Auto-Defenestration

(NOTE: If you haven't read my post about the difficulties with teacher certification yet, read that one before you read this one. None of this will make sense if you don't. Go ahead, read it. I'll wait.    ::whistles::    Read it now? Good.)

Okay, so it looks like I won't be teaching in the fall as I had planned. So what do I do now?

It's interesting what you can learn in conversations you have with people at random. Take, for example, the previously-referenced conversation with the guy at the Jordan School District. Sure, he told me all about how the ARL (Alternative Route to Licensure) process worked, and a lot more accurately than the guy at the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) had. But he said something else, too. He told me, without coming right out and saying so, that the whole ARL process was a bad idea, at least in his mind. He related a story of someone with a doctorate in physics who just couldn't cut it as a teacher under ARL. He told me that with the time and money I'd spend to get certified, I could almost go back to school and get a master's degree. And he said that teachers with a master's degree start out making significantly more than other teachers do.

I wasn't entirely convinced that he was speaking in my best interest and not his (or his district's) own—which is fine; that's his job. Still, with the various obstacles to ARL that popped up, my mind went back to this conversation and I started to think about going back to school. I checked into a couple of local schools to see about their master's degree programs. And I met with the Education department advisor at my alma mater, the University of Utah. I told her a little about my experiences there, the classes I'd already taken, and so forth. Her first question to me was: "What's your GPA?" And that was pretty much the end of that conversation. She said, based solely on my grade point average, that my chances of making it into the master's program at the U were "basically zero". You know all those folks who say, "Once you graduate, nobody cares about your GPA"? Not so. That only applies if you're not interested in going back to school again. Ever.

Nonetheless, she gave me another option to consider in our conversation. She said that with the classes I'd already taken, plus the fact that I now had a bachelor's degree, I'd probably have no problem being accepted into the U's undergraduate education program in February. All I'd need to do is enroll in the U under a second bachelor's program, take the one or two classes I needed to complete the pre-cohort requirements, and make sure I had everything in order for my application. That was good news. The bad news was how long it would take. Assuming I was accepted in February—which was by no means guaranteed, the advisor's encouraging words notwithstanding—I'd start the cohort program in Fall 2007, then do student teaching in Spring 2008. So, basically another two years. Still, this looked like as good an option as I'd heard so far, so I went ahead and reapplied to the U and was accepted.

In the mist of all this, I had another interesting conversation. I've been volunteering at a local branch of the Salt Lake City Library. I was talking to the branch director about my ongoing search for employment, and he told me about Western Governors University. He said he knew some people who'd used that school and had good results, and recommended that I check it out. So I got on WGU's web site and took a look around.

For the unfamiliar, as I was a couple of weeks ago, Western Governors University was established jointly in 1997 by the governors of nineteen states and territories^‡, primarily in the western United States, as a private, non-profit university. The goal was to use emerging technologies to provide higher education opportunities to those who lived in locations that might otherwise prevent them from doing so. It offers distance learning programs online, with support from faculty mentors. The programs are proficiency-based, meaning that you progress from one course to the next when you've proven that you've learned what you need to know from each course. So if you're a quick learner, or if you've had previous experience with the material, you can progress faster.

I'll admit that I was initially a little wary about all of this. I know there are a lot of 'degree factory' schools out there that have you pay a lot of money, take a lot of classes, and then give you a 'degree' that doesn't mean much. So I felt some relief to learn that WGU is fully accredited, just like my alma mater, the University of Utah. This was starting to look more and more like a legitimate option.

Anyway, I started looking at what WGU offered for prospective teachers. Their post-baccalaureate programs for secondary science teachers looked promising, so I requested more information. It turns out that they have both a certification program and a master's program. I submitted an application and got a call to speak with one of their enrollment counselor in detail about the program(s). In that conversation we determined that the master's program would work well for my situation. So I ordered a transcript from the U and filled out the FAFSA.^† My counselor sent me a detailed program description (11 pages in .pdf format) and scheduled me for an intake interview.

That interview was yesterday. I talked with another enrollment counselor who asked me a lot of very direct questions to see if I understood what was involved with the program and determine if I'd be able to handle it. He seemed pleased with my understanding of the process. He told me how things would start and what I'd do in the first few weeks of the program. He also answered a few questions that I had come up with. I left the intake interview feeling very encouraged about my future.

Long story short: On August 1st, I start the master's program at WGU. In the time it would have taken me to earn the certification at the U or through ARL, I'll have both the certification and a master's degree. This is encouraging to me. Not only will this give me the additional knowledge and experience I need to be successful, but I think it will help me to be more confident as a teacher as well.

In the previous post, I said I believe that God opens a window whenever He closes a door. This is the kind of window I've been looking for, and I'd be crazy not to jump through it.

When I was in high school, I was on the cross country team for three years. (Not that you can tell now....) I remember one meet in Cheyenne my sophomore year. I'd had two sodas at lunch that day, and they came back to haunt me. Somewhere in the second mile of a 5K race, I had stomach cramps so bad that I had to drop out. I remember how awful that felt, watching everyone else finish from the sidelines. The hour-long ride home was one of the worst single hours of my life. I swore to myself I'd never drop out of a race again.

And I never did. I finished last in our league JV championship race all three years, twice with stomach problems and once with an ankle injury. But I finished. I learned from that experience that I can endure just about anything if I decide that I want to and if I do whatever is in my power to do (e.g., not drinking two Cokes at lunch on race day).

I guess this is a similar situation. I thought, after all these years, that I'd finally made it to the finish line last December. But graduating from college has always been a means to an end: teaching. Teaching is what I want to do, something I enjoy based on my experience so far, and something I'll be good at by all current indications. Teaching's the goal. That's what I'm ultimately working for. What I thought was the finish line was really just a mile marker along the road. And that's okay. I'll pass as many of these mile markers as I have to get to the real finish line.

I've come so far in this race that it doesn't make sense to quit now. If getting to the finish involves two more years of classes, student teaching, and even more student loans, then so be it. I'm in this race to finish it.

Just keep racing. Just keep racing. Just keep racing.

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^‡ The "Member Governors" of WGU include the governors of Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and Guam. Conspicuously absent from this list is California.

^† This is an experience I thought I'd never have again. The results are encouraging, though. With both of us being in school for the coming year, the financial aid situation looks very favorable.