CONGRATULATIONS, Alice - good job!!!!! I am SO HAPPY for you!!!!

Congratulations!

I've been retired 20 years after teaching 30 1/2 years.

Great job Alice..the world needs good teachers

Great news!
Teaching is a noble profession.
Good luck in finding the perfect job.

Wonderful and you sound like a good enthusiastic person which is just the kind of teachers our kids need. Good luck in your job search. I hope you find one really fast.

Geat job! Good luck in finding a full-time job. Hope it doesn't take too long.... The school system could use someone with your enthusiasm.

Atta girl, Alice! Its great to see a new qualified teacher with drive and a positive attitude.

My second grade was the best school year of my life. I attended a one room country grade school during the early years of WW2. All able bodied person not owning land left our countryside to work in the war effort or were drafted or volunteered to join the armed services. For many, it was the ticket out of the great depression.

There were about 12 students my first year of shool, but the demographics were such that the olny students were my sister and me. There would more students the following year so the school board proposed to close the school for one year. My mother prevailed upon the school board to keep the school open because a years delay in our education was too much of a price for we two to bear. She had only finished the 6th grade herself and knew the value of a good education.

The school board found a new teacher-to-be, maybe like yourself a year ago. She had finished her academic work and needed a successful practice session to become qualified. That year, she was supervised by the County Superintendent of Schools. Our final exams were graded and then sent to the Superintendent for his pronouncement. This was done to make the grades official. He approved her work and our exams. I passed the second grade and she became fully certified.

We must bave been the only children in the country that year whose final report cards were signed by the County Superintendent of Schools. I still have that report card.

It was the best school year I ever had. It was like having a private tutor without any bullies. Near the end of the school year, she took us and our mother to see a movie. It was the first time I had ever seen a movie. I believe the film was "Song of the South", a movie loaded with Uncle Remus tales. It was Hollywood's first venture issuing a mixed media film. Cartoon characters were superimposed on real live actors. Uncle Remus would begin a tale. Cartoon butterflies would appear with the children and the scene would resolve into a full color cartoon as the story unfolded.

Yes, it was my best year of school and I owe it to a newly minted teacher. (She was pretty, too.)

Hope you are able to find a job...I know several people that recently went to school to become teachers only to find out there were NO jobs! This economy is for the birds!

Congratulations!

Congratulations and good luck on your job search!

Congratulations Alice!!

Way to go ALice! Here's hoping we both find jobs!!!
SamKaren
your resident DJ

Hooray for Alice! Good job -- now to find one, eh? What do you hope to teach? (Grade level, subjects?) Is there a mentoring system in local schools? First year can be rough. Teachers' Union?

Our DIL taught in a parochial school her first year, then was hired by Chicago Public Schools. She teaches junior high math. She taught for several years at an inner city school 45 minutes from home (in good traffic) and transferred two years ago to a school only 10 minutes from home. CPS is firing 600 teachers this year, but our DIL gets good results from her pupils, so she's probably 'safe'. CPS is closing truly 'public' schools and paying the mayor's campaign contributors to open 'charter schools'. (When the charter schools have to take the whole range of kids -- no 'cherry-picking' -- they perform worse than the schools they are replacing.)

Guess you can tell this is a touchy topic with me! lol

Congratulations and best wishes on finding a truly great job that you'll love.

Thank you all! I am enthusiastic and excited, but student teaching also taught me to be prepared for reality, which is that not everyone I will work with will have the same attitudes.

jemdandy, that is a great story. Thank you for sharing it. She sounds like she was a really special person and educator.

chisue, I want to teach high school science. There is a mentoring program at the schools for the first couple of years, and there is a teacher's union. In fact, it is because of the union that other teachers get priority for any teaching job, and I know of several (science and non-science) teaching positions filled by current teachers who are not qualified to teach the subject. I hope your daughter's job is safe, and I don't like the charter schools as dumping grounds either. There are many problems with the educational system, but, like your daughter, I want to be one of the good parts...a teacher whose priority is the students and their educational growth.

Congratulations!!! Best of Luck!!! :)

Thanks for the reply, Alice. Hope you get a chance to *work* very soon.

I think every taxpayer should have to wear the teacher's hat for at least a week -- time to get good and exhausted!

My DH enjoyed subbing in our local HS after he retired. He even co-taught an over-enrolled journalism class one year. Now he's on the steering committee for a Grand Times (Seniors) group that volunteers in HS classes at a nearby school. That is a different challenge as this formerly tip-top-rated HS now has a large transient ESL population -- kids who come into Freshman year reading at 4th Grade level. A struggle for everyone.

On the one-room-school topic, my mother had such a great education in one that when her family moved to a city when she was 13, the principal didn't know what to do with her. She'd already accomplished their curriculum. Nothing like a good teacher, individual attention and a willing learner!