This weekend, I had to take my subject area teaching certification tests in Birmingham, so Todd and I rented a hotel room for the night so that I wouldn't have to get up at 4 am on Saturday. We left early on Friday so that I could stop at the high school on the way and work on the classroom a little bit. Todd was nice enough to help me clean a little - he even scraped moldy gum off the desks and shelves. Then, we stopped at a fancy outdoor mall in Birmingham before going to our hotel so that I could find some work clothes. I charged my credit card up quite a bit, but it had to be done.
Saturday morning I took my tests. Ugh! I hate testing all day. I was freezing my butt off during both tests (in Alabama, go figure), and I didn't get more than a 5 minute break between each test. The tests were both easier than the Michigan ones, so I think I should be okay. On the Michigan ones it seems like the testers are out to trick you with every question, and these ones were a lot more straightforward. The weird thing was that on both tests they emphasized correcting student errors, whereas in Michigan they had some questions about teaching strategies. Also, the French test was about 1/3 listening; in Michigan it was only about 1/5 of the test. In other words, I think I did okay, but maybe the percentages of different types of questions is throwing me off.
Today, Todd is coming with me again to the high school because he was nice enough to offer to help me clean all day. I'd like to get it completely cleaned by today so that I can spend the rest of this week thinking about things like room arrangement, bulletin boards, decorations (if I can scrounge any up), classroom management, and lesson planning. I don't want to have to be sweeping up cockroaches and scraping gum off desks the Friday before school starts.
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