11. Get my teaching credential

Yes, it is true!

I can officially apply for teaching positions and be hired as a teacher receiving a teaching salary!

Unfortunately there is no real certificate to show off, its just an image online showing that I have a credential.  Therefore, I can't really show anything off.  BUT I do have fancy pictures of my students that I will show off :)

This is my 2nd period on our last day together :)
(I am on the bottom left :), I tell you because you probably can't tell who I am haha)

This is Miss Rylee, she was my very favorite in this class.  Teachers say they don't have favorites, but I'm here to bust that myth.  She was so helpful and strong when the rest of the class was out of control.

This is my 3rd period on our last day together.

(You can try to find me here haha)

These two were my bodyguards all year, they had my back and took care of me, Trenton on the left - David on the right.  They often helped me carry large, heavy items to my car or to wherever and were always a huge help!  They also loved being that much taller than me. :)

This lovely is Melia.  We had super strong talks and I was able to mentor her the most this year.  She is a lot like me when I was in high school.  It was quite the experience to reflect while also advising her. <3

And these are my ladies.  These three were so much fun!! From left to right, McCall, Ysabella and Brooke.  McCall and I often owned the same clothes.. Ysa and I are both heavily in love with Hello Kitty, and Brooke and I could just laugh at the same craziness going on in class daily.

Last but not least.  I didn't want to purchase a yearbook because they are so darn expensive and I only knew about 1/10 of the students in it.  So instead I purchased a signature frame and had both of my classes sign it.  David is posing with it here as everyone finished signing it.  I have placed the two class pictures in the middle of it and it is ready to be displayed in my next classroom! You can never replace your first classes.

*Now, some of you that know I taught 3 classes are probably wondering where my third class is.  Well, they were freshman and were very googly and would not be able to handle something like this.  Trust me when I say this, and I have my very good friend Mackenzie to back me up, that they would have taken this as a joke and mean things would have been written on my "yearbook".  They do exist, they just aren't portrayed here.

My Name

For an assignment in one of my teaching credential classes we were asked to think of our names.  It is what is going to stamp us for the rest of our career as our students mispronounce them, make fun of them, ignore them and just call you Miss or Mister, and all together stomp on them until we don't care what we're called anymore, as long as the students are paying attention.

Anyway! This is what I came up with for my name...

Alex DeHart.

My dad keeps telling my sister and me that we are Italian, "because the Italians are the only ones with a capital letter in the middle of their last names!", he would say. But my mother says that is false. I’ve found that my ancestors are from the heart of England and that’s that.
Either way, I mix them up.

The capital H in my name is pretty important if you ask anyone who knows me. I make it quite a big deal and it creates a prestige that makes me feel like my family is royalty, lets just say we’re up there with the Queen of England. But they aren’t – and if they were, they clearly would have no idea which family they’re from anyhow.

I like to tell people my name means love. But I couldn’t just be Hart because that is too boring, so they gave me a little piece of mystery at the beginning – De. This together means "mysterious love".. Well at least to me.

It is my first name that gives no sort of explanation like "mysterious love", instead I all the sudden lose my gender and have to start defending myself for my parents un-orginiality when naming their last child. It’s a boy’s name! And everyone knows this. When someone sees my name prior to meeting me, they assume I’m going to stand tall, with a deep hearty voice, and a grip of a handshake. They are generally surprised when they see my 5-foot tall frame and hear a higher pitched voice. Shocked is a better word actually.
My professors never forget me. They call roll… "Amanda Brown" – "Here". "Chad Clark" – "Here". "Carol Dane" – "Here". "Alex DeHart" – "Here". …. It gets silent as they look up at me from their roster with a puzzled look on their face. "A girl? Did I call the name our right?" they think to themselves. And they repeat, "Alex DeHart?". I say again, "Here!". "Oh, you’re a girl.." and right then and there the class is staring at me. "Yes, I am a girl."

The following conversation usually has to do with whether or not Alex is even my full name, and when I say yes, it’s a question of whether I’m telling the truth. It must be impossible for a girl to be named Alex without some sort of explanation to suit the crowd in front of me, but I really don’t have one.

My name is just Alex DeHart. And yes, I am a girl.
I cherish this and I say that it is what makes me unique. I’m not just a girl, but I’m a girl with a boys first name and a rock hard last name regardless of where it comes from.

First day of student teaching!!

Annnddd I loved it.

I'm not in Esperanza at the moment because they aren't ready for me to be in the classroom- so I went to VHS! YES YES YES!

Greeted with open arms and spent a couple periods observing some old teachers for my first day!
I loved every moment of it.

Had to share.

I survived!

Today was my first day of the Teaching Credential Program at CSUF and I came out of my 4 hour orientation alive and more excited than I was going in!

I only had a week of summer this year but I was still eager to get this program started and learn a whole lot! Today was definitely an irregular first day of school for me, there wasn't a syllabus to go over or any nonsense blah blah blah to get stuck listening to - it was very informative and I'm seriously so excited to get into a classroom!

Esperanza High School look out - here I come!