Keep calm and carry on

Teaching is like doing 5 hours of improv theater every day. And when you do that, you'll have good days and bad. You'll have days when you really connect with your audience, and those when you don't connect at all. You'll sometimes be brilliant, sometimes disappointing, and sometimes you'll just embarrass yourself.

The other day, in the middle of writing something on the board, I turned abruptly to the class to make some deeply meaningful but slightly tangential point and saw what appeared to be three kids texting and one sleeping - and that was just the front row!

My response was to pause and say, with as much shock and indignation as I could muster, "What the heck is going on here???" Before I even finished the question I realized two things:

1. Due to the unfortunate body positioning of the girl who appeared to be sleeping (her head was down on the table very near the boy to her right, as she rummaged around in her backpack which was on the floor and out of my sight), every row of students behind her would assume that my question was *ahem* suggestive, and 
2. There was absolutely no way out of it. Like quicksand, struggling was just going to make it worse. 

So after some stunned but raucous laughter from the students behind the first row, I decided it was best to just move on with the lesson and not draw any more unnecessary attention to myself. 

When you're on stage doing improv theater for 5 hours a day, every day, you're bound to put your foot in it once in a while. Chances are, you'll take it a lot more seriously than your students, though. So just keep calm and carry on.

Essential learning

I've been having a lot of conversations lately about learning standards and targets. These are the things that are essential for a student to learn as determined by various groups with a stake in education. Those groups can be federal, state or local governments, regional offices of education, etc. And they serve as a laundry list of specific things that a student should know when they leave a classroom.

As I look at the list of things that a physics student should know, it occurs to me that although it would be great if students knew how to solve for the velocity of a cart that rolls without friction down an incline of a certain height, that particular skill will likely never be of use to them, even if they go on to moderately technical careers.

So what would be useful?

I'll think about this some more, but when I think of the skills that were most valuable in any of the techs or entry-level engineers with whom I've worked, three things immediately come to mind:

1. Vocabulary. When someone is already familiar with basic science terms and doesn't use words like "whatchamacallit", "thingy" and "whatever", not only do I have confidence in that person's intelligence, it makes communication much more efficient. 
2. Basic familiarity with science. I don't care if someone can recite the relationship between electrical power, current and voltage, nearly as much as I care that she has a sense that there is a relationship and can look up the specifics if necessary. 
3. Logic and critical thinking. It's hard to overstate the importance of the ability to think in terms of "if this, then that." It's the difference between being a valuable employee/teammate/asset and a helpless robot. This could be the biggest indictment of science education in America, but there's an alarming lack of people in industry with the ability to stand back, and ask themselves if what they're seeing makes logical sense. So many people just go through the motions of what they're doing without thinking about it. What's worse, when prompted, they can't think about it.

I'll see if I can refine this list, but I have the feeling that it's my duty to use these as "standards" at least as much as the standards I'm given by the state/ROE/etc.

Practice makes perfect

I read an article from a recent Time magazine about holding kids back in the 3rd grade because of substandard reading skills. The article made the point that it's difficult to discern the risk:reward ratio of holding kids back (the reward of building/reinforcing the necessary skills vs. the emotional/psychological risk to the kid), but it did make the case rather strongly, based on a Brooking's Institution study of public schools in Florida, that extra reading instruction every day helped those kids who lagged behind their peers.

Reminds me of a quote from one of my students over the last few weeks who discovered that she understood friction problems a lot better after going through several examples: "So... if you do more problems, this stuff seems to get a lot easier..."

There just might be something to that idea.

Baby's first parent-teacher conferences!

I just had my first round of parent-teacher conferences, and I saw the above cartoon just prior to it. Coincidence? *gulp*

Oak Park and River Forest High School is a place where there's lots of parental involvement in general, so I expected some pretty intense discussions during the conferences. But the conferences were actually quite nice and constructive. Two of the things that I noticed right away is that the parents seemed very reasonable (quite unlike those in the cartoon panel on the right above) and understood their kids' strengths, weaknesses and tendencies in school. In most cases, the only point on which we ever really differed in our views was on how vocal their kids tend to be: I would say something like, "my only concern is that Xxxxx speak up for herself more in class and not be so shy about contributing," and the parent reaction would be something along the lines of, "wow! I can't get Xxxxx to be quiet for anything at home!"

Also helping to avoid any surprises (which tend to put people on the defensive) is the online system we use to record grades. All parents have viewing access to their students' grades at all times via a web interface. So for the most part, nothing I said was news to them.

