Credit Whore

01/10/2006

Okay, maybe the word whore is a bit strong, but that’s essentially what I’ve become. You see, in education, the only way you can get a raise is by getting something called Continuing Education Units (CEU), or by accomplishing a higher degree. It’s basically me paying so I can continue teaching so others can get paid for teaching me so others can teach them… on an on until there is a huge bureaucracy of people taking classes from each other and leeching off the government as much as possible. Or something like that.
Well, I can’t get a raise or move up to the next level unless I have enough units. Doesn’t matter how good of a teacher I am. Just how many units I have. Well, I don’t want to take really hard classes that require lots of homework. I want the credits! I want them cheap and I want them fast with very little effort. I know that sounds sad… I mean, I want to grow as an individual as well. But, for those of you in education, you know that education classes are generally the place for hoop jumping – for discussing something you’ve discussed a million times before, but participating nonetheless so you can just get the credit. They are not the place to go to experience personal growth. The whole thing makes me a little ill to be honest.
I found out that the fastest and cheapest way for me to earn CEUs is to go to conferences, usually over a weekend, and pay for units through a local university. So, this weekend I’m going to the MacWorld Educators Symposium in San Francisco, immediately followed by a Reader’s Conference in Asilomar. I went to the Art Education Conference in November (which is actually a useful conference for me). I’m also going to the iCUE Conference in February and the Northern California Art Education conference at the end of February.
All said and done, I will have earned enough cheap & quick units to earn me a nice little raise. Sometimes I wish I could just get rewarded for being a good teacher so I could have my evenings and weekends to… I don’t know… do non-teaching related things. That would be way cool.