Since Garrett was our top choice, we decided Dan would apply early. We figured that if he got in we would not have to worry about applying to other schools. He got his application in and waited for his last letter of recommendation to bet submitted. Days of waiting turned into weeks, which soon turned into two months of waiting. It was now Thanksgiving and we were approaching the application period for the other schools. During Thanksgiving Dan talked with my sister who works in college administration and my mom's cousin, who we stayed with on our Garrett tour, about the missing letter of recommendation. They both suggested asking someone else to write it. The Monday after Thanksgiving he sent out a plea to many people, and by the end of the day a few submitted letters, and by the end of the week even more had. He ended up with a surplus of recommendations! By Tuesday his application was complete, and by the next day his acceptance offer was mailed. Before heading into Christmas break we knew he was officially accepted with a 60% scholarship. Yay!
During that same time period Dan also began to help me out in getting everything submitted for transferring my California Credential to an Illinois License. Yeah, they use the word license and not credential. He submitted a copy of my credential, all of my transcripts, and credential verification from the universities I attended. We then waited to hear from the license board on what I needed to do next. But we heard nothing. We did read that there were several tests that you needed to take in order to obtain a license, so we figured that maybe I haven't heard anything because I had not taken the tests.
I decided to prepare for the tests and began studying my butt off. There were three tests required in order to obtain a license in Illinois: Test of Academic Proficiency (TAP, like California's CBEST on steroids), Math Subject Matter Test, and Assessment of Professional Teaching (APT). Dan helped me register for all three and ordered study material for the APT and Math Test. I set up a study regimen that was reminiscent of my college days. I would come home from work and study at least an hour every night and then several hours on the weekends. I took the TAP and APT at the end of our February break and the Math Test the first week of March.
The TAP consisted of four sections: 60 Reading Comprehension questions, 60 Language Arts questions, 50 Math questions and 1 essay. Oh man, so much reading! For both English portions I had to read loads of essays and then answer a few questions on the readings. Did I mention it was a lot of reading? Also, reading and answering questions on a computer is so different than reading and answering questions in a test booklet. Which makes me wonder how prepared our students will be for the computer based SBAC they will be taking. I passed all sections except the Language Arts test. In this section I had to read 20 short readings (1-2 paragraphs) and then answer three questions on the reading. Really, you couldn't give me more questions to cut down the reading? The questions were like: which sentence has incorrect use of parallel sentence structure? Which sentence has a comma splice? What the what? How can I correctly answer a question about something if I don't even know what it is? So I will be retaking that portion this Tuesday. Now the funny thing is that I scored higher on the writing portion than the math portion. Clearly I know how to use all that grammar stuff, I just don't know what it is called. This test I did not study for; I thought that I should be fine since I passed the CBEST after staying up late drinking with my roommates in college and didn't study one bit. Guess not.
The second test I took was the APT. This test consisted of 120 multiple choice questions and 2 essays. The multiple choice test had questions on child development, class management, learning environment, and learning theory. Oh, and did I mention that in the fall they changed the test to no longer be grade specific, but is now Pre-k to 12? Yeah, what do I know about elementary school or Pre-k except that I could never teach those grades. There were questions like what is the significance of having written materials like coupons, waitress pads, and cash register tape in the play section of a preschool class? Ummmmm....not sure. I felt pretty confident about the essays, except for the fact that they had to be less than 300 words. That is not a lot of space. After the test I felt very confident. I either did really well, or I bombed it and was fooling myself. I was afraid that if I did not pass it I would not know what else to study since i thought I did well. The worrying was for naught, because I passed it! Whew, what a relief!
The last test was a Math Test. This test ranged from teaching strategies, to history of math, to actual math content. I felt pretty confident about the teaching strategies and math content through Algebra 2, but the history of math and upper level math I had not seen since college. So I studied. I watched videos that our Calculus teacher made and videos from Khan Academy. I did have an issue during the test where the proctor almost took my test away because I had 3 calculators...the other proctor told me I could! The test actually seemed pretty easy to me. Since this test was only multiple choice, 120 questions at that, I found out immediately that I passed! Yay! Now, my testing stress was mostly over, except for having to retake that
Two weeks ago I finally received an e-mail on my license status. I am currently deficient on the test I have not passed (I knew that), an ELL class (what!?) and a SPED class (what!?). I spent spring break tracking down a transcript I did not send in (I didn't realize UCR and UCR extension were separate), syllabi from all the education classes I took in college, and writing an argument as to why the classes I took count for those two requirements. Monday I mailed off my documentation and hopefully I will know in the next few weeks if they agree with my argument. If not, I will be taking more classes. So silly.... come and look at my classes and you will see that I work with SPED and ELL kids on a daily basis. But, if they do not accept, and I do have to take the classes, hopefully I will learn something that will help me in my teaching.
There has been more going on with our preparation for moving, but this is long enough. Things to come: job searching, apartment hunting, and selling off half our stuff. I enjoy writing this, hope you enjoy reading it, and plan to start writing more....so stay tuned!
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