WGU Master's in Elementary Education - Progress Thread

[nykorn]

I am moving through this degree pretty fast despite not already being a teacher, paraeducator, etc so thought I would write about how I am doing here.


The WGU Master's in Elementary Education for Licensure (this license is valid for kindergarten through 8th grade) is what looks like around 20 normal courses + around 6 courses directly related to internship, classroom observation, student teaching or portfolio, totalling at 51 CPUs for the entire degree. On top of that, as additional rules for state licensure, you need to pass what is essentially a state GED test at the k-12 level, do an internship (may take 3 months to find placement, and is usually not possible to find in the summer months), get fingerprinted background checks, etc. All of this red tape means that even if you finish the actual WGU courses super fast it is almost impossible to graduate for licensure in just 1 term - especially if the schools are on summer vacation during any part of your term. 2 terms is doable by anyone however.

Why did I choose WGU? I actually contacted several schools and teacher licensing agencies, as I already had a Bachelor's degree. WGU was by far the cheapest and easiest option. Two companies had quoted me at around $20,000 to get a state license. I went to the local school district office to ask about how to get licensed in person - they refused to even glance at the resume I brought. After I submitted proof I was going to WGU though they offered me a job right away (see below!).

In the month between registration, acceptance, and term start:

• Created and studied Anki deck made from Quizlet flashcards on each course subject. I used this addon: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1362209126
  
• Got basic Complio background check (required for student teaching) through WGU.
  
• Filled out as much of the info on the OSPI e-certification (state teacher license) website and other places required for student teaching as possible.
  
• Applied for jobs at local school district. As I had no official WGU enrollment letter yet I attached a background check proving I did through WGU.
  
• Applied for contract work managing exchange students, which requires a state license to do. The idea is to boost my CV with some form of licensed child-related work.
  

WGU study technique:

• Use Chrome addon to speed up videos to 2x or more. Read subtitles. (Sound + text is more effective for your brain).
  
• Add unknown stuff to Anki as I read the course material. Include images. Review Anki in the bath, before bed, etc. but WGU is the priority, not Anki cards.
  
• Do all reading as fast as possible. Do all assignments only after having done all the reading. Take the test only after having done all the assignments and getting caught up on Anki for that course.
  
• When WGU is vague on a person, event, philosophy, etc I google for additional info.
  

1st Term start: March 1st 2024.

• Course 1) March 1 - Started Foundations of Education (2 CPUs), Read 5 of 5 (5/5) reading units.
  
• 2) March 2 (Sat) - Submitted 3/3 assignments. Started Educational Psychology & Human Development (4 CPUs), Read unit 1/5. This course is said to be tough for many people because it has a lot of various philosophies about learning, some of which are named similarly or counterintuitively.
  
• March 3 (Sun)  - Read units 3/5.
  
• March 4 - Read units 5/5. Had to order table clamp for webcam for the proctored tests so postponed the exam. Resubmitted 2/2 assignments. Foundations of Education marked as complete.
  
• March 5 - Submitted 2/2 assignments for Educational Psychology. Got emergency substitute teacher license & paraeducator license offer from school I applied at a few weeks before starting at WGU, they specifically mentioned WGU in their Email.
  
• 3) March 6 - Started “Schools as Communities of Care” (2 CPU), read units 2/5.
  
• March 7 - Read 5/5 units. Tried to register for first proctored exam, no open time slots that day.
  
• March 8 - Resubmitted 1 assignment. Spent whole day trying to figure out why I was only getting error 400 messages from the proctoring service, the “ID verification” page wasn’t loading, the test page claimed my login info was wrong when it wasn't, etc. Couldn’t start test.
  
• March 9 (Sat) - Submitted 5/5 assignments. Took & passed proctored Educational Psychology & Human Development test (something like 50-70 questions, it took me 15-20min). Educational Psychology marked complete. Emailed mentor asking for more courses to be approved & unlocked.
  
• March 10 (Sun) - Resubmitted 1 assignment. Completed full application & passed test for the exchange student work.
  
