Certifiable?
Emmet Rosenfeld was an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. He had 13 years of experience as a teacher and writer when he started this blog. In this opinion blog, he chronicled his experiences as he worked toward certification from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: certification & licensing.
Education
Opinion
Describe, Analyze and Reflect On This
Spring break sprang, kids’ soccer is rained out for the third weekend in a row, and I retreat to my basement office to slog on towards the base of the mountain. This week, as promised, I’ll address how to describe and analyze “accomplishments that contribute to student learning” as required in Entry 4.
Education
Opinion
Spring break happens
Not to mention Passover and Easter. Which is why I will delay, for a week, my plunge into Entry 4 as laid out last post. Instead, here is a list of things I did and did not do on my week off.
Education
Opinion
How to Eat an Elephant
Four entries will eventually be due. In my recently completed intro class, they recommended we first tackle Entry 4, “Documented Accomplishments: Contributions to Student Learning.” I present this and more verbiage to come in quotes. If I were talking to you, the pointer and middle fingers on both hands might get sore. Paraphrasing this stuff just doesn’t do it justice.
Reading & Literacy
Opinion
Live Poets
My ninth graders, a class I hope to “use” in my portfolio, have just finished a poetry unit. They created booklets with wonderful covers, selected poems by and analyzed the work of both dead and live poets, and composed three original poems.
Education
Opinion
W.W.A.T.?
My favorite The Master Teacher pamphlet is purple: Volume 37, Number 17, entitled “Five Questioning Techniques to Strengthen Your Teaching.” What’s that? Not familiar with the homespun flyers that change ink color but not layout each week, and are stuffed into teachers’ mailboxes at many schools in lieu of actual face-to-face professional development? They come from Leadership Lane in the heart of Kansas, according to the publisher's address, and what I like about them is that the ideas and strategies are guaranteed to work, as certified by a seal, depicted complete with rivets, on the front cover. Also the “Points to Ponder...” can be pondered “privately... or with colleagues.” Sometimes I do it by myself.
Education
Opinion
Be Jack Bauer
What does being a super cool secret agent preventing terrorists from releasing poison gas and being a candidate for National Board Certification have in common? Both involve tense situations with a little timer running on the screen as you make do or die decisions. Except instead of 24 hours, the amount of time super spy Jack Bauer has to save the world on the hit show shot in real time, “24”, the NBPTS candidate only has four hours at the assessment center to answer six essay questions covering content and pedagogy. Candidates are advised to complete their portfolios before going for the online test, which is what I plan to do. That means it’s nearly a year away. But, during the last meeting of our five-session Fairfax County introductory class, our instructors decided to give us a taste of writing under pressure with timed writing to an in class prompt.
Education
Opinion
Six Core Propositions
Maybe I’m making this whole thing out to be harder than it is. Let’s begin at the beginning...
Education
Opinion
Got Your Twizzle On?
My wife thought I was lame for crashing in front of the TV every night for the past few weeks watching the winter Olympics. Little did she know I was gleaning valuable lessons as I set my sights on NBPTS gold.
Education
Opinion
How Many Angels?
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? This question of cosmic choreography, long the realm of medieval rabbis and more recently of interest to Madonna, a famous celebrity convert to the strain of Jewish mysticism known as cabbalah, suddenly seems more important to me than it did before I started on the path to National Board enlightenment.
Education
Opinion
Because It's There
Am I nuts? Can I do it? I am a 13-year teacher about to take on one of the toughest challenges the profession has to offer--national-board certification--and this blog will chronicle the effort. So far, I’ve been to a couple meetings of a five-session introductory class offered by Fairfax County to would-be candidates. A few steps into what they warn us may be a 600-hour journey.