The Necessary Details

The craziest year of my professional life had begun. I’ve mentioned before the many MANY opportunities, committees, responsibilities, and general time-consuming engagements that consumed my 6^th year of teaching. National Boards on top of that seemed truly insane. And it proved to be just that.

What are National Boards? Why are they such a big deal? You can certainly look up as much information as you want on http://www.nbpts.org/national-board-certification/, but that website concisely says, “National Board Certification was designed to develop, retain and recognize accomplished teachers and to generate ongoing improvement in schools nationwide. It is the most respected professional certification available in K-12 education.”

Let me tell you, I got my master’s degree and wrote a 60+ page thesis, but this certification stressed me out exponentially more than my master’s DEGREE. I’ve come to a few conclusions as to why, but I will get to that later.

When I connected with teachers across the country at ECET2, I heard varying stories about NBTC. Some states require the certification (although I’m not sure if they require it to teach at all, or just to attain certain standing – or perhaps I’m totally misinformed). I starkly remember a woman from Hawaii saying that she was on her third plus attempt at revising some parts of her NB portfolio and it was getting to be more than despairing considering how much time, money, and effort she had put in for years. You have 5 years to complete the certification once you begin. There are four “components” and you could do one a year if you wanted. Some people do just that so that they can really focus on that one component. (Someone actually gave me that advice and I totally ignored it. I didn’t want to stretch out this anxiety-inducing certification.) You have to pay for the component(s) you want to submit for review by the end of January. Everything you want reviewed is due by mid-May, and you receive your scores in December.

I chose to get certificatied in “Exceptional Needs Specialist: Early Childhood through Young Adulthood (ages birth – 21+).” The components are as follows:

Component 1: Content Knowledge (exam)

Component 2: Differentiation in Instruction

Component 3: Teaching Practice and Learning Environment (includes video recordings)

Component 4: Effective and Reflective Practitioner

One of my first mistakes was trying to create my own documents by writing in Word. Other than the reflection paper you create at the end of each component, there are editable word documents that NBTC provides. They care called “forms” and you must submit their forms. I remember thinking, “HOW MANY FORMS CAN BE IN ONE COMPONENT????” By the end, I hated those little one-page “contextual information” sheets. Haha

I give NBTC credit for their organization and detail. It’s easy to access all of the instructions and the website is easy to navigate. I had a teacher-friend who originally was going to work on the certification with me, but she ended up changing her mind due to completely legitimate reasons. She was a blessing in my life though because she brought me a binder with all of the pdf instructions printed out and organized with tabs. That binder became my NBTC Bible! Oh the memories.