• 4) March 11 - Mentor unlocked next course in late afternoon. Started Essential Practices for Supporting Diverse Learners (3 CPU). Read 1/7 units. This course is said to be hard for many students because it contains a bunch of terminology to learn including specific court case or law names. Contains a sort of proctored assignment where you teach inside a virtual reality classroom (looks like Second Life or The Sims) with student characters played by actors who respond in real-time. However you are not graded on your teaching, instead you are just supposed to use as self-reflection and are graded on your self-reflection. Someone put up a video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHWKpdR8Se4
  

I will continue the timeline after more time passes!

From these first 10 days I learned:

• Averaged out, 1 CPU per day is doable for me.
  
• The "forgetting curve" is serious. It is easier to pass a course by going through all the reading material in 1 day than it is to spread out the reading and assignments over a week and pass it.
  
• If you just have say 3 courses to do in your last term, the pricing changes from $4,000 for 6 months to a pay-per-course plan so you pay less than $4,000.
  
• So far all revisions are because I missed something simple in the assignments (like it says “list 2 examples” and I forgot to list the 2nd one).
  
• WGU assignment evaluators/graders work on weekends, but mentors (the ones in control of unlocking your next courses) do not.
  
  
• I will need to study math in my free time to pass the state exams. I took my last math course in 2008 and never used it since then, so when I previewed the state exam I realized I’ve forgotten even basic math terms like “integer” and stuff like how to calculate exponents or multiply fractions with whole numbers.
  
• WGU is like the university version of trade school. In normal university you learn a bunch of stuff related to the subject which doesn’t necessarily help you at work nor reflect real-life usage. All the stuff you learn at WGU (or trade school) is directly tied to what you need to know to do the job, to get the license, to understand what your coworkers are saying, or to be seen GOOD at your job. I have already seen “teacher slang” phrases WGU has taught me on TikToks by high schoolers and teachers that appear on Facebook, and law names (referred to by the short name only) on school webpages in the fine print, for example. I suppose someone fresh out of high school would already know some of these but to me it’s almost like the whole school system including the terminology for everything and every type of student, has changed since 2008.
  
• If you just read the material, and make Anki cards as you go, you will easily pass. WGU makes assignments no stress. I don’t dread assignments, tests, or checking feedback to see what I need to revise.
  

---

Advice I got from WGU:

• Sandwich longer courses in between shorter courses, as that statistically has the best results for completion speed and motivation. So your first term should look like (2 CPU) (4 CPU) (2 CPU).
  
• When you get interview assignments, try to use them to interview the principal or administrative staff at the school you want an internship at. This gets your face known to the staff and they are more likely to welcome you for an internship.
  
• (This info is fuzzy) When you do digital fingerprinting, which btw is appointment only and costs around $80, tell them to print out 3 copies of your fingerprints in case something goes wrong - sometimes they take your fingerprints then forget to send them where they should. You need them sent to 1) OSPI (board of education), 2) the state background check department, 3) the school you are getting the license at. While WGU itself accepts bg checks done via paper fingerprint cards, the local school I got offered a license at only accepts digital fingerprinting.
  
• A Bachelor’s of Education is often treated as equal weight to a Master’s in the hiring process, and when it’s not then a Master’s has more weight. So if you already have a Bachelor’s in something else, just get the Master’s despite that it is almost impossible to get grants or scholarships for a Master’s whereas you can essentially get a Bachelor’s for free.
  
• WGU is not really meant for you to get two teaching degrees unless the second degree is a more specific one (like school management for becoming a principal) which you can’t get a state endorsement for. Instead they recommend you just get one degree then get any endorsements via state tests.
  
  

General advice:

• If you are unsure of what teaching degree to get, Early Childhood Education is in most demand in this field worldwide, and the Elementary Education Master's is one of the WGU Education degrees with the easiest admissions requirements.
  
