Greetings. Today is a significant day for me. Six months ago, I started working at my new job here in Austin. In some ways, it doesn't seem like its been 6 months, and in others, it does. Since I see my coworkers and the students on a daily basis, instead of only two or three times a week, it seems like I've been here forever.
Today was a significant day on another front: I tought my first real class. I've been overseeing, some would say "tought" but I see it as more monitoring or overseeing, a keyboarding class for several months now. I say overseeing, since I'm helping students along who are working at their own pace. I'm there to answer questions, troubleshoot computer and equipment problems, and teach them as they get into the latter portion of the class. For the most part though, I'm more of a monitor than a teacher. However, today I was given a Windows class of three students, which is a good number to start out with. Over all, I think I did pretty well. There are things I can improve on, but then again, there likely always will be. In my opinion, even the teacher that's been teaching for many years has things they can work on.
I don't know how long I'll be at this job. I hope for a long time. I've always seen this as a hard thing to answer, when someone asks you, "Where do you see yourself in your career in 5 years, in 10 years, etc?" I'm not sure. There's a large part of me that is still very much grateful to have the job I do and to be where I am. Thinking about where I see myself in 5 years, ..., well, I hope at the same job and doing much the same thing. Time will tell though. I don't have any plans of going anywhere any time soon, if that answers the question.
There's one final significance of today: since I hit the 6 month mark, I'm off the "new hire" probation. In other words, there has to be a good reason to get rid of me, :) That's a good feeling. Then again, its also a good feeling to, when finished with the lesson and getting ready to give out the homework, say, "I want you to go to lab tonight and work on, ..."
One of the neat things about teaching these classes is that very often, you follow the students from when they start keyboarding or Windows to when they graduate. Granted, this is not always how it happens. When the people in my Windows class graduate from the training center, I can take more pride in actually having tought them.
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Congrats to ya Wayne! I only wish I could say the same thing. Actually, I have been seriously contemplating dropping the ball on voc/rehab's sorry little you-know-what. I got to thinking, a while back, that if they won't help me then what's the point? But then today I have been doing some online research and I think I just might've found an answer. It is an agency called Jewish Vocational Service. At first I thought they were only here in Chi-town, but upon doing a Google search for them I found locations in other states too. A number of years back I heard that one has to be hooked up with their voc/rehab department in order to participate in any JVS services. But the website seems to indicate otherwise, so I have emailed them and am awaiting a response.
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