A Job for Joann?!?!

Yes, for the first time since Celia was born, I have a paying job. (part time.) It all happened rather suddenly. One day back in May it came to me that I needed to get a job. There were a number of reasons for this. I have felt the need for a new challenge, and for someone to hold me to higher expectations that what typically happens in a volunteer position. I also had formed some bad habits of being somewhat obsessive about the house and garden, and over-responsible for things I shouldn’t be taking responsibility for. I also felt the need to be around other people more.

The obvious choice for me was to return to teaching in some way. Though I haven’t taught for pay in 26 years, I find myself continually drawn to teaching in my volunteer work, and I have always really enjoyed it. Over the course of the next few weeks, I talked to a number of people who were involved in some form of teaching. I also checked to see what was necessary to renew my certification, and found that I have a life-time certification! What a surprise.

Because I love working one on one or with small groups, I thought about doing private tutoring, but decided that I needed to find a place to tutor where I could receive training and work with other people. So I checked with a couple of tutoring centers and decided to work for Sylvan Learning Centers. I have gone through their training and am beginning to teach, though very part time at this point. I am learning a lot about what is involved in prescriptive tutoring.

My ultimate goal is to work in some sort of tutoring program for disadvantaged children (similar to my work at First Place) with improved skills in diagnosing and setting up learning programs specific to the needs of individual children. I may take some classes this coming year toward this end.

Joann