Thursday, March 15, 2012

Teaching

Ever since I was in middle school I wanted to be a teacher. Not just any teacher, specifically a math teacher. I loved math and this love of math came about by a great teacher I had in middle school. When I started my college carrier I was on the path to becoming a teacher until my mother moved away. At that point in my life I had to provide for my self; apartment, food, transportation. All of these necessities required a full time job so I started going to school nights. At a certain moment I realized that there was no way I would be able to do the mandatory student teaching required to get certified. At the time I talked to a close family friend about what my options were. She suggested I become a CPA. I thought about it for a while and figured accounting and numbers go hand in hand. I quickly switched my major and ran with it. After I graduated with my bachelors degree I ran out of steam and was no longer interested in taking the CPA exam. I applied for a job as an accounts payable clerk and have been doing accounting ever since.
Fast forward to the year 2009 when my brother in law married my wonderful sister in law. At the time she was a middle school teacher. She would talk about her job with such joy and satisfaction; I was so envious. My accounting position was never joyful, just stressful and boring. She informed me that her school district was in desperate need of math and science teachers, so much so that they would hire a teacher before they had their credentials. I looked into this, contacted the program, and went to a meeting about it. It turns out I only needed to pass a couple of tests to be on the road to teaching. This is when I started my journey.
I passed two parts of the CBEST test right away, re-took the failed section and failed again. At that point I started loosing hope so I set it aside to focus on becoming a mother.
Kaitlyn arrived and renewed my drive to become a teacher so I took the last part of the CBEST again. I went into the test with the attitude that I would pass it. AND... I passed!!! woot woot. The next step was to take and pass at least the first two parts of the CSET. I contacted the school district to tell them I was still interested in the program (ya it was two years latter but hey I was still interested) only to be informed that they don't offer that program any more. BOOO
I was still determined that I was going to get my teaching credentials even if it meant that I had to do it the long way. So I set up an appointment to take the CSET. A few months before my test date my brother in law mentioned something about the same type of program I was looking into before being offered at a local university. I checked into it and sure enough it was the same program. I signed right up and received a conditional acceptance. The condition I need to satisfy to be fully accepted is to pass both parts of the CSET. I took the CSET last Saturday and am pretty sure I passed one of the sections. I have one more shot to pass in a couple months otherwise I will have to wait to start the program till winter.
This will be a huge new adventure for us; me being in school full time while working full time and trying to manage spending what little time I have left with my wonderful daughter. Kaitlyn having great new adventures with her grandma, dad and Gracie while I am in school. But if we can make it through the one year the program last then we will have a lot more time together.

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