*Officially* a NYC Teacher.

While I have already kicked off my third year as a NYC public school teacher, it is today that I became officially recognized. In the mail today I received my teaching certificates for both middle school general education and for special education.

I thought they'd be bigger. The certificates are 3 and a 1/2 inches by roughly six inches, but they lend me the credibility I've been lacking as an educator. No longer am I simply a misguided Teaching Fellow with a transitional B certification, but an older and wiser soldier in the trenches.

Trial by fire, 30 months of grad school, copious testing...and these two slips of paper are mine.

I'm playing with the big boys now!

You know you're a role model when...

Your students begin to dress like you. I came into school today to find that my student was wearing the same sweater as myself, in the same color. People thought we planned it, and we both got our chops busted a bit through the day.

But when you think of it... Imitation is the best form of flattery. And it sure beat the shirt the same-said student wore last week. That shirt sported the slogan "Who needs to work with an ass like this?"

A step in the right direction.