University Life

I received notice that I have been accepted into residence at university, so I'll be living on campus and won't have to hunt for an apartment. This is good news for me. My apartment will be studio-style, with a semi-detached kitchen and a completely-detached (obviously) bathroom. There is one closet and a dresser, but I imagine I'll have to go to IKEA and get a mini-wardrobe, because I've got a lot of clothes! The only downside (besides the cost) is that it only has a mini-fridge, so I'll need to get a freezer as well. I love to cook and I simply can't survive with only a minifridge. How could I make ice cubes, much less store filo pastry?

Lots of Mail This Morning

I am happy to report that I received some official correspondance from my academic department today, including information about registering (still no date though) and a form regarding my "practicum" placement. At some universities you complete a four-month practicum in the last semester of your two-year degree program. At my university you're literally in the classroom from Day One. So I had to fill out a form about my geographical preference, whether I had access to a vehicle, and whether or not I was eligible to teach in a private religious school. There is also a community-service element to the program, where you teach or work in a non-public-school setting. The purpose of this is to expose Student Teachers to opportunities outside of the public school system. I filled everything out this morning and it's already in the mail! I will also have to get a criminal record check before I am placed in a classroom, so I'll get to that later this week. The early bird gets the worm!

On the subject of religious schools, someone told me that the Ontario Catholic School Board is so desperate for Catholic teachers that they are now hiring Catholics with no teacher training over qualified non-Catholic teachers. If you ask me, the only people being hurt by this policy are the students themselves.

Now I Get It... and Other Education News

One month after my first phone call to the Education department, and two months after my initial email, I finally received a response. According to the Education website, I should have received an email with a registration access date in late April. I did receive that email. According to the person who phoned me from the Education department, only second-year students receive their registration access dates in April. In that case, one must wonder why that information is posted on the first-year registration information site, and why it remains there today after I alerted them to the posted misinformation. Hmmmm...

In other news, there is a lot of discussion in my community about young people entering university and college, and the workplace, without the ability to read and write properly. This discussion mainly takes place in the Letters to the Editor section of the local newspaper. For the most part, it involves old people whining that "things aren't like they used to be" and that young whippersnappers nowadays can't read words with more than three letters thanks to SMS-culture.

In today's paper, one such intellectual wrote in to share his story about education back in the good old days. He wrote:

"They can not write a good sentence consistently."

I would like to point out that "consistently" is an adverb of frequency, like "almost", "sometimes" and "never". Therefore, it should be placed before the verb it is referring to, in this case "write". So, the correct sentence should read:

"They can not consistently write a good
sentence."

In my personal opinion, someone shouldn't write a Letter to the Editor arguing that young people today can't read and write unless the author himself is able to write a proper sentence with properly-placed adverbs of frequency. Clearly education in 1950 wasn't that much better than it is today!

3...2...1... Contact!

After two unsuccessful phone calls and two unsuccessful emails to the Education department at my future university, the Registrar's office has finally re-opened. One phone call later and I've found out that the information posted on the Education website is inaccurate, and that I won't receive a registration access date until nearly two weeks after it was promised to me. Then, towards the end of May, I will be given a window of time in which I can register for my courses. I still haven't heard anything from the Education department.

The moral of this story is that high school students should believe me when I say that your teacher really does want to be there teaching you. Anyone who didn't really want to teach would never have had the patience to actually register for (much less complete) an Education degree! University bureaucracy is almost unparalled and university students seem to be the bottom priority for the university administration.

Progress to Date

It is now May 5th, 2006. I'm not feeling the love from the University or the Faculty of Education. I have not received notice of my course registration date (despite the school's promise that it would be available in late April). I have phoned the Teacher Training Department two times, left one message, and sent two emails (this over the course of three weeks) and I have not received a reply. Nobody in the Department ever answers the phone.

If this whole Education thing fails, I think I would like a job working in the administrative department of the university. They don't appear to work very hard, they are never nice to students and they get paid very well (in my hometown, a university secretary is unionized and earns $2,700 per month plus benefits).

Financial Aid applications are available in about a month (supposedly) and I should find out about accomodation around the same time. Right now it's just sitting and waiting...

Welcome to the Student-Teacher Diary

In September, 2006 I will begin a Bachelor of Education degree in Secondary Language Arts Education. This two-year program will prepare me to work in a high school, teaching Language Arts. I plan to document my experiences on this site.