There's no getting around it-- he has to be licensed if he's going to get a high school teaching job. The MA, Ph.d, and twelve years of college teaching experience are impressing nobody but me, due no doubt to the fact that No Child Left Behind is old enough that most new teachers DO have an M.A.E. these days. (At least, that's what we've been able to discern. If there's a murkier pond than the ins and outs of post-degree teacher licensure, it's probably got three-eyed fish in it.)
The good news? He should be ideally situated to get a job once he's finished with this next Master's Degree. The bad? He can't get it at either the branch campus where he currently teaches, or at the main campus, which cancels out his free tuition benefit as an employee of the university. Neither accept M.A.E. students accept on a full-time basis, and neither offer classes on nights or weekends. He had a sit-down with some people in the Education department, and once he explained that he had to keep teaching M/W/F, they basically said it would be impossible for him to keep the required full-time student status gambling on only T/Th classes.
To wit, we're having a lovely time filling out the FAFSA and figuring out which local program will lead to the fewest student loans. I've already got quite a few, so we obviously want to add to them as little as possible. Three local schools offer licensure programs that culminate in a M.A.E. and meet on nights and weekends, so he's in the process of filling out applications and scheduling meetings with them. One of them, at least, should be a good fit.
A positive side about this whole job thing dragging out for so long is that nether of us is particularly bitter about having to take this step. Once you get past the useless "Why Me?" stage, it's quite a bit of a relief to have a plan and a set goal in mind. This, at least, is forward movement. It will all work out somehow, I feel sure.
It's true that I spend more time than I should pondering the paths that have led us to this place, wondering what (if anything) we could or should have changed to make things easier. I still can't point to anything obvious, though. Everything fell so perfectly into place for both of us that if there had been two doors with blinking lights marked "LIBRARIAN" and "ENGLISH PROFESSOR," they would have seemed redundant. Neither of us has anything to regret in the career choices we've made, and to a large (and illogical) extent, I see that embodied in Eva. She-- the "she" that she is, this person, this baby-- would not exist if anything had been different.
If that makes me guilty of magical thinking, then so be it.
3 comments:
I hear you - and it's good to see Dumbledore (a teacher himself!) hanging out around here. I agree about Eva. There's actually a philosophical argument that if you love your children you cannot possibly regret anything you did prior to their conception(s) because then they would be different people if the slightest thing had been different. There is also an argument against this, propagated by a bunch of meanies who live lonely, lonely lives.
I'm pretty excited about going back to school, actually. I think I'm going to rush a frat.
It sounds like you have a pretty good Plan B, but has Mr. M thought about applying to private schools in VA? According to Kent, private schools are MUCH MUCH more interested in being able to say X number of their staff have PhDs and generally aren't subject to the same NCLB certification restrictions public schools have to wrestle with. Kent's other suggestions involve trying to network network network and attend any job fairs you hear about, both things that are understandably difficult to do when you're out-of-state.
Although the pay is lower, teaching at a private school would at least give him the experience working with secondary-age students that public schools want to see, while he works on his certification.
And I'm always available for resume reviews! and moral support! :-)
That's not magical thinking at all! I think it's quite healthy, and I'm very happy for you both.
I've been thinking that I may need to go back to school too...though I don't exactly know for what yet.
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