• The license itself is valid for your state plus can be used in several US states via reciprocity laws, but can also be used to teach abroad on US military bases and in IB schools or other “American/English schools” abroad which follow a US curriculum or US hiring requirements. Many countries let you easily get a local teacher’s license by just taking a few more classes plus a language proficiency test. If you want to live abroad, especially in Asia, you will typically get a higher salary than a local teaching job - plus end up eligible for US military benefits - if you take a military base job.
  
• If you can get a position while still studying at WGU, a substitute teacher license is a great way to get actual teaching experience, but a paraeducator (aka teacher's assistant) license is a way to do unofficial classroom observations. You supposedly get a much better idea of how the school all works together and how each subject is taught if you do paraeducating. Note that paraeducating is usually minimum wage and only requires high school graduation to get, substitute teaching requires a degree and pays a few more dollars per hour (but, in my district, still less than a school bus driver gets paid).
  

I will post a continuation after another 10 days or so pass!

[nykorn]

March 12 - Schools as Communities of Care marked complete. Now all courses originally intended for 1st term are marked complete (8 CPU in 12 days). Read units 2/7.
March 13 - Digital fingerprinting appointment, used for both WGU's student teaching background check & my local district's substitute teacher emergency license application ($84). Read units 3/7.
March 14 - Read units 4/7.
March 15 - Read units 7/7. Passed Essential Practices for Supporting Diverse Learners test (54 questions, took 30min total including proctor loading time).
March 16 - Submitted 3/4 assignments. 4th is virtual classroom session. Caught up on all Anki cards.
6) March 17 - Started Creating and Managing Engaging Learning Environments (2 CPU). Read 5/5 units.
March 18 - Submitted 3/4 assignments. 4th is virtual classroom. Paid for Emergency Substitute Teacher license application ($63), which apparently takes 6 weeks to get on average here (time varies by state).
March 19 - Attended virtual classroom sessions for both Creating and Managing Engaging Learning Environments (situation was based on keeping kids positive and on-task regarding a boring assignment) and Essential Practices for Supporting Diverse Learners (situation was based around teaching new geometry terms to a class that included a dyslexic kid).
March 20-21 - Break from WGU due to massive changes at work requiring lots of paperwork, licensing and hours of training meetings. Gained access to local district's substitute paraeducator system.
7) March 22 - Submitted the remaining 4 assignments & 2 revisions (split between 2 classes). Started Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (2 CPU). Read units 2/7. Signed up for a free online training session (not at WGU) for teaching kids how to get motivated to write more during essay assignments.

What I learned from this section:

- A two-day break is enough time to make you feel like you haven't done anything in a month (I guess that's why we have 2-day weekends nowadays...). I really recommend not ever taking a day off, the forgetting curve is real.

- I’ve forgotten 4th grade math and science, including basic terms like "quadrilateral", "integer" and "protons". I’ll need intensive study to get up to WGU’s standards for the content tests we need to pass to finish our degree (PRAXIS etc). WGU requires a certain score for students to graduate even if it is not required by their state for licensure.

- An assignment question which sounds general never has a general answer. A question like “How do you befriend your co-teacher?” never has an answer like “You get to know them” or “You plan lessons with them”. The answer is always going to be “You use the co-teacher techniques of x, y, z taught in this current course.”

- Book a Mursion time as soon as you open the course (you may need to book like 5 days in advance). Read the entire scenario for the Mursion session (it is on Mursion itself, NOT on WGU!) and actually practice the lesson on your own first before doing the session.

- So far the majority of teacher education is naming old stuff new terms (as if everything has to be a code word), and telling teachers their job is customer service or to be nice to the kids. At first I thought this was stupid and common-sense, to say the least. Then I was told a story of someone my mother’s age who went to a school where students received constant physical punishment (hits with rulers, pinched cheeks, slaps on the face, etc) and verbal abuse (getting screamed at) whenever they had a wrong answer in class, and the only way to get away from it was to get 100% on several tests so that they were moved up into a harder level of class with another teacher who just happened to use less physical punishment. That person still has trauma regarding those school subjects or getting an answer wrong today. The same type of education taught them that if they ever switched schools or didn't finish a course/class they had registered for, they were "giving up" and a "loser for life".

