My Journey To Becoming a Teacher
As my friends and family know, I was a music student before deciding to pursue education. My life was dedicated to music in every way. After I completed my undergraduate degree at CU Boulder and then completing one year of Master's course work, I had a revelation: I felt intellectually stifled being a musician. I knew that there was so much more that I wanted to learn about and explore, so I began to think about what I could do to keep learning in my life as much as possible. If I could just take college history and cultural studies classes and not have to make a living, that's what I would do. But alas, we must make some money in this world of ours, so I thought about teaching high school social studies. Could I handle it? Do I even like teenagers? Is it worth it? Well, we know what decision I made, so here's my journey to today.
Once I returned home from Cincinnati in June 2010, I began exploring my options for education programs while working a terrible job at Whole Foods. I was so poor in Cincinnati that at that point I would take any job I could get. So I worked cutting fruit and vegetables in the freezer for a few months. The job started at 5am and just about gave me carpal tunnel, so it wasn't for me. Plus, since I have slight OCD and am a perfectionist, they said I was too slow. At this time I was also not playing bass because I was still on my break (after deciding to change career paths). Anyways, I made some money but ultimately couldn't do the job anymore. To me it's inhumane slave labor, but I know in reality it's a job for someone that may really need it. Needless to say, the women I worked with were Spanish-speaking Central Americans who truly valued the opportunity and ignored the fact that they were working just to make stuck-up suburbanites' lives slightly easier by cutting their fruit for them.
During this time I discovered that CU Denver had some good options for education programs, even one that was for people with Bachelor's degrees already. I saw that I needed to pass the Praxis test to get in, which is a national teacher test one must pass to prove adequate content knowledge. So then my task was to study all areas of the social studies (sometimes called social sciences) for a few months to prepare for the test in November. The test included world history, U.S. history, economics, geography, civics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I studied library books and took Internet quizzes every day and luckily passed on my first attempt. I was also playing bass again in a local orchestra.
After inquiring more, I learned that I was short on college social studies credits to be accepted into the CU Denver program, so I needed to fulfill those credits before the program started in May 2011. I enrolled at Metro State University of Denver for 12 credits. I took Colorado History, Macroeconomics, Constitutional Law, and History of Ancient Greece. They were challenging, but great classes overall, especially Ancient Greece. During this spring semester, I also got a job at the front desk of a hotel, at which I stayed for over a year. That job made me lose faith in humanity sometimes, but it supported me during school and sharpened my interpersonal skills and increased my patience.
In order to be accepted into the CU Denver education program I was interested in, I had to submit an extensive application packet as well as attend a group interview. Thankfully it all worked out well and I was accepted to start in May. The program was a one-year intensive to earn Master's credits and a Colorado teacher's license. I could write a ton about my time in this program, but I will keep it brief for the three or four people who might read this. The program places students in cohorts of 15 to 20 who take almost every class together throughout the program. My cohort was filled with sophisticated and quirky and smart and ambitious ladies and gentlemen whom I still keep in touch with and who supported me a great deal during the school year. It was a great system because we were able to support each other, learn from each other, vent to each other, and most importantly become great friends. In fact, I got my first teaching job because of one of them. The classes were difficult. There was a lot of work and the work didn't take small amounts of time. After the two summer classes we started our student teaching internships and more classes. So, at this point I had a week filled with student teaching, classes, and orchestra, and both days of the weekend I was working at the hotel.
During the fall semester of 2011 and first half of spring semester 2012 I had only Fridays completely off. Those Fridays were completely filled with school work. Once March rolled around our internships went from three days a week to five, thus began the dreaded seven-day work week. I went strong from 6am to 10pm every day. My life had become a continuous cycle, but somehow I stayed sane. My role as a student teacher was good overall. I learned a great deal and have noticed and appreciated how well it prepared me for full-time teaching, especially compared to teachers who did not graduate from such an intensive teacher education program. It was slightly sad that I was actually paying to work in a school, but it was necessary experience. The teacher I worked with second semester of the 2011-2012 school year still inspires me each and every day. He is the epitome of an intellectual, which is what I try to be. As a teacher he thinks deeply about everything, considers all sides of an argument, connects the material to students' lives, is fully accepting of other cultures and ideas, and he makes the kids think instead of telling them what to think. He's truly an inspiration and a mentor. Note: my post "Thanks to DCIS" in this blog has more about my student teaching days.
As the school year winded down, my classmates and I were all stressed trying to complete our big final projects: the Teacher Work Sample (TWS). Mine ended up being nearly 40 pages, and luckily I got it done on time. During this time, being very inspired by the many different cultures at the school, particularly some exchange students from Spain, I thought about maybe going abroad to teach English before beginning my teaching career here in the states. I was pretty set on this path, so I researched what it would take. I learned I needed a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certificate, so I enrolled in yet more school for the summer. This was an online course, but it was still quite time-consuming. Conveniently (?), however, my hotel informed me that corporate was eliminating the part-time front desk position, so I was laid off (at least I never got fired!). Therefore, I had plenty of time to focus on this online course now that my life was becoming more manageable. I did well in the course, and was now certified to teach English anywhere in the world (a task I still feel unprepared for, despite the certification).
Then it was time to apply for jobs. I applied to jobs in Spain and here in Denver. Ironically, the only ones I heard back from were in Spain. I'm not sure, but maybe I'm just not adventurous enough to go abroad yet (or in general). I decided to just try and teach here for a while to get started. Hopefully one day going abroad will be a real possibility though. Summer was relaxing overall, but I wasn't quite sure what I'd be doing once school started again. Like I said, I only heard from jobs in Spain, so the best I could do here in Denver was substitute teach. I subbed only in August and September before getting a full-time job in October. Subbing sucks. The kids typically don't respect subs, and the whole job in general gives you the feeling of being quite inadequate. One day, however, I was subbing for a good friend from my CU Denver program, and at one point the assistant principal came in the room and asked if I was looking for a job. I said, "I suppose so," so she told me that there would be a long-term sub opening because a teacher was pregnant. It was at a middle school in the Montbello area of Denver (which, if you aren't aware, is one of the roughest areas of town). After weighing my options, I decided it would be a better choice to take the job rather than wait for sub openings every night. And so began my full-time teaching career, which I will write more about in a future post, because this one is getting long. Peace!
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