The First, the L.A.S.T., and the Fees

     After speaking with B&B about going back to school to become a certified art teacher, they bombarded me with helpful emails, entertaining links, and much needed pep talks. As a “returning” student from a professional field, I would be allowed to travel a different course to accomplish my goal. I would also be able to make the same amount of money as a Long Island Barbie who’s just finishing her path of student enlightenment, but without financial safety nets like mom’s wine fridge and a rent-free existence. Still, it was a new start and I was excited.

     I studied the requirements and figured out what classes I was missing. I needed to have all of my official transcripts sent to BOCES (some of which cost as much as $10), and pay them $94.25 for fingerprinting. I suppose with some hair dye and psychosis that I could look like Mary Kay Letourneau, but almost $95 for fingerprinting? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to actually commit a crime and get fingerprinted for free? My teacher friends tell me that anyone who works with kids has to be fingerprinted, but fortunately not drug tested. Recently, Melissa Weber, a Queens, NY social studies teacher, was arrested for playing hide the salami with one of her 14 year old students. Heck, there’s even a Website called “bad bad teacher.” I must admit that when a teacher gets arrested, I rush to their school’s site to see what subject he or she teaches. Even worse (I know it’s in poor taste), I stalk the obituaries to see if an art teacher has died. I’ve discovered that the obits are more reliable than the Sunday Times.

     Just after I got married, and at my father-in-law’s urging, I had taken six education credits. He thought I’d make an awesome teacher because I wouldn’t take crap, but was very patient with kids. Thanks to him, I only needed four more classes. Next, I had to complete two workshops, one in Child Abuse Identification and one in School Violence and Intervention. These were pointless and common sense classes, but both made money for the state. In order for them to count, the computer had to be open to each page of the catalog for a minimum of 10 minutes. I’d flip a page, get up and brown chopped turkey meat for dinner, and go back to read about bruises in different stages of healing. In two days I had gotten both workshops finished, scoring an A for each.

     There were still three behemoth tests to take. The L.A.S.T. covers general knowledge in all four major subjects. Math, English, science, and social studies (or whatever it’s called this week). The ATS-W is about nothing valid in particular. A friend suggested the proper way to answer the questions was to pick whatever choice states that it is the teacher’s fault, and I’d be fine. The Content Specialty Test, or C.S.T., in my field of fine art, covers art from the beginning of time to present day. No problem. I’m old now, and I should remember everything since the world was created. All the tests included an essay portion and were state mandated. They cost $88 per attempt with the hope that everyone would fail them the first two or three times. No matter whom I spoke to and wherever I stood, there was a stranger standing there with his hand in my pocket reaching for his respective payoff. There were so many that I kept a list.

     I also needed student teaching, or, in other words, spending a semester as an indentured servant. This didn’t thrill me. I am friends with many teachers and I am also married to one. All of these people, except for one, had absolutely horrific student teaching experiences. The cooperating teacher – a kind of glorified Hitler – can make or break your time served, and often takes advantage of you. Rather than the newbie planning, teaching and grading for a couple of classes, the wannabe teacher is forcibly stuck with all five classes while the classroom teacher smokes weed with the track coach.

     B&B came up with an alternative! Instead of student teaching, which would be damn near impossible for me (my credits came from five different schools, not a regular graduate program), I could take a different direction. While the state would accept credits from various schools, a student teaching program would not. There is a limit on transfer credits, and I had exceeded that number. According to the state, there is another way to satisfy the student teaching requirement. I would be allowed to substitute teach for 40 full days in my field, art, and get the days approved by the district superintendent. Cool. All I had to do was get nominated by a school – luckily I have many friends who put in a good word for me – and I could start subbing providing nothing showed up on my FBI report.

     All seems plausible, right? Have you ever dealt with the B.O.E., D.O.E. or whatever Bloomberg’s overpaid and absentee apparatchiks have printed on their business cards this week? The whole process makes it clear as to why the educational system is failing. All the money is stuck at the top. No trickle-down economics here… Just speed bumps and bruises on the way to another self re-invention…