Maybe it's because I have mostly Jr's and Sr's: their parents had probably heard the same things many times over the years, and they seemed to know their kids situations well and there weren't many surprises.

One last observation - the conferences aren't compulsory for anyone. So parents can skip them altogether if they like. Looking at the list of parents that signed up, it seemed the kids that I felt most needed a parent-teacher conference were the kids whose parents didn't sign up. There were some of course, but the general trend over two days was that I talked to parents whose kids were doing pretty well already. Conclusions are left to the reader as an exercise. :)

...like a broken record.

I have been so completely consumed by this job - not that I mind. On the contrary - I love it. But my neighbors say things like, "man, we haven't seen you guys in forever!". To the outside observer, I've become pretty hermitic. And that's pretty ironic for someone who spends all day every day in a room teeming with people.

We've now got one full week left until Thanksgiving (with its 3-day week), then we've got three full weeks of school after which is final exams and then a 2 week break for Christmas. And that's it for the semester. My god, where has the time gone? I was speaking to my principal the other day and saying that at this rate, I'm scared that I'll wake up one day and suddenly realize that I'm 80 years old...

On that same topic, I was speaking with a colleague about another person who made the jump from industry to the classroom and that person's comment was: "I never watch the clock any more that's for sure - well, except to wish I had 10 more minutes in class..."

Damn right.

Week 5... already???

I can't believe that mid-quarter reports are due out this week. We're already 0.125 of the way through our first year. Time has gone so fast, it's difficult for me to get my head around.

I've gotten into a bit of a rhythm in my new life and for me, that means I have been able to organize my time so I'm not completely overwhelmed all the time with the task of preparing for, teaching, or following up on a class. But just barely. There's so much work to do that even one little time-demand in your private life can overwhelm you. I get up at 5:30 which isn't quite early enough and leave my house just before 6:30am to drop the kids off at before-school care (can't drop them off any earlier than that), then I have about an hour commute. I spend the day teaching my classes (for which I've already prepared or I'm doomed), then from 3:30 I'm usually engaged with students who want to talk about their grade or something we did in class. Then from 3:30 to about 5 I'm preparing for classes the next day (making sure lab materials are present and organized, everything works, handouts are prepared etc) then one more hour in the car and I'm home where we get to eat, help the kids with homework and get them cleaned up and into bed. By that time (usually 8:30 or so), I have a little time to take care of whatever needs doing around the house (last week it was fixing the washing machine and meeting with a guy from the title company to sign refinance papers), and then it's ME TIME, baby! Yup - by 9:30 I get to sit down and (usually) grade papers until 10:30 when I go to bed. If I'm not in bed by 10:30 I'm pretty tired the next day so I try to stick to a strict 10:30 bed time.

That's my life now. Honestly, I haven't any idea what's going outside of my home/school bubble. I don't read the paper any more or watch TV because I just don't have time. And I have almost no time during the day for socializing. I love teaching, but I would encourage anyone thinking about teaching to think long and hard about the commitment. Professionally, I've never experienced anything like the sustained effort required to teach, and judging by the conversations I've had with veteran teachers, my experience is par for the course. So if you're thinking about doing it, know that the workload is huge. But also know that that's perfectly fine if you love what you do.  :)

Anybody see the truck that ran me over?

Holy. Cow. I'm. Tired.

Some quick observations: I'm tired. I forgot how exhausting it is being "on" for hours on end. The activity level at my other job went in bursts: sometimes there would be really intense action and a lot of demand, and then there would be relatively long lulls. Now, the last three periods of my day are one right after the other for me and it's action, action, action. Leaves me feeling a little ragged.

And those last three periods are what's called "project physics", or physics for students who need a physics/science credit but who probably aren't going on in science. Those students need a little extra help in terms of motivation, since they might not be very interested in being there in the first place.

Some of my classes are very small and some are large and the difference in managing them is pretty significant. Time management is a really big issue in the larger classes, and after only one day on the job I can clearly see the argument for smaller class sizes. Maybe my perception will change as I become better at classroom management.

What a whirlwind. I think I'm going to go to bed now.

First day!

Today is our first day in front of students. A big career decision, few years of planning, a big move, saving up and taking the required classes, and it's finally here.

I'm a little overwhelmed, but in a good way.

Deep breath and...

