Should I Go Back to School?

Yes. It’s almost too late, but it’s not yet, and I need to make a decision – do I go back for my master’s? I really wish I had just continued right after I graduated with my bachelor’s and done it right then? It’s been so long since I’ve been in school that now even though I do desire the degree, I have no desire AT ALL to be a student again.  But I do somewhat desire some of the job opportunities that would open up for me if I did in fact have a master’s. As I sit here killing time, I have done a school admin job search in our area and of course found a few things that look interesting.  And then there’s the cost of going to school…college is so expensive.  But then again, I have 2 years before Becka graduates, and if I got on the ball, I could be finished or close to finished before she was in college so that there would be two set of bills.  Ugh! I hate making decisions.  Advice?

Adding Certifications

I have a bachelor’s degree in business, and I have thought about going back for my master’s, but just lack the initiative. I know I should, but I seem to make excuse after excuse to postpone it each year. So instead of doing that, I have been looking into just adding some certifications to my resume. I looked into the Microsoft certifications as I actually used to train students in our high school for this, but I also want something more “prestigious” and more technical – Cisco certification. This is a pretty intensive certification, but I think I would really like to have this one on my resume if I ever get the chance to teach business and technology classes instead of the English classes I currently teach. In addition, this could open up some great opportunities for me for after school hours, weekends, and/or summer for making extra money for our family. Having this certification allows for many more technological career opportunities than if I just tried to use my knowledge and experience. It’s amazing sometimes what a simple piece of paper can do for you.

The Cisco Learning Network looks like an interesting and helpful place to work on this certification. It gives you the details of how to get certified and also shows you the job opportunities available out there after you do, in fact, get certified.  I have actually worked with Cisco routers, switches, and wireless systems  at my last school where I served as Technology Assistant as well as classroom teacher so I am thinking of looking seriously into those categories for my first certifications.

Career Guide Evaluation

I’ve been asked to evaluate a Career Guide Website – Your Career Guide, and I’m pretty excited.  In my junior and senior level English classes I like to do lots of college and career research with them so I have a ton of useful sites bookmarked and thought I may be adding this site to my favorites. It is a United Kingdom site, but after spending some time browsing, I think it has some very useful features.

As a teacher I am sometimes disappointed in our education system and the fact that it does not take into account that all of our kids are not college bound straight out off high school, but it appears after reading Your Career Guide that the United Kingdom is looking for some of those “leavers” in an articles where they discuss career opportunities for school leavers.

One thing I would like to see that I didn’t find on Your Career Guide is some basic information about careers. I found lots of detailed information that would be good if you already have an idea of what career you want to go in, but to be able to use this in my classroom activities with young students who are still unsure of their goals in the world, I’d like to see more basic information about a variety of careers in each field – hours worked, how much education it takes, average salaries, detailed job descriptions, etc – the things that my students need to take into consideration when deciding on their future after high school.

Overall I think the Career Guide website has great potential and would already be useful for those of us with focus and drive and who know what we want out of life, but may need some help getting there. As a business graduate, I evaluated that area of the site the most as that’s where my knowledge falls. In this area of the website, I found multiple articles that interested me enough to read more than the first paragraph or two. If you are looking for information about careers, check them out and see what you think.

Homework!?!?!

As a teacher, I understand the importance of working with the school towards your child’s education. Therefore, I try really hard to make sure that my daughter never sees/hears if I disagree with her teacher/school.  However, I slipped last night. Cameron came home with more homework than she’s had all year (with just a month left of school), and I voiced my displeasure openly (oops!). I did catch myself and not go off on a tangent, but I was disappointed to have slipped.

Story – Cameron is in 2nd grade. She’s had a little homework here and there this year, but overall I’ve been amazed at how little homework she has. Since Kindergarten she’s had a little homework almost every night. This year she’s had very little homework (except for studying spelling words which never has an assignment geared towards it). I mean maybe one assignment every 8 to 10 weeks.  Last night she comes home with EIGHT pages of math. Eight pages.  And we’re talking about at least 10 questions on each page. Some had more than that.  It didn’t help matters any that we had ball practice yesterday too which means what I think is a ridicolously long assignment is now taking up even more of our time. Luckily, she did tell me about it right after school, and we got started immediately. We did finish the assignment without too many problems though all she did yesterday was math homework and ball practice from the time school got out (3:15) until 9:00 last night – she didn’t even eat until then.

But this has me thinking, how much homework should a 7 year old have? I have to say that I think 100+ math problems in one night is too many, but where is the line? Is there a line? I know at the high school level I have less sympathy for our kids, but I do still have some. I try to give less homework on Wednesday nights as most of our students go to church on Wednesday nights. I also give less on game nights that fall during the week than others.  But as a parent, I’m now wondering about the younger ages – elementary students. I’m not sure what my opinion is yet, but I’d love to hear your stories and ideas.