So I made the big shift, quitting my high paying job at Intel in order to make roughly half my old salary as a teacher, and since then I've had one week off followed by almost two weeks worth of teaching credential classes - so I'm starting to get a feel for how all of this is going.
You know, so far it's going really well.
First off, I'm happy to say that I'm not the only student in my group with a few miles of wear put on in the real world. I figure maybe one third to one half of the folks in my group are going for some kind of a second start. Several of my classmates are transitioning out of the high tech industry or away from careers in straight science, a few are returning from overseas stints in the Peace Corps or in the adventure travel industry, and one is escaping from the field of law. In several other cases their most recent career happens to be teaching (maybe after doing something else, like being a mom) but they were teaching without the required credential to be full time, or teaching in another country. I can't tell for sure the motivations of all these second starters for making their own big shift - I'm sure their reasons are as diverse as the students are - but I think it's good to see so many future teachers that have some real world experience to bring to their jobs.
By the way, I should probably
explain exactly what I mean when I talk about "my group." Recently my university
started a new
program where students go
through the entire 3 semester program as a "cohort" (don't ask me why
they chose a term related to the Roman military - I just take the
courses). My cohort is made up of about 30 folks, and I'm already
starting to get to know them. For instance, on the first
day of our first class our professor took us through one of those
memory games to get everyone acquainted. It went like this: tell
everyone
your name, something you like that starts with the same letter, then
something about yourself - and then repeat the names of everyone else
who went before. So now I know that Phil likes to Play, that the other
Chris likes to Cook, and that Jennifer likes Jewelry - and aside from
that I don't always remember too much of what else they said about
themselves but at least I don't have to call everybody "hey you!" and
that's pretty neat.
Aside from learning about my fellow travelers, I'm also learning what taking the credential program is like. For one thing, I can already tell it's going to be a lot of work. They want us to start with about 18 units of classes to get all our co-requisites out of the way. This is supposedly because the next semesters are going to be heavily loaded with student teaching, and I guess they don't want us to be burdened later with a lot of classes on campus.
The classes are kind of
different from what I'm used to from my days as an undergraduate
engineering student. For my engineering classes I mostly just
needed to learn the material and take tests. On the whole I think I
found this
to be easier than most students do because I pick up quickly on
anything
abstract and/or mathematical - which applies to just about everything
to
do with engineering. I never missed class, because that's where I
learned all the material that would be on the test, but I don't
remember my average time commitment outside of class being all that
high. [Now keep in mind, to look
back to my undergrad past I have to look through 20 years worth of
tightly packed cubicle walls, so my memory of freer days might be just
a bit over-nostalgic.] Anyway, my teaching credential classes involve a
lot of reading, logs, and reports - and at least 3 of my classes are
going to involve a fair amount of student tutoring and/or class
observations. So I'm not going to be able to just take it easy outside
of class like I might have in the distant past.
Side note: I'm looking on towards the student teaching and classwork with some bit of trepidation, because I have pretty close to zero experience with kids and roughly no experience teaching anyone who wasn't getting paid to do the stuff I was teaching - but I guess this gives me an early chance to see if I'm cut out for this job. Hell, what's an adventure without a little bit of fear, and what is life without adventure?
Anyway, despite the uneasy prospect of lots of hard work and my slight trepidation regarding my lack of experience with real live children, I'm actually having quite a good time. I'm working hard, but I'm setting a lot of my own hours and that makes a big difference. I'm also interested in what I'm doing (mostly - one or two of the texts are a bit dull), and I hadn't felt that way for a while in my old job. Moreover, I'm really curious to see how all this is going to turn out, and I feel like even if it turns out wrong I'll still have broken new personal ground - and that's really, really important to me right now.
I'll have more to say about my experiences as a student, and perhaps why I feel so good about them, in future blog entries. Right now I feel like this is enough typing for one session, and you might have a similar opinion about this being enough reading for one session.
Until next time...
Best Regards
The Author