Income Quilt–Teaching
Sep 12th, 2008 by Patricia
I haven’t blogged for quite a while because life has been too hectic to process, much less write about. This was going to be my “laid back” summer. Hah!
Since the last time I wrote, I have ventured full-tilt into another patch on the writer’s income quilt–teaching.
There is a really interesting school here called the Vision Home and Community Program. It’s been around for about eight years. It combines home schooling with classroom instruction, with each learner (Visionspeak for student) having an individual learning plan tailored to his or her needs. I’ve been a staunch supporter of the program since it started and my oldest daughter is a Vision graduate.
The program is currently facing a lot of challenges. One of these is that the school district is requiring that there is a “highly qualified” person monitoring each of the four core educational areas: math, English, science and early childhood. Since I’ve got an MFA and also have teaching experience, I’ve been hired to be the Vision Educational Consultant for English, which means I have to review all 80 learning plans and make sure they adequately address the learners’ needs in English.
To fill in some gaps, I’m also teaching writing to 4th through 6th graders in the program and have a writing and critique class for older kids. These classes only meet once a week, so it’s not like being in a classroom all-day-every-day, but it has still taken a lot of work to design the curriculums and get the classes up and running, and the EC position is also a heavy time commitment this time of year.
Last, but not least, Mesa State College, whose main campus is 70 miles away in Grand Junction has hired me to teach English courses here in Paonia for their Outreach Program. I don’t know if the class I’m scheduled to teach this semester will fly since it happened with such short notice, but Mesa really wants to get some classes going in this area, so if it doesn’t get off the ground this fall, I’ll try again next semester.
I’m enjoying this new block on my quilt and it feels good to know my degree is starting to pay for itself. However, my own writing has been on the back burner while I’ve been putting together curriculum and syllabi and looked over learning plans and, in general, figuring out how to be an EC and trying to drum up students for my college class. Not to mention promoting my new picture book, which is out, at last, and having my granddaughter visit for two weeks and getting over to the Denver area (a 6 hour trip each way) to attend conferences and/or see my family and . . .and. . .and.
I don’t begrudge the time I’ve devoted to these things. I eagerly look forward, however, to being able to put writing at the top of my list, again. It’s not that I haven’t written at all since July, but I certainly haven’t written regularly, which means my writing muscles are as out of shape as an athlete who’s lolled on the beach for a month.
Today, I get back into training. Not only am I blogging, again–which feels great–but I have the next four hours set aside to work on my novel and have blocked in writing time on my calendar every day from now until Christmas. it’s time for me to get back to business.
How about you?