Union guy

Today, we were going through teacher orientation at OPRF, and as a part of that we had an opportunity to join the teachers union. It's not compulsory, but if we elect not to join we pay a "Fair Share" fee since the contract we signed had already been negotiated by the union. At least this is how I understand it.

The fair share fee is close enough to the annual union dues that it doesn't make much sense not to join, so here I am.

I never saw myself joining a union. I'm in a really alien world, and I guess it will take me a while to come to grips with it. It continues to be an interesting journey for sure.

Here we go!

I've signed a contract and I'm happy to announce that starting next week, I'll be teaching physics at Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, IL.

I have a great mentor and I can't wait to get started!

Jobs to go around?

Just a quick update on the jobs situation for my class.

There are 13 people in my class, one of which had a job already when she started. Of the 12 that remain, 6 have jobs now.

Considering that I was told by an Alt Cert alum that the offers wouldn't start coming in in earnest until I had a certificate (which none of us yet has), I guess 50% employment is pretty good. We'll see.

Dogs are barkin'...

This week, we spent Mon-Thurs teaching something called the Summer Sleuths, in partnership with the Illinois Math and Science Academy. Sleuths is a kind of science summer camp for students entering the 5th - 9th grade, and they spend 4 days investigating a problem developed specifically to teach kids about problem definition, research, critical thinking, data gathering and analysis, and presentation of results. You know - science. They are four very, very full days. And we were all really, really tired.

Comparing notes afterwards, we found that many of us had a similar thought: that if four days of this were so demanding, how on earth would we handle a full school year of it?

To our amusement, we found that we all rationalized our way to a list of reasons that this experience was actually more demanding than teaching a regular class, and that it wouldn't be so hectic once we got into our own classrooms. And we may have been right about some of that, but the conclusion is inescapable for the 13 of us in the class who are to become teachers: we're going to be working our asses off in our new careers.

That said, this week was simply awesome. I can't wait to start in the fall.

The fat is in the fire.

I've been offered a job at a large, suburban, public high school teaching five sections of physics, starting in the fall.

And I accepted.

My god, what have I done?

I commented to some people close to me that it's odd how years of planning, preparation and even anticipation of this moment still didn't fully prepare me for the shock of actually saying "yes" when offered a great position. I'm still reeling a bit, but this all just became a lot more real for me.

I don't "officially" have the job yet, since they can't legally hire someone without a certificate. But we do have an agreement that upon successful completion of the Alt Cert course at Benedictine, the job is mine. (So the school and I are not married yet, but we're engaged.) It seems quite solid - and by that I mean that they're very sincere and I have little doubt that this deal is all but done - but there's a little discomfort associated with not having a contract signed. Guess I better get used to a little discomfort regarding job security.

There are 13 people in my class at Benedictine, all following a similar path. So far (1.5 weeks into the 8-week class) only one other person and I have gotten jobs. I'm told that it's normal for so few to have jobs at this point in the summer. I trust the wisdom of the folks here since they've been doing this for more than a decade. But i'm VERY relieved to be in the position I'm in.

It's a far, far better thing that I did...

As a followup to my post on the physics content test, I'm very pleased to say that I've passed. As I suspected, I aced the physics portion and lost points on the earth science and biology parts. Not nearly enough to fail though, so onward and upward!

(At the very least, it's one less detail I have to worry about.)

Job Hunt - II

I hope this information will be useful to someone else who follows this path some day...

When hunting for a teaching gig, it's useful to establish a limit for yourself on how far/long you're willing to commute and then look for jobs only within that area. I've set an upper limit of 1 hour for a 1-way commute. I hope like hell I don't have to commute 2 hours per day, but if that's what it takes initially, so be it.

Over the last two months I've applied to somewhere between 2 and 3 dozen positions for physics teachers at high schools within my search radius. I have received exactly zero return calls. I don't think my return on investment in job application was this low even when I was a fresh-out. Is it time to panic yet?

Maybe not. I talked to a local HS teacher who went through the same program I'm starting in June. He said that he went through exactly the same cycle I'm in now, and it wasn't until he had his certificate at the end of the program (which is also the end of the summer!) that he got calls back from the schools to which he had applied. He said, "you just have to keep applying and have faith that as soon as you have your certification, the floodgates will open and you'll be a hot commodity."

Comforting words in the context of my job hunt results, but I'm not exactly a "faith" kind of guy when it comes to employment. I've never left a job without already having a another one. From here, this feels like the most ridiculously risky thing I've ever done.