So the modern “teacher education” repeating itself all the time about this concept of “be nice” is not because they think “you” are not nice - it is because the people who wrote these materials are the same kinds of people as who grew up with teachers who used physical punishments (which are also still legal in almost 20 US states today...)

- There are a lot of free training sessions for teachers as well as applications for winning free class trips (even to abroad!) which are advertised on FaceBook and other places. However the ads offering free teaching materials are usually actually ill-informed anti-socialist, anti-communist propaganda in the guise of "educational materials for kids".

[RachelB]

---

I am moving through this degree pretty fast despite not already being a teacher, paraeducator, etc so thought I would write about how I am doing here.

....totalling at 51 CPUs for the entire degree.... 

From these first 10 days I learned

• Averaged out, 1 CPU per day is doable for me.....
  

So did you finish already? I'd love an update, as I'm planning on doing a Masters in early 2025 after I finish my undergrad degree. I'm waffling between WGU and ACE, but leaning toward WGU because of the possibility of acceleration.

[LevelUP]

• WGU is like the university version of trade school. In normal university you learn a bunch of stuff related to the subject which doesn’t necessarily help you at work nor reflect real-life usage. All the stuff you learn at WGU (or trade school) is directly tied to what you need to know to do the job, to get the license, to understand what your coworkers are saying, or to be seen GOOD at your job. I have already seen “teacher slang” phrases WGU has taught me on TikToks by high schoolers and teachers that appear on Facebook, and law names (referred to by the short name only) on school webpages in the fine print, for example. I suppose someone fresh out of high school would already know some of these but to me it’s almost like the whole school system including the terminology for everything and every type of student, has changed since 2008.
  

That is why people like WGU so much: they focus on teaching practical knowledge that applies to your career.

[nykorn]

Had major issues completely unrelated to WGU itself, causing a hiatus of several months, described below.

March 23 - Essential Practices for Supporting Diverse Learners marked as complete. Got fully accepted & into database for exchange student coordinator stuff, had a meeting about that with what to do next. Attended a random webinar by a decades-experienced teacher regarding how to teach writing for kids who are wildly different writing levels in the same class - the webinar used tons of teacher jargon without explanation, which I understood only thanks to what WGU has taught me so far. Read units 3/7.
March 24 - Break due to work stuff - total rehaul of management + how we do things.
March 25 - Creating and Managing Engaging Learning Environments marked as complete. First day of substitute paraeducator work at elementary school.
March 26 - Hiatus. Problems with insurance suddenly refusing to let me take out my meds (regardless of if I paid out of pocket or not) caused me to go into severe medicine withdrawal. Too sick to focus on WGU.

April 12 - Received student internship permission (“pre-residency clearance”) from state Department of Education, which I had applied for on March 19th = took 23 days (3.3 weeks) to get.
April 22 - Received Emergency Substitute Teacher license (valid for 1 year) from state, which I had applied for on March 19th. Began doing substitute teaching work alongside paraeducator work.

May 5 - Submitted 3/5 assignments for “Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment”.
May 7 - 2 assignments need resubmission. Fell into several month hiatus due to medical issues (totally separate from the previous ones!). Improperly prescribed meds which affected serotonin and dopamine, caused extreme memory, motivation and anxiety issues, causing me to fear even looking at the homework or checking my Email plus forget I was even enrolled in WGU. I felt extremely confused and stressed when I even tried to look at the assignment instructions. I ended up skipping work or not caring if I was late, not even showering or brushing my teeth, etc, and got extremely depressed, and started making major mistakes at work. Doc kept changing my dosage but I kept getting worse.
May 16 - Attended Introduction to Preclinical Experience (PCE) WGU webinar, required before you can get an internship placement.
End of May - Mentor notified me that if I wanted to start my internship in autumn, I’d need to get 3 courses plus WEST-B or PRAXIS, plus my ID card etc done before June.

