Congratulations Are In Order...

Michelle recently passed the final test necessary for her to become a certified teacher: the Praxis Pedagogy exam. This is the third round of Praxis exams we have had to take. She had to take this test in her field of teaching (elementary education) , and I have to take it in my field of teaching (World Languages exam, and I happen to be taking it tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning).

Since Michelle is in her last semester of her Master's degree at GMU, passing this Praxis test was basically the last thing she needed to do to be able to become a certified teacher. Hopefully I will be in the same position as her when I get my test results back a few weeks after I take the test. If you don't hear anything for a while, assume I am having to take the test again in June, but I am optimistic that I will pass it tomorrow and I really don't want to pay Praxis anymore money to take their tests. We had to drive to Vermont back when we were starting up with TFA and lived in Syracuse because my Spanish Praxis II test required me to record myself speaking and answering certain questions in their equipment and there wasn't anywhere closer (ugh!). So yeah....it would be really really nice to be done with Praxis exams.

You may be wondering how we were able to teach for the past two years if we are just now finishing up our degrees in the field of education/teaching and taking these final tests for licensure. That would be a good question on your part. Basically, we have been working under a provisional license, and you have two years under a provisional license to do all of the stuff that we have been doing to get certified by the end of the two years (graduate classwork, Praxis exams, etc.). This is how people with no prior experience in the field of education are able to become full-time teachers like we did through programs like Teach For America or Teaching Fellows (a program a lot like TFA but more decentralized, I think).