The Job Hunt

Many of the job postings I see say things like, "FILL OUT OUR ONLINE APPLICATION. DON'T SEND A PAPER RESUME UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. IT WON'T BE READ. BESIDES - REALLY, REALLY BAD THINGS MIGHT HAPPEN IF YOU SEND US A RESUME. WE MEAN IT."

So naturally when my wife was looking for a job earlier this year, I thought that a good way to differentiate herself from the herd would be to send off a bunch of hardcopy resumes with cover letters. We sent off about 90 of them to local districts and schools, and within 72 hours, she received several phone calls. Some were just to say that they had received the material. But she also got two interviews out of the deal. Not a bad return on investment, and so much for all the dire warnings about sending resumes in the mail, right?

So when my turn came, I did the same thing. I put almost 100 resumes and cover letters in the mail, and I waited. And waited. And waited.

Only one district responded in any way, and that was to send me an automatically generated card that told me to visit their website if I was interested in employment. That was about 3 months ago.

I suppose the morals of the story are these: 1) don't be afraid to break away from the herd, 2) results may vary, so brace yourself for a long battle.

Summers off, big compensation - Fat City, right?

George Takei (of Star Trek fame) recently posted an image on his facebook page that says: Teaching - We're not in it for the income; We're in it for the outcome.

This, of course, drew many murmurs of agreement from teachers, as well as the predictable dissent from those who assert that teachers are overpaid, get too much time off, enjoy the protection of powerful unions, have tenure, etc, etc. I've already talked about tenure a bit, so I want to say a word about salary.

One pundit offered the following (and I paraphrase, slightly): "Teachers in Wisconsin make $89k per year on average, and still went on strike for better pay and benefits. That's greed at it's (sic) worst!"

Quick! Grab the torches and pitchforks!!!

Or maybe not.

My first thought was that I live in one of the best school districts in Illinois and our average teacher salary isn't anywhere NEAR that high. Smelling a rat, I did some Googling. Turns out that the average teacher's salary in WI is about $50k. The $89k figure apparently came from Fox News anchor Eric Bolling who was interviewing a Democratic Representative on his show in February of 2011. Bolling was stirring outrage by comparing teachers salaries (including benefits) with the private-sector average which he put at $48k (salary plus benefits). I know what you're thinking:

if DataSource = FoxNews then EndOfConversation;
else Continue;

And I'm usually with you on that since I value quality data. But in this case, a little more reading puts things in perspective. First, Bolling's numbers were off. His estimate of teacher compensation was too high and his estimate of private sector compensation was too low (no surprise there, based on my own experience). Furthermore, when you compare average teacher compensation with average compensation of professionals with similar career requirements (education level, for example) rather than just comparing it to the average salary of the entire population, you find that teachers are actually making less than their private sector counterparts. Here's a study done by Boston College that compares private and public sector compensation, including benefits. And while public benefits tend to be better, they still don't close the compensation gap brought about by the difference in salary. So if you want to complain about teacher compensation, you can complain about the benefits relative to those offered in the private sector. But be careful: if you're successful in that argument and have even a modicum of intellectual honesty, you'll then have to argue for higher teacher salary to compensate.

My likely salary as a teacher will be less than half of my current, private-sector salary. So no, teachers aren't in it for the income.

'But you get your summers off...'

Great topic for another entry.

A bit of perspective

In a previous post, I commented that I didn't really understand tenure. I compared teaching to a job in industry and, overall, felt that no one is entitled to a job simply for having been there for a certain number of years. I still feel very strongly that that is correct. However, having been in the job hunt for a few months now, and having a better understanding of the dynamics, I understand a big argument in favor of tenure.

Unlike a career in industry, there's a common cycle of hiring and firing that has nothing to do with the performance of the teacher. For example, a school district might be embroiled in budget negotiations for the following year and might not have budget to support its needs. The result? A bunch of teachers get laid off in the spring and have to wait for the district to get its budget approved for the following year, and hope that they're re-hired in the fall. This practice is far more common than most people realize. It happens all the time.

So the teachers who get laid off are left to spend the summer in limbo, wondering if they'll be rehired and looking for a job in case they're not. And what if one of those teachers is offered a job in a district that's farther away while she is waiting to hear from her original district? She's got a family to feed, and there's a job on the table, so she might take that job that's farther away just to insure her kids don't starve. Now she's got to learn a new faculty, administration, department, etc - not to mention she's now got to figure out what to do with her own children while she spends the extra time commuting. And guess who's first on the chopping block in this new district come spring when the new district has its own budget issues to consider?