June 3 - Took WEST-B math, reading, writing exams essentially without studying - will find out results on June 28th. Some stuff on the math exam was not on the practice exams nor could I even find any info about the terminology online, but that was only a few questions and might even have been dummy questions. If you pay for the entire exam in one package you have to take it in-person at a testing center, if you pay for each of the 3 exams individually you can take them at home with online proctoring, I messed up and bought the package so had to book a time at the closest test center.
June 16 - Medical issues finally resolved when I quit the "serotonin" meds of my own accord, thus ending my lethargy and lack of motivation. Took a few days to sort out all the stuff I had been putting off for months.
June 20 - Mentor sent me an SMS reminding me that I hadn't done anything at WGU for weeks. Resubmitted 2/2 assignments.

What I learned this section:
- No grade level is safe, and paraeducator work is easier than substitute teacher work. Kindergarteners threw chairs at classmates, 1st graders were cheating on all their assignments or screaming and crying “don’t look at me!!” to their fellow students, 3rd graders were ripping up their own math textbooks, 5th graders were climbing on top of library bookcases. Most kids can barely read, some can’t read at all, because they are only using text to speech and speech to text on the computer. In every grade level, the biggest behavioral issues with the kids suddenly pop up when we switch to math or when we either get the computers out or put the computers away.

- Mental health is largely rooted in biology.

- Don’t let yourself take a break! Do a little WGU every day even if it’s only 5min.

[LevelUP]

What I learned this section:
- No grade level is safe, and paraeducator work is easier than substitute teacher work. Kindergarteners threw chairs at classmates, 1st graders were cheating on all their assignments or screaming and crying “don’t look at me!!” to their fellow students, 3rd graders were ripping up their own math textbooks, 5th graders were climbing on top of library bookcases. Most kids can barely read, some can’t read at all, because they are only using text to speech and speech to text on the computer. In every grade level, the biggest behavioral issues with the kids suddenly pop up when we switch to math or when we either get the computers out or put the computers away.

- Mental health is largely rooted in biology.

- Don’t let yourself take a break! Do a little WGU every day even if it’s only 5min.

I have never seen kids ripping up their own textbooks or climbing on top of library bookcases. Maybe this was because we allowed the school to spank kids.

Additionally, if a child was acting up, they were usually put out in the hallway for the rest of the one-hour class period, with the door shut. Kids were often more afraid of being bored out there alone, so they behaved well.

Mental health is a complex subject. Many studies show that non-medical treatments work just as well as medical treatments. Additionally, with medical treatment, there is a risk of misdiagnosis and being prescribed the wrong medications. In some cases, particularly with bipolar disorder, this could even increase the risk of suicide. Moreover, the human body builds up a tolerance to medications, causing them to become less effective over time. Another risk is that long-term medication use can disrupt the body's natural chemical production, potentially leading to permanent changes. For instance, unrelated to mental health, athletes who use steroids long-term to increase testosterone levels often end up unable to naturally produce normal levels of testosterone once they stop using steroids.

Many mental health issues people struggle with are related to productivity, especially when they are trying to complete schoolwork. I agree that starting is usually the hardest part, and even committing just 10 minutes with the option to quit afterward is a good strategy. Often, you will find that you end up working longer than 10 minutes.

It's good to hear you are making progress at WGU. Keep it up!

[bjcheung77]

"Don’t let yourself take a break! Do a little WGU every day even if it’s only 5min."

In other words, for any type of education, you can take breaks, but continue the momentum of completing X a day until the entire credential or class is complete...

[nykorn]

I have never seen kids ripping up their own textbooks or climbing on top of library bookcases. Maybe this was because we allowed the school to spank kids.

Additionally, if a child was acting up, they were usually put out in the hallway for the rest of the one-hour class period, with the door shut. Kids were often more afraid of being bored out there alone, so they behaved well.

This school is very "progressive" and "modern" and so they do the opposite.

- Kids with autism or learning difficulties are generally NOT put into a separate special ed class. This means multiple times a day, an autistic kid has a "meltdown" in the general classroom, a kid with mental issues refuses to do work, etc. The other kids see this behavior and start to copy it. I have had parents tell me personally that their kid comes home and tries to throw tantrums like what they saw a certain classmate do earlier that same day. When I was a kid, any kid who regularly refused to do their work got transferred out and sent to a special ed class regardless of if they had an actual mental issue or not.

