Before I begin...

Before I begin posting, I wanted to give a brief introduction to myself. This coming school year (2009-2010) will be my second year in the classroom. I'm still new to all this, but at the same time I feel like coming in as a newcomer to this side of the education system has provided me with a lot of fresh insight. I wanted to share that with the public at-large, so here it is.

I have no formal training in education. I have my teacher certification through an alternative certification program, and in college never took a single theory class. Education seemed like a restrictive major to me in college, and I was never interested in it. Being an education major meant I would have had to sacrifice my favorite part of my college experience - the ability to take a broad variety of classes - for a very structured curriculum. When I decided I wanted to teach after I graduated, I enrolled in an alternative certification program. So, I teach in an area where they needed teachers in exchange for getting my professional license. I really liked this route to teaching.

I teach elementary school. I know most people interested in the knitty-gritty of education policy, if they taught at all, taught high school. I'm in a different position. My grade isn't a testing grade (I teach in Maryland, and state testing begins in Third grade for us). I don't have the high-stakes pressure of NCLB in the same way as my colleagues that teach in higher grades. But I see it. And I feel it in a different way.

Finally, everything I plan on posting here is my opinion. Sometimes informed, sometimes ill-informed. Sometimes researched, sometimes antecdotal, sometimes far-reaching and sometimes narrow in scope. It's a chronicle of my attempt to take one step further outside of my own classroom during my second year of teaching and see this system I am in for what it really is.