From that perspective, it's completely understandable that, at some point, a teacher would want some insulation from that kind of turbulence. From that perspective, I completely understand tenure. I still don't like it, but I can see that it's a reasonable reaction to some of the more anxiety-inducing aspects of the system.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do..."

It was hard not to channel Sydney Carton as I headed in to take my content test today. This is the second part of my testing to qualify for certification in Illinois - the part that's actually supposed to test my physics knowledge so I can get a physics endorsement on my credential, so I can actually teach physics. Keep that word in mind: "physics".

The test was at the same place as the last test I took, and there was the same throng of educators waiting to get in. The $86/person/test figure flashed into my consciousness, as did the fact that Pearson Education never answered the email I sent them, asking for a statement of how much money they rake in annually from ICTS.

Anyway, back to me and Sydney: I felt a little apprehensive since there's been an awful lot of water under the bridge since I last cracked a physics text in anger. I wondered if my appreciation for the finer points had dulled to the point that I would be hopelessly lost during the test. A bit of a sinking feeling set in as I considered the possibility that I'd recognize the questions but not be able to recall how to set up and solve the problems. Was I trundling off to my own execution here? Only one way to find out, I guess.

I shuffled in with the herd, found my seat and sat down. I noticed right away that the ICTS-approved-and-supplied calculator on my desk was algebraic-entry and NOT the Reverse Polish Notation style that I'm used to. *sigh* Now I'll have to spend valuable time learning how to use this calculator rather than actually solving problems. We had some time to kill, so I sat there making sure the calculator was in degrees rather than radians, figuring out how to enter exponents properly, trigonometric functions, factors of pi, etc. It wasn't too bad, but the possibility certainly existed for some calculator-related mistakes. Just what I needed, I thought.

As it turns out, the calculator was almost unnecessary. The test was 125 questions, and question #44 was the first one that was really related to physics. The first 43 questions covered general science/earth science/biology, and seemed to range from the absurdly vague to the absurdly specific. Then the physics questions started, and they were pretty trivial. I mean, if I have a degree in physics from anywhere other than Podunk Hollow Online University, we should all just agree that I know enough physics to pass that test and skip it. But I know that a career in education will expose me to new worlds of mindless bureaucracy, so I better just get used to it.

So Sydney Carton was spared the guillotine. Or was he? I certainly could have failed that test (and Murphy, being the bastard that he is, might yet apply his law in this case). But if I did fail, it certainly wasn't due to any lack of physics knowledge. No - if I failed that test it's because I didn't remember the finer points of cell biology (not even sure I knew them in the first place), or earth science, or one of the other subjects that was interwoven with the physics. In other words, if I fail to obtain my physics endorsement by failing this test, it's because I'm rusty on some subjects other than physics. How insane is that?

The troubling thing is, I don't know what (if anything) I'm going to do about it if I fail. I'm certainly not going to go back and take some biology and earth science courses just to prepare to re-take this test, and then NOT get an endorsement in those subjects. Maybe Syd's still in the wagon after all...

"...I like to think that if I was I would pass."

I received my scores for the basic skills test yesterday, and I'm pleased to say that I passed.

There were four sections, and the possible scores on each ranged from 0-300, with a 240 required in each section to pass. Now, I KNOW the point is simply to pass. It's a bureaucratic checkpoint, like a driver's test: if you pass, you move on. Simple as that. And perhaps I could do just that, except for my writing score.

I wrote an organized, well-articulated, fully-supported argument in favor of compulsory driver testing for people over 70 years old. I didn't choose this topic myself, it was assigned. I chose to support my position on three bases, and did so clearly and effectively. I was actually kind of proud of it at the end. My score: 255 out of 300.

Say what?

Now, I have no way of knowing the grade distribution for the written test, and without that there's no way of judging my relative performance. However, I can't help but notice that 255 is a lot closer (numerically) to the Fail threshold than it is to the Knocked It Out Of The Park threshold. And knowing what I know about my writing skills relative to those of the average American adult, I simply refuse to believe that I could have been anywhere close to failing that test. The only thing I'm left with is the notion that the person(s) grading my test was one of those over 70, whose driving privileges were so effectively dissected in my essay. If only I could know that for sure, I'd wear my 255 as a badge of honor.

