To Be or Not To Be

What am I doing? Ugh. That is the question that has been gnawing at me for over a year now. I left North Carolina with 2 years of teaching experience and about 6 years of retail experience. I have gone back and forth as to which vocation I should plan to do for this next chapter of my life. I'm currently still undecided. I have been chugging away at my retail ventures here in AL until an opportunity arises in the teaching field. I have been frequently checking teaching job opportunities available in my area as well. (Since the day my certification arrived in the mail-back in Sept.-I have been checking the postings on a weekly basis.) Each time I check it I think, "I really should just get my Master's degree." Which brings up the question as to which degree do I obtain?

So, which degree do I obtain folks? Here are your choices: an English MA or a Special Education MA? An English MA would still allow me to teach reading & language arts for grades 7-12, but it also opens the door to teaching at community colleges as well (at least here in Alabama). I think I would enjoy teaching college students. The Special Education MA would pave the way for me to be certified to teach 7-12 Special Education (it may allow me to teach elementary as well, but I rather enjoy the older kids) and it more than triples the amount of job opportunities available to me. Case in point: There are currently 125 job postings in the state of Alabama for certified employees. Of those 125 jobs I counted 17 for Special Education, 1 for a Reading Intervention teacher, and 1 for an English teacher. It should be noted that the Reading Intervention and English teacher postings are for the southern part of Alabama.

I'm leaning towards Special Education, but I just don't know. There have been many things placed in my path to lead me towards Special Education. During my time as a student teacher (you know when you get to be the teacher, but don't get a paycheck), I had the opportunity to work with students who were identified as being exceptional students (students with disabilities-behavior or learning) and I really bonded with them. During my time as a substitute teacher I was sometimes asked to sub for the Special Education teacher. Again, I worked with the students very well. During my time as a teacher in NC I had two inclusion classes both years. An inclusion class is a mixture of regular ed and exceptional ed students and a Special Education teacher also joins the class. The idea is to differentiate or adapt instruction so that the exceptional students can excel, but those adaptations don't take away from what the regular ed students are learning either. (Well, in a nutshell that is what should happen anyhow.) Once again, I really enjoyed it. I seemed to really work well with my exceptional education kids. My first year the students with behavioral disabilities didn't act up a whole lot in my class...mostly because I didn't play along with how they wanted me to react to their behaviors. (It was my regular ed kids who gave me hell my first year...) I think one of the reasons I enjoy these students so much is that I enjoy unlocking the mystery to what makes them tick and what is going to work best to help them learn. When I hear Susie isn't doing x, y, and z I wonder why? Immediately I begin going through all of the things I have been taught and all of my experiences as a teacher to think of things to try to help Susie do x, y, and z. Regular ed students have mysteries too it is just that sometimes their mysteries are not as debilitating or as mysterious to unlock.

So I'm left with a choice: English MA or Special Education MA?