MTELs: Not the becoming-a-teacher's best friend.

In order to become a teacher in the state of Massachusetts, a person has to take three different licensure exams called the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTELs).

Depending on which date you select, you are paying about $100-$130 per test. But first, let's take a look at the average graduate student teacher:

• Full-time grad student with little to no jobs... who lives on loans and has more than enough prac. work to last a lifetime.
• Full-time grad student with a job... who lives on loans and nearly places her/himself on the altar for sanity sacrifice.
• Part-time grad student with a teaching job already ... who gets next to no sleep.
  

We can safely lump most people into one of the three categories. What do all of these have in common? That's right, kiddies! They all pretty much have very low incomes! And when full-practicums hit, you are paying the school to work for them. Think of it as an unpaid internship; it's a good thing experience-wise, but a bad thing for living expenses. What does that also mean? People cannot have a job during their full-pracs (unless they're teachers already and made special arrangements for classroom requirements).

So my next question is... where does the National Evaluation Systems think we get this money?! I would like to know why the "nonrefundable registration processing fee (PER test administration)" is $30. Why don't they just build it into the $60-$90 test? I don't think the actual test paper itself costs $90. Okay, so you have to pay the workers who help out and maybe the workers who work the grading machines... and maybe you have to rent out the building all these are in... but still?! A lot of people have to take the test, so that means a lot of money. I wanna know to where it's going!

I just wish there was better federal aid for teachers (some can get federal loan forgiveness if they work in certain areas in certain subjects... so at least that's a step forward), but that subject would be difficult to go into without discussing the odds and ends of educational reform and teacher rights... I'll save that for another time. ;)

I take the Communication and Literacy Skills exam on October 21st which I haven't even begun to study for yet! I'm so wrapped up in pre-practicum AND class work that I have no idea when to devote some time for it! It's supposed to be the "easiest" of the 3, so that's a little comforting. But I was staring (yes, staring because I just didn't have the motivation to process it) at the "word definitions" section on the practice test... and oh my goodness, it doesn't matter that I was an English major in college, but WHY do you need to define words like transient and abstain (this isn't even in multiple-choice... you write your own definition)!? You're going to be talking to 7 year-olds who would shoot up a million little hands in the air if you even utter a word like that! You adopt an entirely different vocabulary around kids.

Yes, it's good for teachers to be literate and be on the same page as everyone else... so that's why I can't completely hate the MTELs... but oh, the frustration.

At least after October's, I don't have to worry about the General Curriculum MTEL until March... that's always a silver lining, right?

- Miss Chelsea :)

P.S. I think I might be a tad stressed... especially after receiving an email with forms upon forms about full-pracs needing to get on the ball about finding a school in which to do full-time student teaching. Umm, hello, Practicum Office, we just started our pre-pracs TWO DAYS ago and haven't fully adjusted yet. Just give us another week or two, please?!