Thursday, August 24, 2006

Busy week, but yay!

I got a letter today from the FL DOE. I applied for my temporary license (I figured that was equivalent to Michigan's provisional license, which you have to get before you can receive your permanent license). According to this letter, though, I'm actually eligible for Florida's professional license--in both Elementary (K-6) and English 7-9 (which was the closest equivalent to my Michigan Language Arts (6-8) endorsement. Thank God for Michigan and its strigent education requirements! Those English classes I took as a communications undergrad sure didn't hurt, either. I'm sure my dad and grandparents will be glad to know that my UDM degree wasn't COMPLETELY for nothing. =-)

The principal visited my class today. It was a weird day to do it, since we had standardized benchmark testing all morning and then basically a very "loose" afternoon (we can't assign homework on testing days, so most classes were doing games and fun activities that were somewhat related to their subject area). In language arts, I had my class writing letters to soldiers. Mrs. T gave me a "pat on the back" (these written kudos-type things that she just implemented this week) and told me later that she really likes the "vibe" in my room. She said she can tell that there's a "mutual affection" between the students and me. (Of course, had she been there earlier, she would have seen me sending my first student of the year to the office for yelling at me.) =-)

4 comments:

Nik said...

Keep up the great job Jen! That's so cool that you're eligible for your professional license and that you could teach at all those grade levels too. Good on ya!

Congrats on the pat on the back too. From the sounds of it, you deserve one.

Fred said...

Great news on the endorsement. At some point, you may want to teach middle school, so your certificate will come in handy.

Jen said...

Um...is Fred forgetting that I teach middle school now, or was that some clever joke that went over my head?

Jen said...

Oh, he's a big tall kid who likes to sit wtih his legs sprawled all over the place; a kid tripped on his legs walking down the aisle and I asked him to please put his legs under his desk (or at least get them out of the aisle). Well, about 10 minutes later, ANOTHER kid tripped on his legs, and this time he whacked his head pretty hard on a desk as he fell.

"I told you to sit wtih your legs under your desk!!" I yelled.

He started YELLING BACK AT ME; I dont even remember what he said, I was so pissed. I was more mad because I had asked him TWICE, and this second time a kid really got hurt. Yeah, he's tall, but hell, he oculd have had his legs sprawled out on the OTHER side of his desk, out of his aisle. Anyway, once he started yelling at me, I was like, "YOu know what? Get to the office. Now." A) I needed to prove an immediate point (you don't talk like that to a teacher, ever) and b) I needed to give us both time to calm down. And since *I* couldn't take the time out, I figured HE could go.