Monday, April 20, 2009

Just going for it


I've been thinking about posting to my blog, but never know what is the "right" thing to say, so I'm just going to say what's going on in my life and post pictures of projects I make along the way. So, I'm officially one week out from mailing off my National Board entries. If any of you are teachers, you may be familiar with the "National Board for Professional Teaching Standards" or NBPTS for short. This is a national certification in your area of expertise. Since I am a school counselor, my certification area is Early Childhood/Young Adult School Counselor. I attempted this two years ago and came up 23 points short of the cut score of 275. So, they banked my scores and I had two years to re-do any entries I wanted to, to improve my score. I chose to re-do two portfolio entries. These are "heck" if you've done this, you know what I'm talking about. I had to submit a 15 minute video segment of me teaching or conducting an individual session with a student(s). I also had then, to critique my tape and my performance in a 12 page double-spaced paper that answered several questions.

Anyway, I think I did better on these two entries, at least I hope so, so now I have to wait till next November or December to get my results. Since that was my life for the past several months, now that I'm done, I have time to do other stuff. It feels kind of weird to not have that to do anymore.]

Here's what I'm working on right now. I'm making a book I've wanted to make since we got our dog. His name is Spot. So the book is appropriately titled "See Spot". By the way, we figured out why he came with that name. When you leave the couch or chair you're sitting in, he takes your "spot". He's been a wonderful addition to our family and we love him dearly. He has taken a sentimental "spot" in our hearts.