- When a kid is having a "meltdown" we call on the walkie talkies and another teacher comes into the room. All other kids leave the room and either sit out in the hallway or go to recess until the coast is clear. It is the total opposite of having the tantrum kid leave the room.

- Even when a kid is sent to the office, the kids have told me "We don't get punished, we just play games. So we like going to the office." When I was a kid if you were sent to the office you were staring at a blank wall!

- The teachers regularly try to use "talk therapy" with the kids. They don't say "That was wrong of you" or "That was bad", they say "That was a red choice" (as opposed to a "green choice"), and verbally try to explain to the kids "We don't hit people" and so on. All I can say is, it is certainly not working in class. Sometimes the teachers put on little plays and show examples how to act or how not to act, the kids don't seem to learn anything from that either, if anything it demeans the teacher because all they get out of it is seeing the teacher acting like a 4 year old. That is the big so-called "millennial parenting strategy" you see people posting about on places like FaceBook - yeah it's really occurring. From the teachers I have talked to, all of them are older and hate this strategy and know it doesn't work, but it is being imposed on them by the big bosses.

Note that I have been at schools in Taiwan, Japan and Sweden, where the kids are all really well behaved. Handling a class of 40 kids is no problem there compared to here where just 15 is difficult. Those countries all use different techniques. In Taiwan a lot of parents and teachers still hit the kids even when it's illegal, and they make the kids get up as early as 4am and go to bed at 11pm - cram school in the morning, then normal school, then cram school in the evening... even for 5 year olds. They just exhaust and scare the kids into behaving. 

In Japan they constantly say stuff like "You are a part of this class and this school and our society whether you like it or not", and they reprimand even the slightest inattention even if it wasn't disruptive to the class, plus any answer (such as an essay) which is not to their exact specifications is never displayed on the wall with the other students' (this leads to 15 essays that all sound exactly the same being displayed on the wall). If a student asks a question improperly, such as impolitely, they tell them the correct way and make them re-ask it before they give an answer. They do a lot of whole class or whole school activities, such as tsunami disaster drills complete with passing buckets full of water across the school (activities that last over half the day), or taking a map with a compass and walking around outside the vicinity of the school, which is to build teamwork into the class but also to build the idea that all of them are members of an outside, bigger society as well.

In Sweden they model "calmness" and explain the potential consequences of everything and lead the kids to make their own moral judgements. As an example, a toddler at a clinic was trying to stand up on a rocking horse. The dad said calmly "You can stand up on it, but I think you'll fall and hit your head, and that would hurt." The dad made no move to actually stop the kid. The kid, who couldn't have been more than 6, stopped to think about it and then didn't stand up after all. Saw plenty of parents in Sweden just letting their kids climb fences and stuff without saying anything and just waiting for them to figure out how to climb down. Swedish parents also generally speak to their toddlers as if they are adults and have them help out around the house as early as possible - kids who can't even speak yet are given money to hand to the cashier and are asked to take the receipt from the cashier back. 5 year old kids are taught to light matches, make campfires, carve stuff from wood (they don't use "safety scissors" or "children's knives" either) and can camp out in the yard.

Back to this US school:

- Students are called "friends", not "classmates", "kids" or "students". Some teachers make threats like "If you can't sit quietly you won't get a snack" but they never actually go through with it. Students are being raised to believe that they can just go home early if they throw a tantrum because the school will just contact their parents, who will leave work to pick them up.

