Summary

The Most Important thing that I learned this semester in Leadership for Change 294 is how to pursue my goal. This semester for me at UIC was difficult because most of my time went into my senior research thesis, and the History department at UIC require that the length of the paper to be 20pages. the Leadership for change course was my refuge for balance and it gave me the opportunity to relieve myself from the everyday stress from school. This sounds weird considering that the Leadership course is located at school but the class itself is taught in a way that allows me as a student to learn more effectively, and the teaching method promotes a stress free enviorment because I did not have to worry about taking notes or big exams. This above all things contributed to my growth as an individual, because it enabled me to focus on ME and to understand my strengths and my weaknesses. Due to this class my whole mode of thinking has changed because before this class I thought that all I had to do was go to school and I would achieve my goal. Halfway through the class I realize that to achieve my goal I had to do more things such as, networking, interviews, hardtimes, brainstorm, planning wall, etc; all of these are tools that will help me achieve my goal. Now I feel better prepared about my chances in the future and about how i will respond to challenges that I may face in the future. Through the class I was able to group with other individuals who also faced similar challenges, there was also individuals who had more experience and connections than I have and I was able to learn from them, these are things that I never did before. There are three things I like most about the class and that is , the teaching method, the interaction between students, and the amount of resources provided. I'm not saying that the class is perfect it did have some issues and that was: Grading, people who did not participate in the groups, and long debates. I suggest that the class remains the same because it has a great chemistry with the students

Sunday Meeting

This sunday I held a meeting with myself. this meeting with myself was to outline my next move and how would I execute my next move. I also went over everything I have done thus far and predicted how much more I would have to do to get to where I want to be. I also took the time out to think about what makes a good teacher, how can I be effective in my teaching and how to communicate to students with a wide range of learning needs.

Weekly business meeting

This week I held a meeting with my cousin Nick who also is pursuing a career in education. At the meeting we both made outlines as to how to accomplish various steps to achieving our short term goals that would eventually lead us to completing our ultimate goal. Nick has a lot of connects such as teachers, principals, city of Chicago administrators, etc. So through this meeting I was able to get connected with his connections because he gave me numbers and told me who to ask for and to tell them that I know him. We also made backup outlines as to what we would do if either of us failed to reach our primary objective. The weekly business meeting was very helpful because it allowed me to share my fears and inexperience's with others.

First steps

One of my first steps was to create a professional resume. So this week I decided to go to the UIC career services office located on Racine and Harrison. I sat down with shabeer and he help me find different words that could be used to make my resume more professional. I also learned new tips when it come to the outline of my resume. The plan is to create this resume and submitt it with an Application to work at Urban Prep Highschool. The funny part of completing this task was that I had to call urban prep highschool and I was kinda nervous because I could not find the number to the school online, so eventually I found it and when I called the school the receptionist gave me the number to the director of the school, so I dailed the directors number and his name popped up when I dailed it in my phone, come to find out I already had the directors number because I was talking to a friend of mine that I play basketball with and he gave me the number months ago, and he knows the director of Urban prep Highschool. This took away my nervousness and I was able to contact him and he told me that they are hiring and they especially want male black teachers because the school is an all boys school and it's in the hood (englewood). I'm on it!

Michgan State

The national championship game was a big upset for me because I was on the Rockemore ban wagon rooting for Michigan state, and they lost so I lost 80$. It's ok though, because they did put up a good fight to get to the Championship game, who could of thought that they could have beaten Louisville and UCONN wow! Big ups to the Spartans they deserve it.

P/S
I'm still mad as hell (Damn!)
Juicy

FEAR!

usually I'm not afraid to fail but this week I experienced fear:
1. I was afraid that I would not be able to get a job that would help pay the bills while im persuing my goal.
2. I noticed it this week and it manifested as panic, Instead of concentrating on what I had to do I was in a state of panic
3. the type of fear that was reveled to me was stage fright
4. The message is that I need to stay focus on my school work because it will open doors to jobs
5. I got over it by looking at T.V. and playing basketball

Next Step

OK now that I have gathered info and have completed my interviews I decided to go out and actually apply for teaching positions, but at the highschool level and the results were interesting. first things first I'm not a certified teacher nor have I completed any certification process. I just wanted to apply just to see what would happen and to get a very clear understanding of it would take just to teach at the secondary level. First I went to the Illinois board of education(located on 14th floor of the Thompson center) and told them that I'm graduating in May and that I did not take any teaching certification course, so I asked them what could I do. They told me that I could apply to an alternate route to teaching program offered at various educational institutions, come to find out this program is at UIC wow!. The told me the different qualifications so I said the hell with it how about substitute teaching and they told me how to apply and what I needed to have so I'm in the process of doing that now and if I'm done before 12:ooam I will blog about it. I know if I can sub the at least I would have a job while I'm contemplating on my next move. Then I got a revelation! my mom is a teacher at Marshall high school so I asked her if I was to sub could she get me in Marshall on a daily basis and she said that she can get me to sub everyday at Marshall. so today I went to Marshall high school to talk to the principal and he said my mom is cool and that he can hook me up. Wow! its not what you know it's who you know. Back to the plan I tried to apply to various educational institutions and it was all for nothing because they just throw your application away if you don't qualify.