Warning! Teacher Rambling Ahead!

I am a rambler, I have known this for as long as I can remember.  Maybe it is because I am female, maybe it is because I am Puerto Rican, maybe it is both, I don't know, but you are warned I feel a rambling post coming on!

Teaching is hard work.  I am not complaining, that is just a statement of fact that I dare any to challenge.  I love what I do and I love it so much I am always looking to better myself.  Being a teacher really is being a life long learner.  So two years ago I set out to become a National Board Certified Teacher with 5 colleagues.  Unfortunately for me, I did not achieve that my first try.  The second time I went it alone, trying my hardest to raise my score, only to miss passing my one point.  So here I am on my third try, my last try as after this my previous scores are lost.  I went to a meeting today for other "Advanced Candidates" like myself and it was invigorating.  I was given so much to think on.  It put me back in "the zone" and I foresee many more Panera visits in my future.  Why Panera?  Well there is just something about having some great food and great wifi that get my creative juices flowing.  It really puts me back in the college frame of mind really.  Getting out of my life for a few hours just to focus on something academic, it just works for me, that is all I can say.

For those of you unfamiliar with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (which I assume many of you are) let me take a moment to explain.  I am perusing the certification as a "Middle Childhood Generalist" which is made up of four written entries and an assessment.  The four areas are (1) Writing: Thinking Through the Process, (2) Building a Classroom Community through Social Sciences, (3) Integrating Mathematics with Science, and (4) Documented Accomplishments: Contributions to Student Learning.  My overall weakest entry was the one on writing, so I have chosen to focus on it.  Becoming nationally certified is quite a journey is professional development.  I had always suspected my instruction in writing wasn't the greatest and this seemed to confirm it.  So I have set out to learn what I can about effective writing instruction only to be frustrated and overwhelmed.  After today's meeting for "Advanced Candidates" I am feeling a bit more focused and driven.  I have an idea of what I should be reading and how my entry should look different.  I was able to read an entry from another candidate who had a top score on her writing entry and found that to be very useful and I was also able to speak to other teachers like me, as well as those that have earned their certification and are present to serve as mentors to the rest of us.

So now I sit at Panera, processing all the wonderful information I received on how to move forward with my entry.  I am feeling much more focused and optimistic and I am sure I will be blogging more about this in the future as I don't have all that long to get my last attempt at certification written (it is due April 15).  I will be able to attend at least two more meetings in that time and come the next one I hope to have a significant amount of writing done.  I have some reading and planning ahead of me, but what's new?  Teachers read and plan a lot...I just have a hard deadline to deal with.

I would continue on and ramble about the state of the economy in California and how we are looking at even more cutbacks that lay off teachers and may have those who get to keep their jobs paying out the nose for health benefits, but I'll stop.  I don't enjoy gloom and doom and while I am not one to stick my head in the sand, I am also not one to worry myself to death.  I take each day as it comes and make the best of it. So I am going to make the best of this day and focus on becoming nationally board certified.  I know I can do it, I have to.