Sunday, February 12, 2012

Cardinal Points

Today was a great day.  Seriously.  I have finally found a direction.  It would stand to reason that, after years of schooling, studying would be easy.  I have found that grappling with a test simply labeled 'history' is a bit daunting.  I decided not to dispair and continued, but a couple of days ago I decided that the best way to wrangle this bull would be to actually use the Georgia Core Standards for Social Studies to walk me through every little thing that I'm meant to know.

For two days, I have been going through the Core Standards line by line and addressing every bullet point.  I'm finding it extremely rewarding.  When I finish (it's going to take a couple of weeks), I'm going to review by creating lesson plans and handouts for all my notes. 

I will post as they are created.  Super excited and looking forward to teaching full time...at some point :)



Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Humble Beginnings

Indeed, it has begun.  I have started studying in earnest and have started misc. outlines and notes.   I'm aware they're not perfect, but at least it's a start and writing things down is always a helpful way to remember the mental hoops I am jumping through.

I have also been looking over the GACE practice exams, reading forums, etc... you would think I was teaching already!  Oh, the whining.  "This is hard." "I don't understand." "Blah, blah, blah."  Firstly,  it is a well known, Marine Corps supported theory that you cannot complain about something for which you volunteered.  As a second point, it seems truely sad that people that intend to teach are angry that they have to learn.  Finally, but by no means the last arguement marble rolling around in my brain, the low level grumbling is unproductive and shortsighted.  As a teacher, you have to do all of this anyway.  You have to research every lesson plan you put forward, have to complete the background reading, work out assessments, and key terms...  I digress, but I'm sure you are catching the drift.  This is not only an opportunity to qualify to teach, but it is an opportunity to learn, to get ahead, to assemble enough lesson plans to get a job!  I would be very interested to compare the outcome of an interview when a new teacher walked into the room with their transcripts and resume and the teacher that walked in with a resume, lesson plans, examples of student success, and classes they propose undertaking.

Just throwing it out there...