The beginning of the end...

starts tomorrow (Monday June 2) as it will be the first day of my last two classes before I graduate. I'll be taking them at University of Houston, so the commute to and from the university will be interesting. This past Thursday I made a trip up to the campus since I didn't have a substitute job and scoped out my classes and a decent parking spot. I was also hoping to see my professors before classes start, just to introduce myself and see what I'll be getting myself into but no dice. There are some upsides and down sides to these classes that I'm taking. One down side is that the two classes are in two separate buildings and according to my schedule I have no time between classes to get from one to the other. So that just means I'll have to be quick and eat as I walk (or if the professors don't mind, eat in class). An upside is that by looking at the text books, for the most part the material looks familiar so that can be an upside. From that I need to be sure I know the material and understand it so that I can get these classes over with.

Right now I'm at a point in my life where I think I am ready to move on out of college and start teaching. From all the experiences that I have had as a student teacher and as a substitute this spring semester has been a bit frustrating at some points, but overall enjoyable. I believe that I must be doing something right when the student have personally told me how good of a teacher I have been for them, whether it be from student teaching for about 3 months or substituting a math class for one day. I really wish that some of the people that hire math teachers can personally hear these students comments about me and really consider hiring me. If you have been out of the loop on my situation of finding a teaching position for the fall let me fill you in. As far as I know of, one of the districts that I really want to teach at has offered me a contract to teach in the fall, but no clue as to which high school that I would teach at. At the moment I can't sign any kind of contracts until I graduate from SFA, and most high schools won't REALLY talk to me until I am done with my classes. I find this funny and frustrating (more frustrating) that I was told in my education classes that as a prospective math teacher finding a job will be easy since everyone is looking for a math teacher. I might be a bit picky on finding a job since the job that I am currently trying to pursue is at one of the best public high schools in the greater Houston area. So going into this I knew that getting the job would be hard, but from my perspective it seems that I am not even being considered and that's what bugs me a bit. I know I would be qualified to teach at the school, and I have had a good handful of students come up to me saying how good of a teacher I was and asking if I was going to take their teacher's job next year. I really wish I could have told the students to go down the hall and tell the department head what they just told me. Oh well...hopefully here in July I'll actually be getting a definitive answer.

Enough ranting...I'll try to keep ya'll posted on my progress.