Stress

And it's only just beginning. So as you may have read on Owen's blog, I was supposed to have a release day this past week. "Supposed to" being the operative words. Things were being processed and got stalled at finance. No ball dropping, just how things work and the length of time required. Well...come to find out that they did put in for a sub for me for Wednesday. On Wednesday. At 1:05 in the afternoon. My facilitator is making sure I still get my day. I'm shooting for December 14, which is the day after my birthday and at the end of the week that I am videotaping for another entry. I've made some notes for the videotaping I did on the 5th so things stay sort of fresh.

a sigh of relief

I am in the process of working on Entry 4, which shows how I communicate with parents, work as a learner (so workshops I go to for my professional development, etc.), and how I contribute to the greater music education community. Up until about 10 minutes ago, I thought this was going to be my weakest entry by a long shot. Nope. I have to have a maximum of eight accomplishments to show examples of these three things. Some accomplishments might cover all three, some might cover two, and some might only cover one. A draft of this entry is due on Thursday at my cadre meeting. I wonder how many other teachers in our district are doing or have done EMC Music. I'm thinking I might be the first one. Wouldn't that be cool!?

I have several people who have offered to help me out during this process by giving advice when I ask, and by proofing my entries before I submit them in March. I just got off of the phone with one of these people. She answered a lot of questions (more than I thought I had), and was able to give me a lot of good guidance as far as what sorts of potential accomplishments that are bouncing around in my brain could actually work as accomplishments (all of them!!!!!!). I thought I was only going to have a couple of accomplishments to talk about. I'm going to have to either lump things together (where I can) or pick and choose what to include. I like that prospect much better than the alternative. :-)

Getting Started

Well, I've officially started my fourth entry for my National Boards. The cool thing about this is I can do my entries in which ever order I choose, as they all get sent to San Antonio at the same time. Entry 4 is the easiest one to get started on over the summer. It is documentation (and reflection and analysis) of my professional accomplishments. Some has to be done this coming year, but I've started really working on what I can use from the last five years (going back to March of 2003). I also will know what I need to do this year to round out this entry. I have to have a good portion of it done by about a month from now when we have our first cadre meeting.

We got a bunch of stuff for this at Target last night. Printer paper, pens, highlighters, a pencil case, and dividers for the 3-ring notebook I had already purchased. Things are printed up, organized, and work has commenced.

got it!

i got my new cd today. i'm assuming that it is the correct one. actually, i'm checking right now to see if it is. (yep, it is!)

now all i (still) need is paper so i can print everything up so i can start marking things up. :-)

trying again

i called national boards today to see what they could tell me about my CD that is supposed to be here by now. they're going to send me another one and call me when it goes out so i can track it this time. i really hope i have it before school starts.

i got a 2" three-ring binder this weekend and i've downloaded the stuff i need from the national boards website. now all we need is paper so i can print up the stuff and get going on highlighting and marking. i have everything as an adobe file, but i would really rather have a hard copy in front of me. that's just what works best for me.

yup. it was wrong

i got the right cd label, but the contents of the cd were wrong. i called the hotline this morning and they are putting a new and correct cd in the mail to me. i should have it by the end of next week. i'm really anxious to get going on this. i can't do any work on my entries until i get my cd. what i can do, however, is get the paperwork into my district to verify my years teaching, etc.

Interesting message

We're on vacation right now so my box is probably waiting for me at home. I had a message when we checked yesterday saying that during a quality control check, it was discovered that some of the EA/YA (early adolescence/young adult) music CDs got labeled as EMC (early/middle childhood) and vice versa. I was instructed to check my CD and if it's faulty, to call their 800 number to get a correct CD.

Why is this important, you may ask. Well, the CD has absolutely EVERYTHING I'll need as far as information goes for my candidacy. All of my standards, what to put in each entry of the portfolio, etc. This is basically the instruction manual. It would not be good to get the wrong manual (think about getting the manual for a Ford 'Stang instead of for your Taurus). That will be one of the first things I do when I get home and get my box is open it up and check the CD.

I have started thinking about what I want to do for my entries. I think I'm going to do middle school for one of my entries. It will be excellent for the reflective analysis bit I have to do, especially since middle school will be new for me this year. However, I am also thinking that doing something brand new might not be the best idea for something as important as National Boards. I think I'll bounce that idea off of some friends who have already done their boards and see what they think. I'll probably go with their recommendation.

Today I e-mailed the middle school teachers at my school to see about meeting later in the summer so I can figure out where to set the bar for the kids this year. I'm keeping a hard copy of the e-mail so I can potentially use it as supporting evidence when I send in my entries in March. Like I said, I've never taught middle school before so I really don't know what they are capable of doing. This coming year will be a lot of tweaking as we go. Next year ('08-'09) will be much easier. It's almost like I'm starting teaching all over again. Thinking about things, I've now taught for seven years. What is it that people say about the seven year itch? Interesting how in my 8th year, I'm starting a new segment in teaching. Doesn't that sound all existential and stuff?