Archive for June, 2008

Who Howls for The Jose

As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of anyone bad enough to start their name with an indefinite article.  Jose at The Jose Vilson asked for some help with his Ginsberg-inspired poetry meme, so here’s my contribution (read his post if it isn’t evident how I’m helping).

I’ve announced it through Twitter and Facebook, but not yet blogwise: I have been hired as a maternity leave school psychologist for next year.  I’ll be working at my current school as a psychologist from September through early February, at which point I’ll transition back into my teaching role for the remainder of the year (we’re on the 4×4 block schedule, so it won’t be as traumatic for the kids as it sounds).

In all honesty, a maternity leave position is not how I thought I’d be starting my career in school psychology, especially a position that isn’t even an entire year long.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to get some paid experience, though, and wondering if it’s not a blessing in disguise.  It’s a low-risk way of entering the field – I’m at the same school at which I’ve taught for eight years, I know the people and the culture, and I’m pretty well-versed in “how things work” around here.

I had my sights set on a full-time tenure-track position from the outset (not necessarily an unreasonable goal in K-12 education), but the more I think about it, the more I think this may be the right position at the right time for me.

–Damian,

who occasionally needs to be reminded he must learn to crawl before he can walk.

Accidental PD

Christian Long‘s summer vacation is off to a bang with the development of the first meme of the season, in which he asks:

What was the “worst job” you ever had that ironically helped prepare you to one day become an educator?

I’ve been extremely fortunate in that I’ve never had any terrible jobs, but for the sake of the meme, I’ll say dorm security at The College of New Jersey during my undergrad years:

  • Shifts lasting til 2am enabled me to work long into the night, like I had to during my first few years of teaching
  • It was my first taste of working as an authority figure (to use the term loosely), which helped when I was 23 and faced with a class of 18-year-olds
  • Conflict resolution (and avoidance!) skills came into play, especially when dealing with drunk freshmen. Similar scenarios have played out in my presence at school (presumably, minus the alcohol), and I learned to always keep the coolest head of the group.

Thanks for tagging me, Christian. I hereby tag some folks whose blogs I most sincerely wish I had more time on which to comment:

  1. Jose Vilson
  2. Ken Rodoff
  3. Kyle Lichtenwald
  4. Diane Cordell
  5. Jeff Wasserman