ARC

Back in May I applied to ARC- which is the Alternative Route to Certification provided by the CT State Department of Education. It gets people certified to be teachers FAST. You can get it done in 8 weeks over the summer or 8 months on the weekends from October to May. I applied for certification in Family and Consumer Sciences (which is basically home-ec, but also includes teaching health and nutrition which is what I'm really interested in and excited to teach!) and that program is only offered on the weekends because there is no place to student teach if you do the shorter summer program. Anyway- I GOT IN!

When I first got the news, I actually had a huge anxiety attack about it for a few reasons:

1. They notified us later than they originally said they would. I was supposed to find out if I got in by the end of August, which would have been perfect because then I could drop my CCSU classes and get my money back. But they didn't tell us until the first weekend of September, which isn't that much later but my CCSU classes had already started AND I was convinced that I hadn't gotten in. So, when I thought I didn't get in I decided to make peace with the fact that I was going to stay at Central and continue with my certification in Special Education. I was happy with that plan. But when I got my acceptance package I was like "Shit! I thought I just figured all this out, and now I have to re-think what I really want!" I really like Special Education and I love what I do as a paraprofessional so I think I would enjoy being a Sp. Ed. teacher, but I was also having serious doubts about it because a lot of the Sp. Ed. teachers that I work with are stressed out and are trying to LEAVE Sp. Ed. Not all of them feel that way and it doesn't mean that I would feel that way either but their attitudes about the whole thing freaked me out. Two of them, who are close work friends, actually said "If I were you I wouldn't do it" TWO of them! On separate occasions! But I'm not them and I think I would enjoy it, however, I think I would enjoy Family and Consumer Sciences more. I love cooking, baking, and health and nutrition, and I've always wanted to learn how to sew so this will be the perfect opportunity! Once I realized that I wanted to teach Family and Consumer Sciences more than Sp.Ed. I started to feel anxious about...

2. JOBS! Special Education is booming right now and there are loads of jobs out there, but the same can't be said for FCS. If you compare the amount of jobs between the two it's 40 vs. 3, seriously, I checked about 5 times. So that really worried me because the ultimate goal from all of this is to get a JOB! Well, not just a job but a career. I am ready to start my life and build a future for myself at a school somewhere. Now granted this is not the best time to look for teaching jobs, but the fact that there are so few FCS teaching jobs out there made me upset and not want to do the ARC program because I thought it would be pointless. But then I spoke with one of the guidance counselors at work whose wife has been teaching FCS for 30 years. He told me that most of the people that teach FCS are old and very close to retirement, and they can't find enough people to fill their spots. His wife just hired somebody 2 years ago and they only had 3 applicants for the job. He said not a lot of people go into it so even though there are fewer jobs posted there are also way fewer applicants and he didn't think I would have any trouble getting a job.

3. I also realized that it's really important to me that I finish what I started at Central. I've had a lot of ups and downs since I started this Sp. Ed. Certification and I didn't want to give up on it. I went to my advisor and told him about ARC and he told me that if I get certified in FCS then I can go back to Central and get cross-certified in Sp. Ed. and get my Master's at the same time. He said that all the classes I've taken wouldn't have been for nothing. That made me so happy! After that meeting I felt so good and clear headed about what I wanted to do. I was originally taking 2 classes at Central but I dropped one of them because I know the ARC program is going to be demanding. But I kept the other one because it's one I really, really want to finish!

Once my anxiety subsided I started to feel a lot better and I decided to go for it! I am going to do ARC in Family and Consumer Sciences and I feel really happy and good about it. There is an open house on Thursday that I have to go to. I will meet the other people in my program and get my first assignments. Then starting October 22 classes will start regularly. Classes are Fridays 6-9 and Saturdays 8-4 three out of the four weekends a month. So it will kind of suck having most of my weekends be consumed with ARC stuff but it really won't be that long and it's for a very good reason! I have to student teach in April which means I will take a leave of absence from work but that shouldn't be too big of a deal. Everybody at work has been really supportive and I feel like they want what's best for me :)

So yeah, that's my big news for the month.