This morning started with rushing a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (well, a knock off brand version) over to a friend's house. Her daughter had taken it upon herself to cover the kitchen island top in post-modern red scribbles (method: Crayola Marker on unfinished wood). She was frantically texting a mom friend group about how to remove it when I offered the eraser, since I know from my own experience (back when E. and R. were still toddlers) that it will take off pretty much any marker you can try on walls and tables. She was out of them, hence why I was driving over in my bathrobe. It really does take a village to raise kids.
It was good to see her, and we were able to have a very brief conversation before her husband walked by carrying his lap top, on the way to a Zoom meeting. She excused herself to go handle the marker, and the schooling of her other three kids, so that they weren't tempted to go become memes by popping into their daddy's meeting.
I came home to find out R. had completed writing a song on her computer (her music lesson for the day), and E. had added lyrics. The melody was catchy, and the lyrics were "Elephants and elephants and elephants and elephants are so-O-O-O-o-o-O-O cuuute. And Elephants and elephants and... (you get the picture). E. even kept her stuffed pink elephant nearby as inspiration. It reminded me of the "Kelly" song Woody sings on Cheers (I'm on the final season now- that show makes me so happy in so many ways).In other items of importance, Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all the teachers out there! Technically, it started yesterday, but I think the profession I entered over a decade ago deserves a shoutout. Being a teacher is one of the things that defines me- I've always loved to be able to build people up, and teaching allows me to do that. Over the years, I always made a point to focus on the positives in my students. I learned early on that "assessments" should be opportunities for students to show off what they had learned. For that reason, I often allowed for choice, because everyone learns differently. That led to some incredibly memorable projects and writing, and hopefully, an overall experience that led my students to feel more confidence and pride as they moved towards adulthood.
Today, I did something for my education. After finishing with my typical homeschooling of my own kids and my work for my job as an educator, I spent some quality time focusing on my University of California San Diego classes for my Master's Plus 30.
For non-educators, the way teachers get paid is on a scale that starts at step 1, and goes up each year by a small percentage (and I mean small- some years, you might see a jump of less than $200 PER YEAR after taxes-roughly $10 per paycheck- this barely keeps up with cost of living increases). However, on that same scale, there are columns that start on the left (the lowest tier- a simple BA), and then goes up as you head to the right (depending on the contract that district has, this could include BA+15 (meaning a BA, plus 15 graduate credits), BA +30 (same but with 30 graduate credits, MA (a Bachelor's and Master's Degree), MA+15, and so on, through PhD.
I'm near that right hand level in my district, where the max is an MA+30. I have my Master's in Writing, and then 24 additional graduate credits for my Library Media Specialist certification. With only six credits to reach my "plus 30", I decided in the fall to register through UCSD's Professional Development Institute. Last night, I completed one of the courses, and today, I worked through some of the assignments for the second course. It's tedious, more time spent in front of the computer, but I had my summative evaluation for school last week, and was recommended to keep my job (phew) for 2020-21, so I wanted to get this done so that I could get that pay bump into the next category. As I mentioned yesterday, still no unemployment money coming in, so at some point, I'm going to need this pay bump big time to pay the bills.
Their Grammy and Aunt Marian came over for a few hours, and sat in the lawn "social distancing" while the girls amended their cafe to have contactless delivery. The "cafe" is the area under their swingset house, where in non-quarantine times, they would serve pies made from mud, cookies (rocks), and various other dishes created from sticks, leaves, and whatever else they found in the lawn and woods. They accept payment in the forms of hugs, moss, leaves, and occasionally, real coins.
While the girls were supervised, I ran over to help out with more painting. I'm happy to say I got an entire office done, and the light blue color unintentionally matches the tiffany-style light in the middle of the ceiling beautifully. I was able to briefly stop by a friend's on the way home because she was in her yard, and had a quick conversation about school being canceled, and the woes of unemployment, and how she was doing ("we're all hanging in there!").
In the evening, the girls and Jeff watched the season finale of Clone Wars (apparently, Disney surprised everyone releasing it on May the 4th to celebrate Star Wars Day, instead of waiting for this Friday). While they were downstairs watching on the big screen, I jumped on my computer, because Bryan texted me that he and my mom had somehow snagged a Friday delivery spot for Peapod, and did I need anything? We're doing pretty well, what with the produce deliveries (seriously, LOVE www.Harvesttohomenj.com), and my creative ordering via Staples, Target, and others, but there are some items, like tofu and frozen vegetarian chik'n-style things, that I can't get anywhere else. It's the little things that we get excited for these days. It's like instead of playing the lottery, it's "come on delivery window" and "no whammies, just my stimulus check" and "unemployment...come on, have my numbers...". Hopefully, we win!
No comments:
Post a Comment