School update

So.

My second and last semester of my master's degree starts on Monday.To clear any confusion, I get the Ed.M degree at the end of this year. If I want to be licensed to be a practicing school counselor in MA, I have to attend the second (optional) year of the program next year and earn the CAS (Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study) in School Counseling. Some people who already have teaching certificates will just go back to teaching after this year. It gets confusing.

Anyway. So school starts on Monday. This week was shopping. As I've explained before, the professors each hold two shopping sessions for their classes. They often pass out the syllabus and go over assignments for the semester. It's like the first days of school at BYU used to be, except they get it over with before school actually starts so you can decide you don't want to take a class before you're already missing the first day of one you DO end up wanting to take. And then, since you've gotten your syllabus at shopping, you have assignments due on the first day of class.

Anyway. So we shop. I shopped 10 classes I think. There were three I was really interested in.

One was talking about how different things affect education and child development. Like... how does religious schooling affect children long-term? How does bilingual education affect children long-term? One of his units was about how the education rate of mothers is a very strong predictor of educational achievement in their children. If a mother has a high school degree, her child is less likely to be incarcerated, more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to participate in risk behaviors, etc. than the child of non-high-school-educated mothers. Of course the effects are magnified as the mother's education level goes up. If she's college-educated, her children have a much better chance of becoming responsible, well-educated people.

It was interesting and I wanted to take it, but it was offered at a crappy time.

Another was Moral Adults: Moral Children. The professor (who is also cross-listed at the Harvard Kennedy School) said the class would not be about what IS moral, but about how adults can instill morals in young people, whether they be their children, students, etc. His class argues about what moral qualities adults view as most important, how children develop moral identities, how the world's emphasis on self-esteem and happiness is screwing up children today (in not so many words), and just generally the idea that society's youth seem to lack any semblance of a moral compass these days. The professor summed up his class as: Figuring out how adults can encourage children to become and, even more importantly, WANT to become, good people.

And then there was an assessment class that is required for school counseling licensure. I took a very very very similar class at BYU, and I even TA-ed for it, so this assessment class should be a piece of cake. The only difference will be some of the assignments; we have to conduct a mental status exam, and also administer an IQ test to someone. Woo! (Watch out family.)

There were others I was interested in, but those were the three I was considering most. I signed up for the Moral Adults:Moral Children class and the Assessment (or "Theories and Methods of Child/Adolescent Cognitive and Psychological Assessment"). I ordered the books required (outside of coursepacks) today for $20! Yay!

I was looking over the syllabus for my Moral Adults:Moral Children class and one of the required readings for the second week of class is The Giving Tree. Awww- I love that book! Any professor who assigns Shel Silverstein is a friend of mine.

So hopefully things go well this semester!

(Oh and in case you were wondering, I have two other classes that were/are full-year; that's why I was only choosing two electives.)

p.s.- the snow is getting ridiculous. 3 of the last 7 school days at my practicum site were snow days. In Cromwell, I heard 4 of the 7 were snow days. And next week there's supposed to be a pretty big storm Tuesday/Wednesday. Ridiculous!