Mom Takes a Summer Job

The guys are off for a camping trip/astronomy fest at Chaco Canyon in the Farmington basin.

The CGP and I, along with the dogs and cats are here to hold the fort. She will be studying for finals.

I love Chaco, but I could not go this weekend. You see, I have to finish my last paper for my university semester. Two weeks early.

On Monday morning at 7:30 AM (Oy!) I start training for a summer job. Why am I taking a job? You may ask. And I'll tell you. We want to send N. to the Children of the Earth camps in New Jersey. He is signed up for two programs that follow up on what he did last year.

Below is a video highlighting the COYOTE TRACKS program in New Jersy.

And we are also buying land. And we want to do all this without borrowing money. So I am taking a job this summer, and the Engineering Geek is taking on some consulting for members of the Green Builders Association.

But this is not just any job.

This is a job that I am nervous and excited about.

I am going to be teaching reading to people who have difficulties with it through

the Institute for Reading Development.

When I read their call for teachers on the UNM Grad Student site, I thought to myself:

"Now this is the job I have been waiting for!"

I love the way they approach reading. What they want to do is develop people's reading skills so that they can become absorbed in the books they read, become part of the book, and make the book part of themselves. Instead of professional educators, they look for people who love books, who eat,drink, and breathe books, who cannot imagine life without them.

And like many of us who homeschool, I am one of those people.

And in my alternative path to teaching, I got very little training in how to teach reading for pleasure and absorption. My two courses in reading (Reading in the Content Field for Secondary Teachers, and Teaching Reading to Children with Disabilities) were good, but did not have the depth I had hoped.

So it's back to work for me. While N. is working on the last few of his math lessons for the year next week, and doing some Kamana, I am going to be getting paid for ten intense days of distance training that involves conference calls, internet work, and study of the teaching manuals for the program. They also sent me 5 books to be read next week, although I have already begun.

They are:

Henry Huggins

A Cricket in Times Square

Banner in the Sky

The Fellowship of the Ring

Dibs in Search of Self.

I am excited.

And nervous.

And I have to complete my last paper before it all begins. The days of pulling all-nighters to write papers are far behind me.

At least if I want to be coherent.

I know this summer's work will be intense.

Teaching is always intense.

But I will meet new people, spend time with kids and adults, and make some money.

And N. will go to BSA camp in Colorado in June, and to New Jersey for two weeks via Illinios for two weeks in August. He will earn 5 badges, then visit his cousins, then visit our former cantor and her children and then go to camp.

Busy summer ahead!