Today, in thinking about teaching and having random thoughts floating around in my head, I realized that I had been out of school for a year and a half before coming to Japan. No big deal. Until I put that next to my future hope of teaching and the way Oregon teaching licenses work currently. They are good for 3 years, then you have to renew.
Simple, right? Well, I’m currently working on a master’s course so I’ll be able to renew my license and not lose it while I’m in Japan. My thinking with this was I would arrive home, have another year on the license I’m working toward and then have to renew again. But that didn’t account for the fact that I worked before I came to Japan.
Oops. That’s an easy solution though, if I stay here and the only requirement is that I have done more masters work, then I do that and easily renew my teaching license. All well and good. Except, I only get to renew three times before I am required to get my masters (with the possibility of renewing one more time for 1 year to finish).
So where does that leave my future thoughts? Well, if I do end up staying here for 5 years (though who knows what God’s plans are), maybe I’ll spend my first year back in a master’s course or taking classes to go towards it while subbing. Hmm, that means I should probably be thinking about what options there are for getting a masters and decide what type of master’s degree I’d like to work toward. Wow. That means when I thought I finally got to escape from school, I need to be thinking about it again.
