Just a Substitute Teacher.....: July 2013

Thursday, July 18, 2013

CCTC - Part 2

School starts next month and that means I have to renew my California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) 30-day Substitute Teaching Permit for the 2013/14 school year.

What should be a straightforward process last year ended up frustratingly complicated . I was hoping that this year, the problems would have long since been resolved before trying again this year.

The new process includes ten additional pages of Q&A questions certifying under penalty of arrest and prosecution that I'm not a bad guy. After successfully negotiating the online criminal interrogation, the following message appears:

"...Thank you for submitting your application.

"Your browser should open a new window to Process your Payment. Please do not click the BACK or REFRESH button.

You may close this window."

Finally!

Except that, no new payment window opens. Repeated attempts end with the same result. I suppose this means another trip down the district office to try the process again on one of their fruit based (Apple) computers that schools favor so much.

Update - July 26, 2013
It seems that "popup blockers" need to be disabled when accessing the state websites. So I was now able to pay for my credential but still required a trip down to the school district office to see which of three different credential formats they wanted for their records.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Life Coach?

I received an inquiry from someone who is a "life coach". Since I hadn't ever heard of this before, I had to ask a few questions:

What exactly IS a Life Coach?

The responsibility of a life coach is to improve the quality of his or her client's life, by offering advice on professional and personal matters, such as career, health, personal relationships, etc.

For example, last year I'm coaching a student in 7th grade named Jordan (name changed). Jordan's goal is to get into a top notch private school. Unfortunately, he is failing most classes. After going through Phase I, we develop specific and measurable actions for him to achieve this goal. His ability to 'manage' all his tasks immediately improve. Then, we focus on his 'decision making' which is centered around his goal. Several weeks ago, Jordan graduates with the choice of 5 top tier private schools.

Do you train people to become Life Coaches (a school) or do individuals come to you for coaching?

Individuals come to us for coaching and it's broken down into three phases.

Phase 1 (6 weeks) - We concentrate on perceiving (the 1st of the 5 Pillars of Emotional Intelligence). Perceiving is the the ability to accurately recognize, attend to and understand emotion. As a teacher, you know that many students have a high academic IQ. However, emotional IQ is not taught. In other words, we help students to observe, label and identify how they think.

Phase II (8 weeks) - Together, we develop a list of goals with an emphasis on 'managing' and 'decision making' (2nd and 3rd pillars of EI). Then each week, we teach one new skill for the student to use in attaining that goal.

Phase III - maintenance - This is only needed for those who desire to continue growth and study the final two pillars of an emotional IQ (achieving and influencing).

It's a contemporary (fun) combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and life coaching.
Does that help to answer your questions? What other information can I provide?

Thank you so much for your time Mark,

-Wes Murphy

After working as a substitute teacher for the last ten years, I know of a few students AND THEIR PARENTS that might benefit from a bit of coaching in their decision making choices.