Testing, testing

When I interviewed with the men who would soon become my new principal and assistant principal,
Sam and Dale respectively, they asked the usual question about my teaching history.  I led off with my most recent assignment; 6th grade Science to 135 students at a, frankly, very wealthy school.  Teaching "rich" kids vs "poor" kids is a post unto itself, but I focused on the ways this job strengthened me in ways I hadn't expected.  Like the fact that I don't consider myself a scientist and yet have been offered three science jobs in the past five years.  The first (at Laurelhurst Elementary for you Portland readers) was a short term fill in for a teacher who left very abruptly under suspicious circumstances the details of which I never did find out.  After a week, I loved the job, the school, my fellow teachers (side note: my daughter's third grade teacher is now the Sped specialist there but on my first day she came in and gave me a huge welcome hug, not only making me feel great that she remembered me, but establishing my cred with the students who witnessed it) and the students.  I was offered the job for the rest of the year with the expectation that I would continue on forever.   But alas, I didn't have the necessary endorsement at the time to teach the single period of 7th graders I had so they hired someone else.  I found out later that if I had only taken the official "yeah, you know enough to teach this subject" test, I could have been hired, but no one gave me that option.  (sigh)

Fast forward to my Togiak interview.  Sam and Dale seemed thrilled that I not only had experience teaching Health but enjoyed teaching it as well.  In the course of our conversation, the two men danced around the topic so I finally blurted out, "Are you asking me if I'm okay teaching Sex Ed?"  Yes, they were and yes I was.  I think Sex Ed is one of the most important topics to teach middle schoolers (and younger, in appropriate ways, obviously) because so many parents are too squeamish to do it and because it is so easy for kids to find out faulty information on their own.  Pregnant from a swimming pool, anyone?  Getting full blown AIDS from mosquitos?  I could go on and on, but you get the point.

However, the classes they wanted me to teach the birds and the bees to are outside of my current endorsements, so I agreed to take the test this summer.  Which I did.  And promptly failed.  By one measly point.  I blame my poor study habits and lack of discipline for my failure.  I cracked a book or five but didn't do the prep work I knew I should have.  So now I am scheduled to take it again and have already prepped better than I did before.  First off, I gave myself ten days until testing day.  I also printed out the testing company's guidelines for what is actually on the test.  And I plan to not only skip a weekend strawberry picking trip in Washington that took me way off track last time, but I plan to not break my leg before the test.  Again.  Or ever. 

UPDATE:  I took the test again, and this time I passed!  Now I am just waiting for the testing company to send me my official scores but as far as I know, I am good to go.  Whew.