Pure Laziness

My, the roles have changed.

Wednesday was my last day of actually doing something school-related. It was pure hell -- I attended a meeting regarding licensure via portfolio. It's a relatively long process of "collecting evidence" to show the big-wigs in the Department of Education that I am fully certified to teach a certain content area. This meeting was suggested to me by the administration, since they wanted me to head up the work-based learning program for the next school year.

As it turns out, to collect the "evidence" that these people need, I pretty much have to go back to class. They want things like a class syllabus, assignments, projects, how I am going to apply it to my students, etc. What a hassle -- time and money -- both of which I have very little of.

One would think: Minnesota and South Dakota have this great educational relationship in a form called reciprocity -- which means students who currently have a residency in Minnesota can go to a post-secondary school in South Dakota without having to pay those outrageous out-of-state costs, and vise versa. But when it comes to licensing teachers, the red lights go off in Minnesota. Things just do not seem to add up.

In South Dakota where I graduated, Computers and Business are two complete separate subject matters. In Minnesota, it's all bunched together into one huge Business section. For me to get off the variance wagon (a temp license that Minnesota grants -- a teacher can only get 3 in their lifetime [I've already wasted one]), I have to take classes that would fulfill the Business Education standards set forth. I would have to take accounting classes, marketing classes, all that other crap which I really do not care about.

I currently hold a Communication Technology Careers license -- which, in my words, is complete bullshit -- because it shows no relation to a Computer Education license from South Dakota.

This portfolio is going to be a lot of work and I really do not want to go back to school. Sioux Falls is starting to look very favorable now...

But other than that, Kate finally started her new job this week. As for me -- LAZYVILLE. I drove back up to the hometown on Thursday to watch our varsity baseball team play. They earned their second straight state tournament berth with a 6-0 victory. It was actaully "slow" back around my old hometown, nobody was around, even for the local softball games.

Today, I watched the entire 10 episodes of "Band of Brothers," the World War II epic about the Easy Company. Super-Great.