- Depending on teacher and grade level, 1/3rd to 1/2 of the school day is actually performed on the computer via "educational" software programs. These programs send a report to the teacher to let them know where students are struggling, but 1) the kids cheat, they do work for each other on each other's accounts, 2) the admin, who is the only one in the whole school with real access to the computer settings - including allowing installations - seems to know little about computers. They haven't installed an adblock or locked the computers down - kids can still access YouTube and Google, and ads targeted towards adults appear on YouTube while adult images make it past the safe search on Google. There is also no timer, for example in an ideal world the computer would say "11:00 to 11:30, only the math program can be opened. After 11:30 the system automatically logs you out and will not let you enter again until the next computer session time". My dad actually had a timer like that on our computer when I was a kid (we could only use the computer for 20min a day). When I was a kid in the 90s, there was only one computer in the classroom, it wasn't hooked up to the internet and it was only for letting kids with some types of disabilities write essays on it instead of handwriting essays, and then the teacher used it to make documents she turned into overheads. We had a computer lab with maybe 10-15 computers which was available to use at recess, again there was usually no internet.

- There is no actual punishment whatsoever for a kid not doing their work. The kid will get sent to a separate class for around 20-30min a day for tutoring... where they probably won't do any work there either. The schools have made it almost impossible to fail or punish kids.

- The kids have been taught that not being "neurotypical" is an excuse to act rowdy, be rude or not do any work. So they say stuff like "I have ADHD so (excuse for behavior)", or "I'm on the spectrum so (excuse for not doing any work)". ADHD may explain why you are getting distracted every 2 seconds, and you may need more reminders to go back to the worksheet, but it does not mean you get an excuse to sit there and purposefully choose to not do your math homework from the very second I hand it out. I feel like kids don't realize that no matter if you have autism, ADHD or something else, as an adult you're still going to need to get and keep a job and take care of your health, social circle and finances. The alternative is homelessness or even death. I am saying this as a person who is visually disabled from birth, there is no one else with vision impairments in my family so I was raised to be completely unaware of how hard it would be to get a job as an adult due to not being able to get a driver's license or not being able to see signs on the wall and employers being unwilling to accommodate or give me a shot. If I had known, I would have planned my whole life and career differently, and people just give lip service "we don't discriminate" or "this field would be good for you". So it took me 20 years to find a career where hiring managers are usually willing to give me a shot despite visual impairment. But the disability does not excuse me. If I show up to work and don't do anything, my boss won't accept "I am blind, I couldn't see what to do" as answer. If I don't have a paycheck to pay my electric bill, the utilities company is not going to accept "I couldn't find a job / I lost hours, as I'm blind" as an answer.

I think that kids should be shown alternative ways to live which will help them with whatever mental or physical issue they have - you don't need a big $400,000 house with a white picket fence, maybe a $40,000 tiny home or a $20,000 one room condo is better, or maybe you want to move to a country where $2 buys a week's worth of groceries and you can legally build a house out of mud. But you will still need to at least get to the point where you can manage that much. I dunno, I have a lot of thoughts on all that stuff. Actual experience working in American public schools was honestly making me rethink continuing to get this degree. But as I'm disabled and teaching is one of the few jobs that I can do and that will give me a chance, I have no choice but to continue really. I will try to just move elsewhere after I get my license.

[ss20ts]

I have never seen kids ripping up their own textbooks or climbing on top of library bookcases. Maybe this was because we allowed the school to spank kids.

Additionally, if a child was acting up, they were usually put out in the hallway for the rest of the one-hour class period, with the door shut. Kids were often more afraid of being bored out there alone, so they behaved well.

No one should have ever been spanking children in school. Putting a kid in a hallway doesn't fix any of the problems going on with them. That behavior just ignores what is going on. 

I don't know why anyone would become a teacher today. All I hear are horror stories from my friends who are teachers. Several are just counting the days to retirement and a handful have already retired. I can only think of 1 who plans on staying in teaching, but she teaches at a private religious school where she has at most 3 students so it's hardly the same thing.

[RachelB]

Actual experience working in American public schools was honestly making me rethink continuing to get this degree.

Not all public schools are like the ones you've had experience in... kids with special needs being placed in regular classrooms is popular right now, but it's a trend that won't last long, imo, because it's so ineffective for everyone - students with and without special needs, as well as teachers.

Find a school where special ed students still have their own classroom, and your experience will improve dramatically.