Am I guilty of pride? So be it. But this experience is so reminiscent of my experience in college when I left political science for math and physics after my freshman year. I did so in part because I really didn't like what I perceived as subjectivity in the grading of the numerous writing assignments in poli sci: I would sometimes write what I felt was a fantastic paper, only to receive a mediocre grade. That doesn't really happen in math or physics. You either know that stuff or you don't. And to me that's still comforting, almost 20 years after I switched fields in college.

If nothing else, my writing score will serve to remind me that I'm in the right field after all.

On to the Content Test in April!

"And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?"

Well, I'd like to say that I've got a nose for news, but since Illinois politics and graft go together like peanut butter and jelly, I suppose the following just isn't much of a revelation.

I looked into who "owns" ICTS (the outfit that does the rather expensive standardized testing that's required of anyone seeking certification in Illinois, and about which I have harped before). As it turns out, ICTS was created by Pearson Education (which is owned by Pearson PLC - a London-based publishing company worth almost $10 billion), as a result of legislation passed in Illinois that required standardized testing of those seeking certification. A few details can be found at the ICTS website. When exactly that legislation was passed and the ICTS established, isn't clear from the website. But no matter - for now it's enough to know the state of Illinois passed a law that led to a commercial agreement with a large international publishing company that takes money directly from teachers' pockets. Am I too cynical, or does that just beg for a little more Googling?

Unfortunately, it took just a few clicks to discover that not only does the state of Illinois have contracts with Pearson Education to the tune of $138M to develop and administer standardized tests in Illinois, but that our State Superintendent of Education, Dr. Christopher Koch, has flown to China, Brazil and Finland courtesy of the Pearson Foundation, which is a not-for-profit arm of Pearson and therefore unrelated to Pearson's business interests (*nudge*nudge*wink*wink*). Sadly such trips aren't exactly uncommon among state education officials whose states have contracts with Pearson. A NYT article by Michael Winerip linked here covers the issue.

A followup article by Winerip, linked here and which also mentions Dr. Koch, starts with a story about Lu Young, the Supertendent of Schools in a county near Lexington, KY, who took a Pearson Foundation-sponsored trip to Australia. Two months after that, in spite of receiving a lower bid from McGraw/Hill for the state testing services, a state committee (that included Ms. Young), awarded the contract to Pearson Education. The article also says that the Pearson Foundation paid for the trips through the Council of Chief State School Officers, of which Dr. Koch is a member, and that the foundation lists $100,000 in Pearson contributions to the council in its most recent tax documents.

To make matters worse, it doesn't really seem that Dr. Koch is listing all of the favors he receives from the foundation on his state ethics forms, citing only the cost of the flight to China ($4271 for business class).

So all in all, it took me very little time to find out that big business and ethically-questionable Illinois policy-making are involved in the expensive process of testing teachers for certification in the state of Illinois.

It's a sad statement that I'm not at all surprised.

"I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested..."

I got up early this morning to take the Illinois Basic Skills Test. It's a standardized test for all prospective teachers, not unlike the SAT. There are 4 sections: reading comprehension, language arts, mathematics and writing. The first couple of sections require a lot of reading and then a few questions of varying degrees of obscurity about the reading. This is a VERY painful process for me since I'm what you might call a "deliberate" reader. I take my time.

Having survived these sections of the test, the determinism of the math section was like a breath of fresh air. I crushed that section and went on to the essay where, I'm sorry to report to the geriatrics of the world, I made a brilliant, well-articulated case for annual driver testing for people over 70.

Overall, I feel I did well. But who doesn't? I'll know in a month. The thing that worries me is that if I didn't pass for some reason, there's nothing I can study or work on that would make me any better next time.

We'll see...

I would also like to note that there were, literally, thousands of people there getting tested. The lady in line ahead of me was assigned seat #2742. Even if I assume that there were no more seats than that, the implication is that the state collected over $70,000 in registration processing fees ALONE for this single testing site, on this single day. I'd REALLY like to know where all that money goes.

Damn the torpedoes!

Well, I'm doing it. I've officially applied for admission to Cohort 12 in the Alternative Certification program at Benedictine University. This is the short, 8-week summer course I mentioned before.

So far, John Zigmond who runs the Alt Cert program at BU has been engaging, responsive, and supportive. I've talked to him a lot over the last year and he makes me feel very comfortable with my choice.

It's an odd feeling, letting go of a life that's been good by just about any measure and heading off into the unknown. But I bear in mind that my reasons for doing it are sound and the path that I choose is absolutely the right one, in spite of the risks.

Apropos to my situation, a quote from a great movie:

"I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."

- Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption