Some Big News!

Well, if you follow me on Twitter, I said last night that I was about to break some big news on the blog.  And that the news was NOT that I'm pregnant.  So get that out of your head.

But the news is that I got accepted to Teach Charlotte!  If you're not familiar with it, it's a program run by The New Teacher Project, the same organization that runs the teaching fellows programs in New York City, Chicago, Oakland/San Francisco, DC, and NOLA, among others.  Basically, they recruit what they consider to be highly-qualified, highly-motivated teachers and place them in high-need schools and subject areas.

I haven't been able to say anything about it because I wasn't sure if I was accepted yet or if I was going to take the offer.  I wasn't ready to tell my family and really embrace it.  But now I have, and I really can't remember the last time I was more excited or happy about something.

The program guarantees me a job with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools if I pass the Praxis test.  I have to take two of them on June 11, and if I fail either, I'm out.  I'm taking a general knowledge and a mild to moderate disabilities special education test because I'll be teaching special education classes.  Most likely, I'll be serving as a pull-out resource teacher, pulling kids out of class who need extra help because of learning disabilities.

I've always wanted to teach, and it's just never happened for me until now.  I can't wait to get started and I can't wait to meet my students.  I don't know what it will mean for my honeymoon, because I'll be a brand new teacher and may have to work.  Luckily, I have the most supportive fiance in the entire world (gag alert, but seriously) and he'd be behind me if I told him I wanted to join the traveling circus.  I'm more excited than anyone about the honeymoon, but we have insurance on it, and we can always postpone it if we have to.  This is more important, and this might be my only chance to do this.  No matter what, we're still getting married and we're still going to have an awesome wedding.

I'm sure you'll be seeing more of me around here, even though I'm going to be incredibly busy trying to study for the bar (yes, I'm still doing that too) and also doing this Teach Charlotte thing.  One reason I haven't been around much is that this has been on my mind since the application process started, and I haven't been able to talk about it.

So for all of my teacher friends that are readers over here on my little corner of the internet, I'll take all the advice you can give me!  About the Praxis, about teaching, about interviewing (I do still have to interview for my job) - anything!