The Most Important Job There Is

I wanted to explain my silence here for the past several days. June 19, which is the last day I posted, was also my last day of having any free time until August 4. I have started my pre-service teacher training, which is one of the components of the alternate certification route to becoming a teacher that I am taking with NYC Teaching Fellows. On Tuesday, June 20, I started graduate coursework at Lehman College in the Bronx (part of the City University of New York, or CUNY) that will eventually earn me a Master's degree in English Education, subsidized by the City of New York in return for teaching for the next two to three years in a high-needs middle school or high school, also in the Bronx.

In addition to being in classes from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. five days a week, I have mountains of homework; and starting July 5, I will be adding student teaching to the mix. In the fall, I will have a Transitional B certificate which will qualify me to teach full-time in a NYC public school until I get my permanent certification.

Right now, I am exhilarated, thrilled, incredibly excited, terrified, exhausted, and totally overwhelmed. The NYC Teaching Fellows program attracts thousands of applicants from all over the country and even other countries; and I feel honored and very, very grateful to have been accepted as a Fellow.

All of which is to say that, as much as I want to post at Liberty Street every day, my top priority right now is becoming a secondary English teacher in the NYC public school system. The NYCTF staff told us at a welcoming ceremony on Monday that what we are doing is the most important work anyone can do. It's a calling, really.

So I will post when I can, but it will not be every day.

For now, I refer you to a reply I just posted to a series of comments by one of my right-wing readers. That will serve as today's substantive post.