was allowed to write a
half-narrative-half-research-paper on my student teaching experience. That was actually fun. 100 pages of fun (got 98 out of 100, by the
way) because I was telling my story and telling them of my experience. Basically just writing about myself, which let’s
face it, I love doing. It was actually
more fun when I presented it because as an actress, I like to be expressive and
well, I knew the people I was presenting to, so it was actually entertaining
and enjoyable to perform, I mean, present.
I love
writing. This whole new blog experience
has been a wonderful experiment of writing and creativity. I should have my students blog…hmmm…not a bad
idea…I need a rubric for that.
Back to my
reflection assessment of moi. As I said,
I do love writing about me, regardless of who I am, and it was actually quite thought
provoking for myself to realize what I am good at thus far in my teaching
career and what I need some help on.
Unfortunately, my reflection was only allowed to be three pages long but
it was based on a forty page document. I
actually had to change the font size to 11.5 just to squeeze in the last bit of
over-wordy-ness that is me and my writing.
I had one small laughable moment in it and then the rest was a serious
assessment of how I see myself as a teacher.
So the BTSA organizers at LAUSD will be very happy with my reflection on
my TSC while teaching GATE, ELL and SPED students all the while hoping to
increase my CALSTRS account and using some VAPA and SDAIE strategies to
increase our CST scores to raise our AYP and API.
Now I am
back to blogging. Way more fun. Not bad for a six-foot tall blonde
accountant.
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